Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1199 | Phil Used to Do What with His Old Socks? & The Bible Isn’t Always PG

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian reflect on why the Robertsons have always leaned into sometimes crude humor, especially around the dinner table. The guys explore how the graphic nature of certain parts of the Bible lends itself to a real, rich texture of humanity. They move into the story of the final plague and the Passover, where God used the death of Egypt’s firstborn to demonstrate His power and faithfulness. In this episode: Exodus 10, verses 21–29; Exodus 11, verses 1–10; Exodus 12, verses 1–14, 29–36; Exodus 14, verses 13–31; Exodus 15, verses 1–2; Isaiah 2, verses 2–3; Acts 10, verses 9–16; 1 Peter 2, verses 9–10; 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 9; Revelation 21, verses 24–26; Genesis 15, verses 9–17 Today's conversation is about lesson 4 of The Exodus Story taught by Hillsdale Professor Justin Jackson. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/⁠ More about The Exodus Story: Explore God’s mercy as he leads Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Exodus is a central narrative of the Bible. It recounts the moment that God reclaims Israel as his people, rescues them from slavery in Egypt, and establishes the Ten Commandments to guide their moral and religious freedom as an independent society. In “The Exodus Story,” Professor of English Justin Jackson picks up the biblical narrative where his course on Genesis ended. Join Professor Jackson in learning about the nature of God’s mercy, human freedom, and the relationship between the divine and man. Enroll today to discover the beauty of God reclaiming the Israelites through his mercy and love in “The Exodus Story.” Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00-04:30 Potty humor rules the Robertsons 04:31-09:38 Provocative Biblical texts 09:39-25:59 Why God hardened Pharoah’s heart 26:00-31:19 The arrogance of Egypt 31:20-40:55 The tenth plague 40:55-48:58 God tells Egypt his name — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. Unashamed for Hillsdale on Friday. Sign up for free. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. That's right. It's funny, Maddie puts it on the screen. We get so used to it.

It's like I don't see it every day. But you know his Christian always remembers things. He does. I have to take Prevagen to have a memory like it. I just appreciate it. I do, I do, yes. For God, I do pride myself. I have a good, what's that word again?

Memory. Yeah, memory. I forgot the word. So I was thinking after the last podcast that John Luke started with explosive diarrhea, which is always interesting to talk about. It's a risky mood to bring that into a discussion. And he pulled it off. Yeah.

I was thinking about my grandkids, their favorite game, to play. They like games, you know, a game of life and all these, a lot of old board games that I played

when I was a kid. But their favorite one, Lisa bought them, a bingo game, but it's called poop bingo. And so it's like, you know, and I'm usually the caller.

That's my job because I don't really like to play bingo, but I don't mind calling because they get so tickled because the board is animals and then they're poop. And so it's just, and it's just bingo

because you're, you know, they get the cards, and the cards have the little, educational. Yeah, and educational. Because you learn what a snail, what their poop was like.

If you're in the woods, yeah, you need to know what kind of feces. Exactly. T-Rex. I mean, it's got everything on here. I don't know how they knew what T-Rex poop is,

but they claim to. And it's got the little poop, like, emoji, like, on your phone that are the little bingo card. So you know, bingo,

boop bingo. But, I mean, Mike, the grand, that's all, every night, especially when we have company, is it,

we play poop, yeah, speaking of T-Rex, I saw this, I saw this funny video on Instagram the other day. It was this guy, you might have seen this,

but he has this like illustration of like a T-Rex on the TV and he's like, yeah, so T-Rex could see, you know, they could see 26 to 30 miles on the clear visible day. The person was like,

how do you know that? And he's like, because of the fossils. You know, because of the bones. We know that. We know that from the bones. Yeah.

Like, it had incredible eyesight. Yeah, because of, you know, it's femur. It's a long femur. It's light. It's eyesight.

Yeah. Just trust us. I'm still a little concerned that this is what's going on in your house. Like the poop thing is like, I feel like the whole Robertson side of the family, if you want center stage, if you have a good poop story, it does seem to elevate you and the ability to get the attention of the room. Oh, yeah. For sure.

And you guys have built a whole, like, culture around this, which is kind of strange. It's a whole game. Who knew there was a game out there? Well, that's for me growing up. The Robertson side, it's all about people. crap like as crude as you can be like that's what will get you the laughs or even just in the conversation whereas my other side my mom side the Howard side they would never talk about that oh never you can't even say oh you can't even say too too you can't even acknowledge that you do fart

like I mean it you don't even talk about the bathroom because if you brought that up in front of my mom all joe she would see what smack you down because she there's a proper and that's actually the correct way to be to our audience. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying we're doing that right. But you do say, like in the scriptures, I mean, the scriptures do not shy away from a lot of these, like,

what we would call crude discussions. That's right. You know, I was going to say that that's the dark humor, which are actually going to talk about darkness today. Yeah, we are. But, I mean, that is kind of a dark humor, but, I mean, it is kind of, like, also part of, like, it's so funny, I think we've taught us curate scripture down to,

that we want to curate it and, like, strip it of its kind of texture and it's sting. That's one thing I really appreciate about Dr. Jackson. He talked a lot about this. When we had breakfast with him, you know, he said, he was talking about first and second Samuel and how it's such a great literary text in the scripture. He would say it was his favorite,

and then some of the poetry, and he's like, yes, but some of this poetry in the scripture is very provocative. And it's very... Red Song of Song of songs lately. Oh, my gosh. I mean, or just like that story when you get to Ezekiel of the Twin Sism. and like you start reading through that, you know, this is in the Bible.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's actually very, very shocking to see what's in this text. Because how can you have a text, even written by the Holy Spirit of God, through people, not be real because we're real. And I think that authenticity is there. And I thought about that in relationship to the plagues. This whole thing is he starts out about the stench of death, you know, because the river and all the fish died. And look, I grew up.

everything stunk around us because we fished. And so there were always parts of fish around. We cleaned fish and maggots were just part of my childhood. Like we would have to go and dip. Dad would buy this big like a 50 gallon barrel of cheese. Well, you know, the first, you know, first seven or eight days it wasn't so bad. But imagine in our heat and that thing sitting out in a shed. But imagine about halfway down after two weeks what we're talking about here.

And then my job is to go out and take a scooper and put it in one of dad's old socks, which would have been bad enough with just the sock. Just the old because they're too, you know, worn to do anything else with it. And so and then hang in the catfish tracks. So everything about the worst it stunk that was like, okay. The better it is. Yeah, the better it is. Exactly. Because we're trying to draw in scavengers to then catch them.

And so you see the process of when I read the text like this, Yeah, I get it. It's why I don't like to fish anymore. Well, I think it's hard for us that when we got into the plagues, I think that that's one of the most difficult things for, you mentioned the gnats in the last episode. Like, why would the gnats or the lice be the thing that would push them over the edge? I think it's because we've read these texts as kind of disembodied stories.

Yeah. And we're not sitting in the actual blow of what's happening here, which Dr. Jackson, when he talked about the stench and the smell, And like this is not, you know, rated PG. These are, like, this story's a rated our story. And, you know, and we don't, because we're Western and our houses are all nice and enclosed and we keep all the pest out and we get people come and spray our homes. But you go to Africa or go on a mission trip somewhere, you find out what flies are like.

Yeah. When they're just, I mean, literally you're walking around and you're just, I mean, they're constantly lighting. I mean, and this was that on steroids. Because obviously, remember, he picks. up dust and he just like then then everything this dust turns into this so it is a pestilence of you know playing proportion and i mean i just can't imagine being covered like that i i used to remember the first i was in the fifth grade you're talking about i have a memory of this girl sitting in

front of me and she had her hair parted i guess she had it in them poniesels or something and so you're looking at the back of her head and every once while i would see see something and you know it catches your attention and i realize those are lice crossing the little little part in the bag of her hair. That was, I mean, I still remember that. Yeah. That was, that was like 50 years ago. I still had the vision.

I remember my sister getting lights as a good. Did you tell her that she had life? I had, I stayed away from her. I didn't even know if you were like, hey, you know, by the way, I'm out. I sit behind me, you have lice. Yeah, I do, but you, I will say even to the state, people who get light, like, there are people who have extreme phobias of lice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, Jill was, um, doing this lady's hair one time that was, uh, she, she, this lady came to our church when we planted the church over in Monroe, which was right on the campus of ULM. So it was like half college students and then like maybe like 20% homeless people. So it's a church Phil took over when we left. And he preached there for how many years. Yeah, several. And it really turned into a homeless ministry at the end.

But one of the, I remember the first lady, the homeless lady that came in, we're still friends with her talked to her to this day. She's been to our house many times, had dinner with us. And she's one of the, I love this lady. We were able to baptize her into Christ, and now she's not homeless anymore, by the way.

But Jill was doing her hair and things at the house. And all of a sudden, Jill, like, looks, and it's just, I mean, crawling with lice. And Jill's got, like, her, like, shears and the whole thing. And she's just like, okay, don't move, but you have a head full of lice. And so Jill does her hair, but then Jill takes all of her, like,

Whitman and doesn't clean it. She throws it in the woods. She's so afraid of the lights. So Jill would have been like, and then we go. You can sterilize it, Jill. You don't have to just throw it. You don't have to throw away a pair of metal shears. Lice don't live on metal shears.

Yeah, I wish when I thought of lice, I think, about this commandment. But you know the scene in Billy Madison when he's at the school. And he is like, I think he dumped like salt or something. But then he has like a, I guess none of y'all got the reference. So that was cool. But it's this scene where he has like, just a pile of... Is this the new one or the old one?

No, Billy Madison, not Happy Gilmore. Okay, there's a new... Yeah, I get confused of Adam Sandler movies. Billy Madison, when he goes back to school... Yeah, but it's Adam Sandler, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll show that, that's our generation. I'll show you the scene later.

It's hilarious. Well, we're moving out of the... Somebody got that. Somebody got that. Somebody got that. Someone appreciated it. I grew up in the 90s. I should get any Adam Sandler reference, but...

I do SNL stuff all the time. in preaching and nobody knows what I'm talking about. Because the problem with Adam Sandler is that all his movies are the same. They're hilarious, but it's like I have a hard time. Yeah, then you don't know one from the other. There was like water boy. Happy got more water boy. They're all, it's the same kind of, I mean, he's brilliant.

It's the same character, basically. But we're, so we're kind of like coming at the end of these plagues. Today we're actually in Lecture 5, which is the Passover. We may get into the parting of the Red Sea moment. there's some things happening here, but we're nearing the end of the plagues. And what Moses, or God's been doing through Moses, is he's been ramping up, ratcheting up the pressure, to your point in the last podcast.

These plagues, they seem to be kind of moving inward. I think the word we landed on was encroachment. It's like they're moving. This manifest presence of God for the Egyptians is moving in closer and closer to now. It was out here at the Nile River. Yeah. And then it was the frogs, and it was the lice on, or now I'm on your body, I'm on your person. And now we're moving into this final plague, which is...

And remember, the death and the proximity was the way he described, then the separation. So until we, I mean, the Israelites, the first three or so are for them as well, because they're going through it. I mean, they're all right there in the same situation. So you get death, proximity. Then you get into the separation, which really begins to show you guys true power. Because then when you can have people living in the same space, in essence, and yet this group is unaffected and this group is affected, then you're seeing the actual, to me, that's when, like, God takes a big deal. Yeah, he's taking it up. It's like a natural disaster hits your town.

Yeah. And everybody that's on your team doesn't get affected by it. Exactly. Right. It's a big deal. Yeah. And so all of a sudden you're starting to see that from the livestock going forward. And also I've always heard, and I think it's true, because he said there's different way people categorize these plagues.

but it definitely is now you're seeing having the whole economic because now it's the locusts and all the crops. And so first it was the river. So now it's like hitting everything that they would have thought as their gods or now in submission because they have no control anymore. And their livelihood. And their livelihood. And the people, as we know, and we're just kind of following the narrative, but the people in the situation now are starting to cry out the Egyptian people to favor. Just stop, get rid of it. Relent.

Relent. Get these people out. So now it's like in our current political world, it's like, you know, we have a poll for everything. The polls are saying 90% of the people are saying that you know, we talk about 80, 20 issue. This is a 90-10 issue now. Everybody is saying, get rid of these people because we're suffering as a result. And they're not.

And so, you know, they're noticing. And I thought he brought a really interesting thought that I never thought before about people having the option because now as we get into these last handful of plagues God telegraphs it. He lets them know the day before he's going to do it. So it's like tomorrow this is going to happen. So even the Egyptians have an opportunity to get out of the harm's way. In other words, if you bring in your memory,

he said if you bring in your servants and you bring in your lifestyle, then you would be spared. And so we're assuming, he was assuming that a lot of them probably did it. No other words, they're like, why should we suffer? Right. And so that's probably the rag tag group that winds up following them out. They're like, hey, this God is bigger. Well, that's a big eschatological point, too, that if you look at the New Testament and author the New Testament, and even in the ending of the entire Bible in Revelation 21 and 22, what you see in the end

is a multi-ethnic kingdom of the nations all coming together to worship the one true God. You see it in the prophets. Isaiah chapter 2 paints the picture of different nations, not just Israel, but other nations coming up. So even in the formation of Israel and the Exodus, right, because you're at the very beginning of the history of Israel, you see non-Israel participating in deliverance. Right. And you think about Pharaoh's daughter,

which I thought was such a great point that I'd never consider it. I'd read the rag tag line about a great multitude, meaning that there were people outside of Israel that went with Israel, that were Egyptians. Right. Which is crazy to think about, right? Oh, I thought that Israel was God's covenant people. Well, yeah, and there's others coming into that relationship that were not of Israel.

They were of Egypt. But through the repentance, they were coming in. And then he made the reference that in, I forgot where he referenced it, that later on in Scripture, that Pharaoh's daughter was included in the lineage. It was for Samuel, I think. That's powerful. Theroward's daughter is in the genealogy. of Israel.

Yeah. That's wild. I feel like that even ties into Peter with the dream with Cornelius. Lithia. Oh, 100% because the dream,

even when Peter, you know, our families made a whole, like, business on Duck Commander, and you remember when Phil had that,

he would do his speech and he would get to that axe. Where is it an axe? Is it Axe? X 10, where Peter has the vision and the sheet comes down from heaven

and there's all these Like a movie screen. Like a movie screen, as Phil would say, and there's all these unclean animals on it. And he says, arise, kill, and eat. And Phil's joke was, hey, we're just following the commands of the Almighty. Order some headquarters, boys. But that whole vision that Peter had.

It's about people, yeah. Was, don't call anything that I've called clean, unclean thing. Talking about Gentiles. And so you're seeing, even in the story of Exodus, you're seeing God's heart for the nations. and ultimately how he will accomplish, right, this multi-ethnic kingdom that all the nations eventually will serve him. They will come into the temple,

and they will worship him in his temple. Yeah. So a reminder, if you want to take the course with us, if you're new to the podcast, you can sign up at unashamed for Hillsdale.com, because we'd love to have me alone. Yeah, and I want to just set something up real quick, Al, because I know you had talked about this,

but I want to get there real quick, because we didn't get quite to the 10th plague, which is the Passover. The eighth plague was the locust, and again, even in that eighth plague, you see, again, that the name of God is kind of the intention of making his name known because of the very beginning of chapter 10, the Lord said to Moses, go in the favor, for I have hardened his heart, and that the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them. And again, it's this idea that as he unfolds his power,

this power would make anybody in their right mind, like, submit. But God's got an intention here that I don't want that yet. I want to tease this story out. And so right before you get to this last plague, which is kind of the final, it's the bad one. Yeah. It's the one that. And by the way, the one he mentioned at the beginning.

Yeah. Again, he loomed that way back when. If we don't do this, the day of death is coming. I mean, he gives that. It's going to happen. And another thing about the locust, he made a reference I hadn't thought about before. It was an east wind, which would have been coming from Israel, which is interesting. That, you know, even in the little details, you still see this idea that judgment was going to come from Israel and the east wind for the Red Sea.

Yeah, well, yeah, because they, yeah, it's the East Wind, and then they died in the Red Sea. see. Right. Yeah. Exactly. The foreshadowing. Just the little, just those little teasers that you get.

Well, I was going to say, when you get to this ninth plague, which I want to talk a little bit about this darkness before you get into it. I know you guys have some thoughts on that. Yeah. You see kind of the whole apparatus of God what he's doing here.

Because this is the one where Favors like, just go. But then God said, no, no, no. Not yet. And he just, he just hardens that heart a little bit more. says, no, we're not ready yet.

I know you're going to fold under my power, but I don't want you to fold yet. We're not quite there because I got, we're going to build this story out to the end, and you see God ratchet that up. But I wanted to. This is so funny when you just did that. You remind me so much of Jan.

You had that say, that's the way she had that hand out there. She's always moving. Yeah, you had that little look like your mom. Because she was an amazing Bible student and Bible teacher. And then when I was a kid, she's like, she could walk on water. But anyway. I had that, that's a fourth wall moment like you had in the last podcast.

Hey, that was pretty good. So this darkness, it struck me. One is I had never thought, he said, his opinion is, because I always thought like everybody, one is foreshadowing death for sure, but the idea about it being Shio, which is this idea of this, of a Hebrew idea of purgatory or hell or Hades later in the Greek, this place of just darkness and non-existence, but existence, I mean, I'm aware, but I'm, you know, I can't, I can feel it. But it was three days, which three days just kept coming up over and over.

And I couldn't help but think about the ultimate picture of the three days. Remember Jesus and the going into preach to the spirits, you know, for first. Exactly. And so it's interesting that it keeps coming back to three days because remember, that's what they said they only were going to go out to worship God for three days and they were coming back. That's what Pharaoh's thinking the whole time, even after they leave. And then he kind of realized after three days, it's like, well, there ain't coming back. So then he chases them. But this three days in darkness at such a point, it says in the NIV, stretch out your hand toward the sky so that the

darkness was spread over Egypt. Remember, it doesn't affect the Israelites. They still got light somehow. Darkness that can be felt. And that's all it really says in the text. And he took that to me, it was a visitation of what it would be like in total isolation and darkness as in Shio, like you had died. Yeah. Like you had no, it was that much of a clingy. And I thought back to what we mentioned in the last podcast about when you go places and it, it feels so strongly like something terrible happened here, you know, whatever the case may be.

And so you have these little, through your life, you have these little moments where you kind of just for a second since something like that. Have you guys ever passed out before from anything? That just happened to me recently. I had my blood drawn, and I've never passed out before. I pass out every time I blow is drawn. Or I get a shot. Oh, yeah, John Lucas is notorious for that. Every time.

Well, I didn't know that that was the thing that I had. It's like an actual thing called Vega. I forgot. It's a technical name for it. You've had your whole life. I have it. Yeah, whole life. Well, I was sitting there.

If you see blood, you pass out, don't you? Or is that Johnny? No, that's not me. Okay. That's your grandpa. I think it's Johnny that if he sees blood, he passes. If I see my own blood, like, especially like a needle, like that will make me woozy. But not like, really just like the thought of the needle is what just gets me every time.

It's a weird phenomenon. I didn't know I had this issue or condition or whatever it's called. But I'd be curiously if you had this experience. So I go in to get my blood drawn and I'm sitting up in the chair and I got my right arm out, which is where they're drawing the blood from. Instinctively, I'm not going to look. So I guess maybe I did something about this. I don't want to watch. And I turn my head and they begin the process, you know.

And I felt like a little prick. And then like I just, the guys like, sir, sir, sir, sir, Mr. Dash or Mr. Daesh. And he's like waking me up. But there was a moment like I can't really describe it other than like I've never in my entire life felt this kind of fear. It was, I'd never, it was, it was, it was the weirdest sensation, but, but it was dark. As you were losing the consciousness. As I was coming out of it. Okay.

Because I don't remember going into it. Okay. I've never had anything. He's, you were out for like 30 seconds, but it was like, there was a moment where I had, I had no context for any, it was just like a free for all. Like, I didn't know who I was. I didn't know. I just, I was existing, but I was like in complete and utter fear.

I'd never felt fear like that before. It was the weirdest sensation. And when I finally came to, like, I had to, like, bring myself into, like, I was like, I was like, I don't know what just happened. It was scary. Did you experience kind of a fear associated with it? Yeah. Especially, like, when I was younger, when I first started happening, like, yeah.

Because there's that moment where you, like, know you're passing out, and then it goes dark, but you wake up almost instantaneously. Like, it's only a few seconds. But there's that, like, time period where it's, like, your brain is off, but you're, aware of it, and it's freaky. But I thought about hell, because I thought about whenever, because I thought, you know, the darkness of hell, the isolation,

the lack of context, and everything that the light brings is context. And so another sensation that we've all probably experienced is you wake up in a hotel somewhere, you're super tired, and you're like, it's all dark, and you have no idea where you're out. It takes a minute. Now that happens to me. And you're like, and you're like literally like, oh my gosh, where am I? And I have to

wait, like, no, where, where? You see that sliver of light under the door. You're like, oh, this is my wife. Okay, yeah, okay, we're good. And I think that that's kind of the idea here. It is a, you have no context for anything. And so it is a fear, and it is a, this is a help, a prototype.

And we're really not made for darkness. I mean, we're made for light. Like, you know, I mean, like we're always drawn to light. And I remember as a kid, even we live out in the woods. And now I realize it was the safest place we could ever be. But I never felt safe when I was going house to house. Yeah. As a kid, you know, you're running over there.

and it's dark and you're thinking something's going to jump out and grab you, but I realize now I was in the safest place. I'm much more dangerous than a neighborhood in town than I would be there, but it's just that we're not made for that. We're not made for dark. We're made to sea. We're made for light. I'm thinking about that passage in as a first or second, Thessalonians. It says it'll be shut out from the presence of the Lord on the day that he comes to be more about that among the saints. And so the picture of hell is separation from the presence, particularly separation from the ability to marvel at his presence. And then the, and then Jesus is compared to the light.

This is the imagery of light. You know, like light brings in illumination. Not life, life and love, the three things from the Book of John. I mean, that are represented. You're seeing the opposite of the kingdom in here. And I don't think it's an accident that darkness precedes, precedes the ultimate punishment, which is the ultimate darkness, which is death itself. And plus, this is more, this is three days.

So, like, you know, people try to explain, like, this is an eclipse, it was this, that, but this is three days of utter darkness, isolating utter darkness. And so whatever it was, it was terrifying. Yeah. Because like you said, he finally, I mean, this moved the needle for Pharaoh. Well, and this was one that was directly against their main God, raw, the sun God. like God has control over the sun and light. And it also, the Egyptians had a similar view of Sheal as well of like when you would die,

you would go into this period of like darkness before you kind of like moved on. So for the Egyptians, especially for like the hyper spiritual Egyptians, they're probably like, we're in shield now. Yeah. We're there. That's a good point. We've died. Yeah.

You know. We're screwed. This is over. Yeah. Yeah. Our sun god has gone. Yeah. I didn't even thought about that.

Again, this trumping of the gods. So it definitely was a foreshadowed then I think to the 10th plague, which is probably what we need to transition to. I have one note before we talk about that. Just about the context of Egypt and the Israelites at this time, the we've been talking about, like, the last couple of podcasts of like, how can Pharaoh and the Egyptians like see, these things and not turn to God. Like, he saw the power of God, but he didn't turn. But to just, like, give you context for the, the arrogance and the pride of the Egyptians,

they had, they were the number one superpower at this time. Yeah. This was, like, a lot of people think, scholars think, this is about 1,200 BC. Ramsey's the second is, like, who's attributed a lot of the times. And it could have been at it. It could have been earlier. But Egypt, at the time,

the pyramids were minimum over a thousand years old at this point. Right. And that was not, that was just one of the monuments. Like they had, they were sprawled. They had these massive statues. Mathematicians. Mathematicians. They were rerouting the Nile.

Like they had full control over their whole environment. They were the number one like armies. They had political power. they had all the things and had had that for a thousand years. So for them, like I was thinking about this. Like for them, I was thinking about when I was like 12 years old and I went to New York for the first time. And going from like here, like West Monroe, Louisiana to like New York and looking at the skyscraper. Yeah.

I mean, I was like what they, people can do anything. Like looking at these skyscrapers, I feel so tiny. And like that's how Moses had to feel coming back into this. And like the Egyptian, especially the Pharaoh being, seeing himself as the literal God of the number one superpower. Right. Probably the most powerful man on the planet at this time, or at least in that area. Like he did, even though he saw the power of God, he still thought we are over this. We are still better than this.

Have you all ever been to Egypt? No. So at least I just signed up this last month. do these river cruises, and we've done a couple of them in Europe, but we're doing the Nile River, which I'm super excited about. In 27, yeah, to literally go and stop off at all the places. Make sure you check with Maddie on your schedule and all that. Oh, yeah, yeah, some live podcast, Maddie.

Here's Al in remote at the pyramid. You know, you were, when we went to Rome, we had this same sensation where we were in Rome, and one of the guys that was with us was like, you know, it's funny. Like, you can imagine if you arrived in Rome in its heyday, because Rome was also a world superpower in its time that was an advanced civilization. Yeah.

And when you think about it, you look at that Coliseum is a great example. This thing is massive. Yeah. I mean, this is not like chump change. This is not like, I mean, this is something we would, even today, we would, wow. That's impressive. We marveled. We still are.

Yeah. And see it in like, wow. You built giant stones. stadium, you're like, wow, that's incredible. Like, we did that, right? A couple of thousand years ago. They did it without any cranes. And they did it in a relatively short period of time.

And so we were talking about if some guy comes in from a mud hut from Africa, you know, he's like, I've been living in a mud hut in Africa. And he arrives in Rome. And then he's looking around. And they're like, Caesar is God. He's like, okay, I get it. Yeah, okay, he's God. And I think that's the same thing here.

Yeah, that's good point. And so it's funny that how God's kingdom will break into these powers and will just eviscerate worldly powers. I mean, he always does when these worldly powers will come against him. Now, it's going to happen, but that's why our allegiance primarily is to the kingdom of God, because his kingdom can't be shaken or destroyed. But we move into this. Well, thinking about how disorienting would be for the mud hut person showing up to Rome

and seeing Caesar's God, and then Caesar just gets destroyed by all these. these plagues, and he's probably like, wait, wait, what? Wait, what is that? Well, Rome did fall. And they did fall. And they did fall. Remember we talked about when we were in the Coliseum,

and somebody's put a cross up there, and I don't know how long it's been there, and so it wouldn't cross. And we were made the point. You're like, yeah, look what endure. Like, the Coliseum was there in ruins. The basketball art was when Phil, totally unplanned Phil, he's filming, and so he got the camera on,

and he's like, and there's some line, like, basically all empires will fall, you know, against the kingdom or something like it. But it was something about empires falling and nobody can stand or something like that. There's a guy literally like walking behind Phil, like a tourist, and he just falls down and Jimisdell says and no man can stand. And this guy like just paused. And we captured on camera. He just had to move walking by. Don't forget to sign up and take her course if you haven't done so yet.

Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. So we enter this 10th plague here, and this is the one that hits home because this is the one where God's going to, he's going to take some lives now. And by the way, to me, this plague, obviously is the one that finally breaks the cycle and gets them out. But this particular thing is the reason why Exodus, according to Dr. Jackson, I think we would agree, is one of the most important books in the entire Bible. because this particular image is going to take us all the way to Christ, the blood on the door, the sacrifice of the lamb, the whole concept of Passover. And, of course, his last night, which was the last Passover ever needed,

because he was the ultimate sacrifice. So to me, this is why this whole thing is so important. And it's also, this is the reason why God hardened Pharaoh's heart. It's for this moment, because he says in 11, verse 9, And then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh, because this is after the threat of the 10th plague, Pharaoh will not listen to you. And he will say, why won't he listen? Why is God hard in his heart?

And he tells us, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. Yeah. I mean, thinking about what he's saying there. Yeah. The reason why I don't want him to listen is because I'm trying to crank these wonders up. You know what I'm trying to expand. I'm not trying. I'm going to multiply my wonders.

in the land of Egypt. And the reason why is because I want people to be talking about this for the rest of history. And so Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. And then we enter into this moment of the Passover. And you find out later, not necessarily here as much,

but you find out later there's, you know, around a Passover meal, there's a whole, everything has a symbolic presence of something represented in coming out of Egypt, you know, the tears of this. And I don't have the history of it, but I've been where people do a Passover. Have you ever attended one of those where they do a pass? Yeah. And you go through all the elements.

And everything had a symbolic meaning. But the bottom line was for this angel of death, like, just imagine that. Like, it's coming across this nation. And as this happens, all these firstborn animal and human beings. are dying in one evening. I mean, you talk about a slaughterhouse. Yeah. And, you know, the idea is there's such a wail of sorrow that everybody, all of a sudden,

every home is affected in a nation. And as John Lou pointed out, the most powerful nation, in one evening. I mean, you talk about a night to remember or forget. And all of Israel is spared because they had done exactly what God said and the blood from the sacrifice that they would eat the whole thing. That was interesting point, right? This is not a, like typically in the sacrifice, you're not eating the, if you're sacrificing it, you're not eating it.

Right. I don't know if he made this point, but I thought about this. I thought about this point. Why did they eat the sacrifice? Yeah, because I was reading that too. Because I always just think about the Passover of just the blood on the doorpost, but I forget about them eating the. I thought it was because they're fixing to hit the road and they need it.

a meal. That's what I do. In a practical sense. There may be more than you're thinking of it. This is what I think is happening here. This is like getting a happy meal on the way out of town.

So our church, we do the Lord's Supper, aka the Eucharist, aka the communion. We participate. And there's no doubt there's some tie-in there. There's tie-in.

Because right, as you think about like when Jesus gives the last supper, when he does it around the Passover meal. And so... And he used that image.

Eat my flesh, drink my blood. why we, do you remember when we were growing up? You didn't grow up in the churches that we but you remember what was interesting about the bread that we would eat every Sunday? Unleavened? It was unleavened bread because you're going back to this exodus moment. So we like, that was a big deal. Because that was what they did. They had the unleven. Your bread better not be fluffy. Now our church now they're not, we're not as hard core. Sometimes they're bringing fluffy bread. And I'm like, that's not biblical.

Shame, shame. I know your name. So the bread would be that it would be like... That's the one legalistic thing I'm holding on to. The bread should not be fluffy. Yeah, she would be fluffy. It should not have salt on us. Like, we would have... Can't have salt?

If you're going to eat it, you just don't make it fluffy. It can't have salt either. You don't put saltine crackers. They're like salting crackers without the salt. Yeah. And so that's what we would take as our communion. And then we had the grape juice, which probably should have been wine. But we didn't, you know, we didn't believe in drinking wine.

Right. even had non-alcoholic. Because the wine in the Bible wasn't real wine. That was not fermented according to what we bet. We're digressing here. Wait, is that a thing? I've never heard of that. Oh, yeah, yeah.

To digress. I went to a church that did serve wine, and I was like, wow, they're so biblical, but then it was fluffy bread. They had one. Cancel out, doesn't count. Cancels out. Neutral. When you think about this, though, this is what's happening, I think.

that said that when you take the communion, when you participate in the Eucharist, the imagery there, whether you are Catholic or Protestant, I mean, one believes this is like really happening. Yeah, it really transforms. Yeah, but the idea of transubstantiation is, there's some truth in this, right, whether you were, you land on this,

but I'm taking in the elements and then they're being transformed. Yeah. Right? And so like that is, so the role of the priest is to administer the communion, and then the role of the priest is simply to be Eucharistic to take in the world and then turn it back into praise to God.

And so there's this transformation. So anytime you eat, I mean, I watch you eat breakfast other day. I was like, my gosh. I was hungry. Yeah, you were very hungry. You're taking the balliades from the restaurant, and now the balliades that you ate, Yeah.

It was transformed into your body. Think about that. Yeah. And so it's... And into the toilet. Go back to where we started. So it's a priestly duty to actually participate in this and to administer and also to that transformation, right?

And so if you, when you get into the establishment of the priesthood, the tribe of Levi, Aaron's going to be the first priest and the high priest. and then they'll have this whole, like, system. But they were the ones that got to eat, what was sacrifice. They did eat it. I mean, like, you read the New Testament. They would take the sacrifices, and that's what they ate. And so I think what's happening here is a couple things.

One, we're reenacting, where it was a precursor for the Lord's Supper, obviously the blood of the lamb, all of that, the foreshadowing Christ being the blood of the lamb. but it's also foreshadowing that we are going to be the priest. We are the priest to the believers because in the sacrifice that we're making, we're also eating that sacrifice. And so what's happening? Which that's how the priest ate all through their time, because that's how they got their sustenance.

So in this moment, Israel is a priesthood. Exactly. And they're experiencing now freedom because this is the thing that finally releases them from the tyranny because now they're going to, They're going to have it. Where's the, and Peter, I wanted to read that verse, that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood. Yeah. And that, and that language is centered around the temple of God, that we are his temple, that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, that we're going to see this.

This is going to come. A people belonging to God. A people belonging to God. A people belonging to God. What's happening? What is Israel here? A people belonging to God. Well, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of dark.

darkness and into his wonderful light. Darkness. Darkness. Wow. That's true. Yeah, the idea there. Wow. Very good.

Have you ever heard before? Because he talked about, and he actually made this point pretty strong, but about how the, like, rabbinic traditions, believe that Pharaoh actually was, like a firstborn son? Had you all heard that before?

I had not. I had not heard that. Because it's mentioned that even his firstborn son would die, but I never thought about him being a firstborn. And then, in essence, being spared the last plague to experience exactly, as you mentioned, the wonders of God. And I had never thought about that.

Yeah, because you read about it, you know. And he probably would have been the firstborn if he was the Pharaoh, I would think. Yeah, well, because you read and, you know, you read God in Harding, Pharaoh's heart, and so you kind of are like, well, why wasn't God merciful to Pharaoh? But then you learned that Pharaoh was a firstborn son, or at least that's what tradition believes. He was spared. So it's a pretty, I've never thought about it. Only then.

And only then to choose his own plague. Yeah. Because since he doesn't relent and he chases him after the three days, in essence, that's why he died, you know. But the promise of God there was fear not, stand firm, for the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you.

All you got to do is shut up. That's my translation at the end. All you have to do is just be silent. And so you see this coming into the Red Sea moment. I mean, like, I mean, I mean, I mean, think about if you experience that type of, like, tragedy, calamity at the, at the, you know this is coming from from the hand of your adversary. Right. The person that you're fighting against. Like, I think that at that moment, I'm like, like, I'm done.

Yeah. You win. In favor, tried that, but I think, again, God's still not done with this whole thing. he's like again going to harden his heart one more time. So he are, because it says here that he, in verse 17, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians. And the reason why, so that they'll go after,

so that they shall go after them. And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all of his hosts, his chariots and his horsemen. So you see the intention of God here is that God's going to get his glory. Yeah. And, and the way he's going to get that glory is he's about, like this has all been like a process of,

I want to say, becoming, but it's the opposite. It's like a process of death. And then like, oh, and even like the death of the first born is not the end of it. I mean, the end of the story here, at least with Egypt, is they are completely annihilated. Just the, I mean, the Red Sea just closes in on them and kills them. And it was done, John Luke made a really good point earlier. This is done to the most powerful military on earth by a people, but not really by the people, but by people that, or,

generational in slavery. So there's no military training in Israel or the Israelites. They've been generational. They've been building, you know, pyramids or something. They've been making strong, making bricks. And so it's not like, I mean, it had to be the hand of God because these people couldn't have done it. And it's kind of even a foreshadow to when they go and they conquer the member Canaan. And he's like, I want you to know, it's still not by your force. It's by my for it. It's by my hand that this is going to happen. So I love that because the idea is sometimes, you know, we're in America and we say we got the most powerful military on earth, which we do. Technology-wise, all these different things, you know, there's been war wars that are fought,

but it's easy then to be thinking we're the force. Right. It's us. We don't need God. We've got the most powerful military in the world. I think that even pushed the intention of God further into this is that he is saying that he wants his glory out of this, but then he almost like, I think dials in even deeper of his intention, which we've said, already talked about in the podcast, but listen to that how he ends right before the parting of the Red Sea. He says that thing that I'm going to get glory over Pharaoh and all of his hosts, and the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh, that I'm the, so that they would know the name of God

when I get glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen. So when this consummation over Yehawah, that, when this consummation over Yew. evil happens, then people are going to real, they're going to be like, whoa, Yahweh. Yeah. They're going to know his name. Yeah. They're going to know the name of God. And the Egyptians even tied to Yahweh.

Remember because when the people are there, they're like, we will give you gold. They plundered. They plundered just to leave. Right. Like, we'll give you gold. We'll give you gold. Well, what were they doing? And they were actually giving it to God because they were saying, if, if, if you, you.

you will just leave, we will give you all of our stuff. And so that's how they plundered the country, literally because they were just saying, leave, please leave, you know, imagine it. Because they had experienced all this death, and everybody's lost their firstborn and their animals and all this happens. They're like, just get them out of here. And what's fascinating is three days go by, Pharaoh realizes when you get in the chapter 12, three days go by, and then he has another change of heart and decides, nope, they're not coming

back. So we've got to go get them. and immediately when the people see them coming, because you imagine you're out on this plane or whatever, and you can see the dust probably coming that they're coming after us. And immediately they're like, why did you bring us out here to die? They're not enough grades.

I mean, it took three days. Three days. Again, three days. You know, and I've said this many times before, and I think about three days. I can't have to think about Judas and Peter because the difference in the two is one way to three days. until Jesus was resurrected, and then he helped change the world.

I mean, he unlocked the keys to the kingdom, first gospel sermon of the Jews, the Gentile. The other one took his life before the three days. And what was the difference? One repented. One repented. That's the only difference. That's the only difference. One repented.

Exactly. And so I thought about that with three days. That becomes a crucial time, and I used it all the time when we talk to people, individuals or couples about, can you give it three days? Can we pray about this for three days before we make this call? that I'm telling you is going to be a bad call. Was it in this podcast or the last one that I talked about, the Genesis 15, the one-way covenant?

I know I can't remember which one, but that was the last podcast. Yeah, yeah. But so to your point, you're seeing here the belligerent disobedience of Israel. You're seeing the fact that if this covenant depends on Israel, well, it's not going to work out well because you just experienced 10 incredible plagues, which you were spared from the last seven of, and now you're begging to go back under the control of the one that is being dominated by Yahweh.

What's wrong with you people, right? And so again, the covenant cannot depend on them. As I mentioned that Genesis 15 story, where the cloud, which represents the presence of God when he made the covenant with Abram, and he said, if any of us break this covenant, made this happen to me, and the cloud alone, the smoke moves,

through the animals that were cut in half in Genesis 15. Well, what's interesting is when they get to this Red Sea moment, and you see that same belligerence of, but God has made a covenant with them. And he's told him, what did he? He said, this day I'm going to deliver you. And he's going to ratify it on Mount Sinai with the fire and the smoke and all the same stuff. And the smoke shows up there,

but the smoke actually shows up also right here in this text, verse 19, the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel, moved and went behind them. and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was a cloud and there was darkness

and it lit up the night without one coming near the other. So God's presence, his manifest presence. What's his name? Yahweh, what was it again? I will be there, house whoever I will be there. I don't know why I can't remember that. He can remember it. I will be there.

Because he's got a good memory. He's got a good memory. But that's showing up. He's showing up here. God's presence is moving in, and that presence is going to one, liberate one, and it's going to evaporate the other. Exactly, which becomes the ultimate end. Don't forget to sign up, take the course, unashamed for Hillsdale.com. So we're almost out of time.

So that gets us to the point of the Red Sea, which, you know, obviously that's what I have. You just described it beautifully. And so when they come out of the other side, when you get to Genesis, I mean, Exodus 15, there's this song of victory. And then everything's good from there on out. Until we turn that page, which we will do on the next podcast, because we're going to get to sign out, which is a very scary moment, but it's also a very glorious moment. Yeah. When we get into the law and the 10 commandments and everything after that, so we'll tackle it next time. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss it.

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