Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1279 | Our Culture’s Biggest Lie About Spirituality

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

The culture’s biggest lie about good and evil is that they’re equal and opposite forces locked in an endless cosmic tug-of-war. Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian explore why that idea quietly reshapes how we see God, Satan, heaven, and hell — and why C.S. Lewis insists it falls apart under real Christian theology. From Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness to Lewis’ picture of hell as a shrinking, hollow existence, the guys explore how evil is a distortion of what God created as good. In this episode: Matthew 4, verses 1–11; 1 John 2, verses 15–17; 1 Timothy 6, verses 11–16; 2 Corinthians 12, verses 7–10; Hebrews 12, verses 26–28; 1 Kings 8, verse 27; Acts 7 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 7 of C.S. Lewis on Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale professor Michael Ward. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about C.S. Lewis on Christianity: Encounter the faith & wisdom of C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis’s writings bring the great questions of the Christian faith to life. Through his imaginative and invigorating style, Lewis answers these questions in ways that are compelling to those outside Christianity and energizing to those within the Christian faith. In this free, seven-lecture course, Professor Michael Ward—a leading scholar of C.S. Lewis—will explore Lewis’s: argument for objective moral value in response to the rise of modern subjectivism; bittersweet path to conversion and the role of enjoyment in the Christian life; advice regarding the proper way to pray and read the Bible; teachings concerning the purpose of pain and how to confront suffering and loss; insights about the nature of heaven and hell. This course examines these fundamental topics not only through his classic works—including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man—but also through Lewis’s personal experiences with doubt, conversion, suffering, grief, and joy. Through this course, students will discover Lewis’s core lessons regarding the truth and goodness of the Christian faith and how to apply those lessons to one’s life.  Join us today in discovering C.S. Lewis’s enduring lessons about the meaning and practice of Christianity. 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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00 Jesus vs. Satan Arm Wrestling 05:12 Why Satan Isn’t Jesus’ Equal 09:40 The Temptation of Jesus & True Authority 15:05 Plato’s Dilemma & What Makes Something Good 20:40 Heaven Isn’t Hell’s Opposite 26:05 Annihilation, Eternal Torment & Lewis’ View 31:30 Can There Be Pain in Heaven? 36:10 When Suffering Turns Into Glory 41:20 Bureaucracy & How Evil Operates 46:10 Taking Hold of Eternal Life Now — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Have you all seen those memes? Do you know what I'm talking? Yeah, exactly what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're like, this guy went out. You're like this chasm. Oh, like bowed up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like an American eagle. There's like an eagle in the back. It's like so out of it's non. Yeah. Legitimate. But, um, that's dualism. Jesus and Satan. Are you ready? Kind of sound, Maddie. thought that was it. Are we going? Well, this counter's going. Oh, I didn't know the counter was going.

So, yeah, we were talking about last episode when I talked about that, the meme of Satan and Jesus arm wrestling. And we were talking about kind of doing a visual representation of that to start the podcast. Since they're sitting across the table. But the problem we run into is one of us has to be Satan to make that work. And we both don't want to do that. So we're not going to do it. But the question is who would win?

I think Chris has to be Jesus. God always, God always wins. As I just to say, if we're going to go for who the strongest-looking person is at this table, we better make Christians. You've got to be Satan and that in that. I mean, I'm just saying. They're not equal. That's our whole point.

Then it could work. Remember, this is the man that said he's, for every romantic holiday for the last decade, he's been reading books. That doesn't help you in the arm, right? Seven, he just buys one for himself. Yeah. He would destroy you in Dungeons and Dragons, but you got him in arm wrestling. Yes, yes, yes. And the intellectual, he would destroy me in the physical.

I would beat him. Do you play Dungeons and Dragons, by the way? Yeah. Aren't you into that? You're into that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. I did. I did play a lot of that.

Yes. You're not into that kind of stuff? I'm not, I've never done it. I mean, I'll tell you, when I got interested, was when I watched, what was the show? Stranger things. Yeah. And so that I was like, okay, I mean, maybe I could have got into, I don't know.

I like risk. I like games like Monopoly. I don't know. We never played that. You would actually like it. You would actually like it. We played a lot of games when we were kids, but we never played that one. But I don't know that I ever knew anybody that did.

I don't know if it's. Oh, I think Al, you would love it. You would like it. Yeah, you would like it. Because it's like storytelling, right? Yeah. Is there a movie by Dungeons and Dragons? Yeah, there is.

Is it good? It's really good. The Chris Pine one? Yeah. You like it? It's super good. Really? I was exactly like,

really, I saw the trailer. I never saw it. No, you should watch it. You like it? It's really funny and it's exactly what Dungeons Dragons is like playing it. Interesting. Yeah.

What a blessing for you, though, to grow up in this time. I mean, if you would have grown up, you know, my era, that was like, like, to be someone who played Dungeons and Dragons, they called them nerds. And that was like, but now nerds are like the thing. I mean, that's like the,

they're the superstars now. Well, of course, they created all the, technology. Yeah. Now, of course. They won. The jocks lost and the nerds won.

You know what I call it that? Revenge of the Nerds. That's right. That was a big movie back in the 80s. See, I think they had a couple of them. Didn't they? Revenge of the Nerds? So you win, John Luke.

Maybe we turn around. Maybe you're Jesus then and you have to be Satan. Okay. Sorry, ma'am. We have to go with that coach. Luckily, we're not dualists. Yeah. Luckily, we're not dualists.

Yeah. Dual. dual two, right? So the idea is that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything. One of them good, the other bad, and that the universe is the battlefield in which they fight an endless war, which what it means is there's no real victory in the end. It's like these things eternally exist, and it's almost like the yin and the yang. It's like just holding up reality itself is the tension itself. And so, but as Dr. Ward said, that's not Christianity. So So, Christian, you are no longer identifying as a dualist anymore, correct?

I am not, yep. I am not a duelist. He didn't know. Welcome back to Unashamed. That was an interesting introduction there. We're doing our Unashamed for Hillsdale Fridays. This is a course on CS Lewis on Christianity. We're in Lecture 7, Heaven and Hell.

You can take the course for free with us at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. So if you haven't taken the lecture yet, you really should listen to the lecture as well. I mean, we really are just commenting and processing together what we're learning throughout this course. This is our last one on CS Lewis, which I'd love to continue with it because I've really enjoyed this. And today we're in two of my favorite books, which I said on the last podcast ended with the screw tape letters and the great divorce. My third one, as I said, is my third one is the weight of glory, which is amazing as well. But yeah, so we're here talking about, he starts the whole entire lecture with this idea of dualism.

And Christian, you are the one that brought it up in the last podcast. You jumped the gun a little bit. But that was obviously resonated with you. That's all right. What resonated with you about that so much? Like I honestly kind of jokingly shared last episode was those kind of images of, yeah, Jesus and, you know, Satan kind of, you because you have, you have the temptation in the wilderness, and you always kind of have this opposing force with Jesus and with Satan. And I think it can be

easy to kind of equate, you know, obviously not equate Satan's power with Jesus, but more so, like, Satan is the enemy of God, which is true, but just because he's the enemy of God does not mean that he's, you know, equal and power with God. But I don't think I've ever heard really anyone articulate, Satan would be comparable to Michael. I've never heard anyone kind of make that correlation. Michael the angel. Michael the angel. Yeah, because what the question he asked was, what is the opposite of Satan? Yeah. And if you say Jesus, then you're a dualist. And he's like, Jesus is not the opposite of Satan because Satan was a created being. So the opposite of Satan would not be Jesus. It would be Michael, the archangel. But I mean, I think so,

So often, though, when we think about this battle between good and evil, I mean, even someone raised in proper Christian theology, sometimes in my mind, I guess because of the way the world has presented this, is it is this cosmic battle that's been going on for eternity, what it hasn't meant. And that is a key distinction of understanding. Well, and the fact that, I mean, you can bring up a great point, Christian, about, I've always found it fascinating, that Jesus went into that situation. you know, first with a 40-day fast, remember, that's how it started. So he's depleted of a lot of things you would have physically in the moment,

and he's out there, and he basically allows, as God in flesh, Satan to tempt him. You know, and I've always thought he had to have done that for us. I mean, one is because to show us he's human. And then the Hebrew writer would later say he was tempted in every way, just like we are, as a man, so that we're, we wouldn't miss his humanity, but then, of course, we don't miss his divinity either because he didn't succumb. And so I've always thought that he showed us the way to deal with Satan. And again, in general, we're not Jesus, but we're in Jesus. And so, you know, the very fact that

the three ways that he did it, that he went about it, first by saying it's not just my mere humanity. Remember, I know you're hungry. Just turn the rocks into bread. What's the big deal? Eat something. Man, does it live on bread? alone, you know, the words of God. And then he goes up at the point of the temple, you know, which the whole temple motif, we talk about all the time on this podcast. And it's like, cast yourself down to me. There's the scripture. And then Satan quotes the scripture. You know, he was not allowing anything to happen to you. We're not putting the Lord our God to the test. Then the third one, which is the one that speaks the loudest to me, is he looks at all the

splendors of the world and the kingdoms and says, all these are mine. And Jesus doesn't dispute that, that they were bowing down to him, and he said, we can rule this together. And I thought that Dr. Ward makes a really good point about that, about the idea of heaven and hell, always being separate because you can't have a little. And Jesus showed us that in the moment. Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. You can't hold hands with the evil one and rule because they don't go together. So I've always been fascinated by his going through that for us,

His mastering of that, and then ultimately, in the cross and in the resurrection, it's that he destroyed him who holds the power of death. And that's why he's always loomed and held over everybody's head. You're going to die. And so I think that really does show the distinctness of the creative being versus the creator, even in human body, which is fascinating. The way Dr. Ward backs into this discussion, because most of the podcast is on the idea of heaven and hell, which obviously there's a whole lot of that in the screw tape letters,

but really even more in the great divorce and that whole idea that these people in hell take a trip to heaven. And they don't quite experience it like those who are actually in heaven experience. It's actually beautifully written. But the way he backs into this is with kind of another dilemma. You know, the last podcast we talked about that dilemma, that two-horn dilemma when we're dealing with a problem of pain, which is if God is all good and he's all powerful,

and if God's all good, he will prefer a world without suffering. If God is all powerful, he's able to create a world that he prefers, and therefore we have a world with suffering, so either God isn't good or God isn't all-powerful. We dealt with that in the last podcast. But here is another dilemma that's a two-horn dilemma that is meant to kind of stump the Christian, right? How do you deal with this, this idea of dualism,

this idea of good versus evil? And one of the ways that this has been presented over time is, you know, Plato had a thing that he wrote called Utherphro's dilemma. And it was the question of, is it good because the God's will it is good? Or that's one side. Is this thing over here? Is it good because God says that's good? And so he makes it good. Or does God call it good because it's already good?

And so the dilemma is if you say that it's good because God, calls it good, well, then he could call anything good. He could call, you know, murder good. He could call anything, the most horrible thing you can think about, good. And we would be saying that's good, which is absurd. But on the other side of it, if you say that it's good, that God calls it as good because it's already good, then there's this goodness that exists outside of God. There's something outside of him that exists, which would be greater than him, and that would put God's character into question. And the way that the Bible actually splits this horn is to say that it's actually good because he is good. And what God is saying is good is a reflection of his own

nature because God is good. This isn't a dualistic idea. There's not some thing of powers out there floating in the universe that are absent or separate or autonomous from God. God is the ultimate reality. And so to push the two against each other is actually to move into a faulty philosophy called dualism because it doesn't push the question of good and evil far back enough. And so likewise, when you get to the conversation of heaven and hell, these aren't equal and opposite places, according to Lewis. And I think that is the key. Is Satan the opposite of Jesus? No, he's the opposite of another creative being. And heaven, in the same way, way is not the opposite of hell.

One, and this is the whole point of the book, one is a reality that we live into, the other one is a state of mind. I don't know if that hits you guys at all when you were going through the course. Yeah, for sure. And I love the idea that, I love what he said,

that heaven is an improvement of our humanity. I never thought about it in those terms. We've always seen it as just almost a reward versus punishment mindset. I think you do that when you compare them an apple and apple. When you compare an apple and orange, he says improvement of our humanity,

whereas hell is a banishment that was designed for angels, for other beings. Right. You know, and whatever our interaction with that is going to be, it's not about improving humanity. It's over by then. So what I'm saying? And the quote I was trying to remember in the last one, he says, it's where a being fades into non-entity, which I thought was very interesting, the way he described it that way. And it's almost like, I don't know that exactly if he's an annihilation list or what, you know, in terms of, it is at some point you cease to be. But that phrase makes me think maybe he thought that.

And that's the way I've always kind of. Well, there's a, yeah, this define annihilation because I think that that's a big topic. Yeah, and so like is hell, you know, a lot of people debate this, is hell like a literal place. Jesus certainly used pictures when talking about Gahena and Hades and hell in some of his teachings. And is it a place where you would go and then be in this physical torment for eternity versus is it someplace of punishment and then do you eventually annihilate? In other words, being away from God, I think is probably the best way. Yeah, like, is it a place of, is hell eternal conscience torment?

Like you're aware, you're awake, but it's, it's torment forever and ever and ever. Or is hell that at the end, this is not hell as where we would go now if you were the reprobate, so to speak. But like at the end of time when God comes back and he redeems every, all the ones that put their faith in him, is hell just that you're annihilated. Like you just cease to exist. like you are no longer in existence. And then the third option would be universalism. Does God in the end, kind of like Rob Bell's book, Love Wins or something like that, that God, in the end, everyone's in, everyone turns to God in the end.

And those are kind of like your three options. And we've actually debated this in the past on what position that Lewis hold. And I'm not, I don't think he held the universalist position because I wish I'd have wrote that down, but there was a part in that where he actually answers that question. when they asked the question of, he says that he says that he would love to do away with the doctrine of hell, but he just can't because of what's in the Bible.

But he very well could have been annihilations. I don't know. I don't know if you guys have. Well, yeah, he sounded a little like it with that one quote is what I was thinking. Yeah, I mean, okay, just if you haven't read the Great Divorce. So essentially how, I don't think Lewis was making a like, this is what it is statement.

I think he was using the book as an analogy. So don't take this as like this. He literally thought this. But this is how he sets it up in the Great Divorce. You've got God on this like mountain top. And the closer you get to God, kind of the more like real things get. So you've got God on one side

and everyone in heaven is moving towards God as like a final point. Right. On the opposite side, of the country, if you will, you've got what he describes as like hell, which is kind of like this shiole idea, shadowy place. And the people are living there, but they don't have God. And they're kind of just all self-centered. And the more self-centered they get, the further away they get from God.

And so you've got God on one side, and then you've got those in hell moving away from that and as they go away they become less substantial yeah until eventually over thousands of years in indefinite period of time eventually they just kind of fade away and disappear well he says in the great divorce this is a quote he says that hell is a state of mind mm-hmm you never said a true word and every state of mind left to itself every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of his own mind is in the end hell. But heaven is not a state of mind. So there's the contrast of right. This isn't dualism. Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is heavenly. For all that can be shaken, will be shaken,

and only the unshakable remains. That's that nod to the Hebrew writer there, which I think I love what he does. with it. I don't, and I don't, I mean, to me, I don't think he's making a polemic on any of that. Right. Is he making a case for heaven, or I'm sorry for hell being eternal torment or annihilation? I don't think that's his point. I think what he's trying to get the reader to understand is that hell is kind of a state of mind. And even when he says in that book, too, I don't have this quote pulled up, but when you're in hell, you'll look back at all the moments that you thought you were in heaven, right? All those moments of ecstasy when you were, like when you were living it up, you were having the, you live in your best life and you'll realize, oh my goodness, I was in hell

the entire time. And then the contrast to that is those who are in heaven will look back on all of those moments that we thought we were in hell, the problem of pain. We'll look back at the hardest moments of our life. We'll look back at the most pronounced suffering that we experienced and and we'll realize we were in heaven the entire time. And I love the way that that kind of plays out because it really does paint the picture more as a, what the world would be, an ontological participation. We're participating in the very nature of God when we're in heaven, and to not participate or to be in God's presence actually as hell.

And I think the scripture supports that, right? I mean, Paul says that in his letter to the church in Thessalonica, but to be in hell is to be shut out from the presence of the Lord. Yeah, what was the point? Because somewhere in the lecture, Dr. Ward said that, C.S. Lewis said that he, and I could be maybe wrong on this, but like that you possibly could experience some sort of pleasures in hell. Did he say that?

He did. I was kind of confused about that part. And he said, and then he also said about pain in heaven. I've got the quote. The quote was that there may be pleasures in hell that God shields us from, and there also might be pain in heaven that God grants to us, meaning, well, that's the quote. Now, I actually don't know what that means. I don't know if I believe that.

And I'm not sure either. By the way, we want you to sign up and take the course with us, unashamed for hillsdale.com. Oh, is it quite again? Read it again, John. Okay, so here's how it starts. explains that we need not suppose that the necessity for something analogous to self-conquest will ever be ended in heaven or that eternal life will not also be eternal dying. Oh, I've got it. Then he says, as there may be pleasures in hell, God shields from him, there may be something

not unlike pain in heaven that God may grant us. What he's saying is that heaven and hell aren't, what Lewis thinks is that heaven hell aren't like a ceasing of what we would think of as like everyday life. A humanity. Humanity. Whenever heaven becomes, we'll, we know we'll work. We know there's animals. We know there's walls. We know there's some sort of economy.

There's kings. There's rulers. Like, there's all these things that we experience in everyday life. And so there might be pain in a way that is good that we don't fully understand. In the same way those shut out of heaven are also living whatever their version of day-to-day life is. And some of those might be pleasure in like a self-centered way that is ultimately harmful to them. Yeah, and I kind of thought about it like you heard the same before that, you know, some people would rather rain in hell than serve in heaven.

And the idea is, because, I mean, obviously, Satan's existence now, I mean, he understands what his future holds. I mean, that's been pretty clear from the scripture, especially once Jesus came and did what he did. And yet he's still doing what he does. And so are his evil minions. They find pleasure in that and being able to impact that. I don't know what's going to happen on the great divide, you know, what that's going to look like. But certainly they feel like, I mean, they're certainly gaining pleasure from what they're doing now. in some sick way.

I mean, it makes us sad to think you would gain pleasure from that, right? Yeah. Go ahead, Z. I don't think Lewis would say there was pain in heaven. I think what he was getting at is what I was hitting on earlier. I pulled up the quote, that the blessed will say we have never lived anywhere except heaven. And this will be true because heaven once attained will work backwards

and then turn every agony into glory. So the pain that will exist in heaven is just a remembrance of what was, but that agony is going to be turned into glory. So when he told the story of the lizard on the guy's shoulder, the lust lizard, you know, the lust lizard, and it's like this thing that have been sitting on this person their entire life and they, you know, they're with the angel, and the angels like, yeah, you got this thing you're carrying around.

And the gentleman's like, yeah, I know, it's horrible. I hate it. It's the burden of lust. It's this lizard that is attached to me. And he's like, let me take it from you. And the guy's essentially like, but it'll kill me. Like, I want it gone, but it'll be painful. It'll kill me.

And the angel's like, well, it might kill you, you know. Yeah, what if it does? What if it does? Yeah, it doesn't say, what if it does? And then that's the moment where the guy's like, you know what? You're right. What if it does? I'll be better off dead than carrying this thing around.

And that, by the way, is the picture of conversion, right? That's the picture of us coming to the end of ourself, dying to ourself. What if it does kill me? You know what this is saying? Get this thing off of me. And then I love that part where he pulls off the lizard. He basically kills it, throws it on the ground. And then what does the man do?

He begins to ride, it turns into like this beautiful stallion or something where he ends up riding this creature. He's riding the creature, controlling the creature, as opposed to the creature riding him. That's what I was talking about, I think either in this podcast, the previous one, of understanding. understanding sin and the context of to give over to the creation your dominion and then let the creation ride you.

Let the lizard ride you and control you, in that case in the form of lust, as opposed to you riding it and using it for its own purpose that would glorify God. So what will happen is that agony of all of that pain that you carried, all of that sin, you carried, all that struggle you carried. what will happen when we're in heaven is, according to Lewis, is it will work backwards and it will turn all of those agonies into glory. And that is a beautiful picture. I mean, I've read that and thought, thank you, Jesus.

I love that. I want to read this passage because to me it fits so well into this discussion, and especially the idea that for the first time, I think, since we've been doing an Unashamed podcast, as I've had a better grasp of the idea that eternal life starts before just the coming back of our Lord. We're already entering into that, into our walk with Christ. And you know that's true when you listen to this. This is First Timothy 6th.

And Paul was given a charge to Timothy. And he gives him all the stuff about money and worldly things. And he says, but you, man of God, young Timothy, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold, here it is, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.

So that happens at the calling. That happens when the lizard turns into the horse, right? When you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses in the sight of God who gives life to everything and of Christ Jesus, while testifying before Pontch's palate,

made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearance of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Now we're into that second when he comes back, which God will bring about in his own time. God, the blessed and only ruler, the king of kings, the Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal. So there's no equal. There's no dualism. He alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light whom no one has seen or can see to him be honor and glory. I just, I love that picture of the

idea about this continuation of our humanity in through whatever that last phase is going to look like. That's very powerful. Sign up, take the courts with us, unashamed for

Hillsdale. dot com. Now, that's actually what I was going to say is I think he makes a

distinguish, distinguish between pain as evil and when he's talking about heaven is in pain as in the continuation

of us growing towards God, moving towards God. And he gives an example and I can't remember which

one that says might have been mere Christianity. But he gives the example of like a good pain of like

when you're working out and you get done and your muscles are hurting, but there's like a satisfaction to that. Christian, you should know about that. I do. Yeah. Hey, Christian, do you have like a sign up at your gym that says no pain, no gain? I don't, but it's written on my, on my brain. And on your heart, okay? No, I don't want to say written on my heart because that's, you know, that's, that's, his word is written on the tablet of my heart, but no pain, no gain. It's just something

conscious. He does have it tattooed over his heart. I do, yeah. But what's your talk about, John? Luke, I mean, like, I see his videos, and he's got not only is he enduring the pain of the weights. I'm talking about our dear friend, Christian, your brother-in-law, I guess my, I don't know what you order to make, cousin. I'm your friend. I'm your friend. He also has chains. He puts big chains on the bars.

I mean, he's just, I mean, he's just a pain and durer. That's what he is. Yeah. That, and I used the chains just to remind me that, you know, that my chains are gone. Come on. You've been so, somebody. But if you do it for the joy set before you, as we mentioned earlier, I think that's the endurance.

So when you come out of that after you work out, the reason why you have that feeling of kind of that high is you're like, you know what? I know this was good for me. Like what I just did was good for me. And the picture that is brought up in the lecture is there's actually one of the, one of the pictures, actually literal pictures in the lecture was the picture of Jesus with the wounds and his side.

And I've read that so many times about Thomas. like touching the wounds of Jesus. And I don't think I ever had imagined it quite like that painting because he literally had his fingers. Something about that painting. Yeah, I've never, it was interesting looking at that.

But he says put your fingers in my wound. And so you think about the visceral nature of that. Like obviously Christ comes in with a glorified body, but is a mate. And not say but there's no but to that. That, you know, as amazing. able to recreate it in whatever ways then he had the power to do it to be exactly where the wounds were and what they looked like and what they felt like. And I mean, remember, they ran that spear in there. And I mean, it would have been a gaping hole in his side. And so the fact he could

do that and would do that shows you the power of suffering and his whole point. I mean, in other words, when he looked at that, he was, oh, no, this is the guy that definitely died. But the scars carry. Yeah. the point is the scars carried into eternity. They will carry into eternity. Jesus's glorified body is not going to, like, he's not like, the body that he has now, like, I mean, even saying that's insane to think about the risen body of Christ that exists right now. There's a physical body. Christ has a physical, visible body that Thomas could put his fingers in the scars of Jesus, in the holes in his body,

that testifies that those carry through. And so what Lewis says in the problem of pain is that the memories of the past pains may be retained in heaven, but only as the memory of a healed wound. And so I think that's the idea of what's carrying forward is that all of that pain, all that suffering,

all of that will be, the memories will be there, but it's so hard to grab this because it'll be there in a way that is glorious, which is so difficult for us to understand on this side of heaven. But maybe you've had that experience. Like there's a, Jill and I went through a significant, I would say emotional pain, probably about 10 years ago.

I lose track of time now. And we went through like a serious, like, relationship pain with some close friends. And it was not good. And I remember when we were in the midst of that, I remember feeling the pain of that and thinking, you know, this will never be the same. We'll never be healed from this. This is the worst thing that could ever happen. My life is ruined. My kids' lives are right.

All the worst case scenario, all of that stuff was just like flooding into our life. And it's, and it didn't leave for, for honestly a few years as we were working through this, all this, all this. And now, if you, when I think about that time period, I see the glory in it. I actually did. I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't have whatever character or integrity has been developed in me in the last 10 years would not have happened without that process. And so I've learned to be so thankful for it.

And I mean, I can kind of see a little morsel of what I think Lewis is getting out. I don't know if you, now you've gone through some relationships. trauma. As this is airing, if everything goes like it should be going, they will be wrapping the production of a movie about mine and Lisa's life. More hers than mine. But, you know, obviously we're in it together. But so 25 years ago, we went through this traumatic affair, response to that. I'm in ministry. Everything is just completely devastated. And so it's almost like I was talking the last podcast about mom, grieving, dad's loss. Our relationship was lost.

Everything that had been up until that point, 15 years of being together, was lost because of the gravity and the weight of what we went through. And so for the first, you know, a few years of being back together, and then Lisa really kind of crossing the Rubicon to be a believer, out of that desperate place, that's when she got the lizard off the shoulder, so to speak, and became. a different person. And those early days of walking, I was like, Hughes, I didn't think I had anything left to offer in ministry-wise, that, you know, would we even make it? How could I ever trust her? You know, all the things you doubt and

you fear. But then 25 years go by and you start seeing more and more of the ways that God brings glory out of our weaknesses and failures. And at some point along this 25-year period, you know, I came to the realization that everything that happened as bad as it was, happen because now we can have glory in what God can do. And now we can sit and help other people who are one weekend where we were 25 years ago and they have hope. And they read the words you right now. Now we're making a movie about it. Why? Because we want people to have hope that you can get past this, even infidelity or anything else. So yeah, Zach, I mean, it is amazing. You don't really know when that light switch is flipped. But at some point, you know what happened. And then

all of a sudden you went from like, this was the worst thing that I could ever imagine to, man, God delivered us through a terrible thing that now we have a capacity to help other people get through it. And so you talked about scars. I mean, I always say every time that, you know, we share in some way in some format about where God has brought us, it's like we feel more scar tissue thicker and protective on our own wounds that were so open and fresh and dangerous, you know, 25 years ago, but now it's just like a surgery that makes you stronger instead of weaker. So, yeah, I feel that for sure is that. On talking about heaven, and you've all said it, talking about just the redemption of Christ and God

redeem our past, heaven will be on earth, that heaven is the redeemed earth. Yeah, literally we're in the new heaven, new earth. and what hell will be will be the banishment of those from earth or whatever, however it ends up, wherever it ends up here on earth literally. And so it's not like we're going to heaven. It's heaven will be where we are right now. Yeah, we say that a lot, don't we say that on the podcast. The idea that Jesus brought us that, this new Eden, this new creation.

And even now we have experiences that lead us to what it's going to be like. And sometimes it is hard to imagine, you know, what is going to be like fully. But, man, you know, if it's a continuation of what we've already experienced and then even better, I mean, I can't wait. Yeah. I mean, I will wait because I don't have a choice. In the screw tape letters, when it talks about, you know, when CS Lewis imagines hell as a vast bureaucracy. Yeah. Why do you think he chose that landscape?

Because he knew he knew this how horrible bureaucracies were. He's like, because he tried to get on the phone one time with the customer service team for his insurance company with his son and wrecked his vehicle. And he could not get them to call him back and they couldn't get the insurance lane processed. And he realized bureaucrats are in our demons. Z.S. Lewis was in literal war. You got blown up by a bomb in war, and the worst thing he could think of was corporate. Yeah.

Corporate banking. He built his demon. Well, it's a satire, right? I mean, the whole book is a satire. And, I mean, it is hilarious. I mean, if you think about it and you listen to it or read the book, I mean, it's like, I mean, the picture that he, that, I like the picture because it's a lot more methodical.

And in terms of, like, presenting, like, the, like, the evil demonic realm in a way that you start to see the strategy of it all. Right. And think about the ways that bureaucrats will invade a life force. I've said this about liberal Christianity quite often, that liberalism, I didn't come up with this. I don't know who came up with it, but it's true. Liberalism is like a cancer. It doesn't grow anything.

It grows in something. So if you look at liberal Christianity, what happens is they move into, a spirit-filled denomination. And like a cancer, they grow in that and they start to suck all the resources out. Eventually, they'll grab the entire denomination and take it down. But they don't grow it. They shrink. I mean, look at the PCUSA. I mean, it's shrunk since it went liberal. Hasn't grown at all. Look at all of these churches, you know, that have become, that have engaged in liberal theology. And by that, I mean, they deny the deity of Christ. You know, they deny the biblical teaching on sexuality, things like that.

These are, they're leaving orthodoxy, but that's just what the, that's what the bureaucrats do. And I think Lewis saw that and thought, man, what a like tangible expression of how evil and how the devil works. And he paints a really powerful picture. Well, I was even thinking about our own, in our own country, you know, we're celebrating 250 years this year. And, you know, you see the idealism of the founders and these big, old,

ideas about a Democratic Republic and what it would look like and having representation. And the one thing they never really seemingly counted on was bureaucracy that would grow along with these wonderful ideas and that someone instead of going and donate in two years of their time to be a representative of their people back home would turn that into 70-year careers of corruption and money and all the things that it's become. and you see what bureaucracy is done to our nation in just 250 years. And I'd say that's one of the evils that has been the greatest bane of our country. And the founders never even imagine it growing to that place.

Jesus says that the letter kills, like, you know, or the Bible says the letter kills. I think Paul says actually, but the spirit gives life. And when you think about that, like, why does it kill? You can have a law. And I mean, it's just like when I went to bring up the insurance company thing again, when I filed a claim after the storm, I filed an insurance claim on my house because we got damage. And they denied coverage on part of the claim because they said, well, you have a sump pump policy. And technically this was a problem with your sump pump. And it was a whole ordeal.

Well, I took that response. And I also uploaded my entire insurance policy, which was 100 and like 13 pages. and I uploaded the whole thing in the chat GPT. And I said, okay, give me a response, peel through my policy, and tell me how I can respond to their email. And within like,

I'm telling you, four seconds, one, two, three, four, but I had like this incredible response. And so I sent it back

to the insurance company, and then about two days passed by, they sent back a response. So guess what I did. The same thing. You asked chat, so I uploaded their response in the chat GPT.

I say, how do I respond? And so I went back and forth and I did this probably like seven times. And then I finally realized as their responses got quicker and quicker, I realized that they're taking my responses and they're uploading them into some kind of chat GPT. And so we're in this like snail mate. Chats play in both sides on that. That's what's happening. We're both of our large language models are arguing.

And it hit me that here's the problem with the letter is that, you can always find a loophole in the letter. That is what large language models do. They find the loophole in the letter. That's what they do. You put whatever you put in it, it's going to find a loophole. And so this is like an ever-descending,

devolving into argument over what I'm saying, why they're saying is not true, because the letter kills. But what is the spirit of our agreement? That's the real question. What is the spirit of right thing to do? Right. That's the question that never gets asked, right?

It's only what I have to do, which is such a great point into what he's making with this whole book is when you look at the evil one and how he operates. And they were after the patient, remember? The patient dies in the air raid, right? Yeah. And then he's in glory. And then they're lamenting the fact that, oh, man, this guy gets out of the whole deal. Right. But that's what evil does.

It's always looking for some way to hook somebody as opposed to asking the question. on what is the right thing to do, which is what brings you back to God. Yeah. Which is powerful. There's another verse, and I mentioned it in the last podcast, I think,

or maybe this one in 1st John, too, because we've been in 1st John and the other part of the podcast. And this is something that the book, screw tape letters really helped me understand, probably the first time in my life. I'd never really understood the nature of sin in this way. But the 1st John,

chapter two says something interesting. This is, oh, whenever I was making the case that evil does not originate with God, but it originates from the world. I was quoting First John two, and right in that same spot, if I could ever get to it, he says something really interesting about the nature of, let me pull there real quick, hold on, right around that same part of the passage, he says this, he says, I'll read the full quote, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father's not any. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father. So sin didn't come from the Father. It's not from the Father, but is from the world. I mentioned

that's the verse I was referencing earlier. But listen to verse 17. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Think about the nature of sin is that over time, you have to keep amping up the amount of input to keep the same high when you're sinning, right? Like you think about drug addiction, like you don't, like, no one takes drugs. And they're like, oh, I think I've maxed out the dose now. I'm good. Now you keep upping the dose, right, because you have to take more, an alcoholic.

I drink more alcohol over time because I get desensitized to it. but what happens with the spirit, a life led by the spirit, is you become more sensitive. And so Lewis talks about this in the scrutive letters when he tells him to don't let the patient enjoy the mundane things of life. Whatever you do, do not let them enjoy things like gardening. Because if they can find pleasure in gardening, then we've lost them. If they can find pleasure in just routine task, do not let them become sensitive. we have to desensitize them. And I think that was something that was so powerful to understand about the nature of evil.

And I think it relates to how we understand heaven and hell. When heaven's a state of mind, you're constantly, that's what you're trying to do. And so the picture in the Great Divorces is that over time, they don't have the substance. They're too hollow of beings to actually experience the wonders of heaven. So although they're taking the field trip into heaven, they can't experience. that they don't even want to stay there. Because to them it's like, this is horrible. I see the beautiful grass.

I see the water. But the way I experience it is absolutely horrible because I don't, because they weren't, they were too hollow of creatures to actually hold that type of substance. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. No, that's really good. And by the way, the three things you mentioned there from 1st John 2, 15 through 17 in 16, he mentions those three things.

And in that ironic, that's the exact three ways that say, and went at Jesus in that wilderness when we were talking about when he was tempted. I mean, the exact, that's the three ways he attacked it. And so you see that there, and you see the rebuff every time it's God, it's the word of God, it's trusting him only, it's not putting him to the test,

but following his plan for who we are, which is why I think he took him up on that temple. Because again, everything in the people of Jesus' day were looking at that temple and said, well, it's all in there. And Jesus was like, no, it's all in here. And when this temple comes forth, you're going to be like me. Why do you think that people want to put him into temple? What's that about?

Why bind up the kingdom in the temple in the first place? It's because you can control him then. That's right. If I have a house that I built, I mean, who's greater? The house or the one who built the house? It's the one who built the house. If I built the house that houses God, what does that say about me? I'm pretty awesome.

And I'm probably better than God because I actually built a house that can contain him. And that was the question that Solomon asked. I mean, First Kings 8, surely a house built by my measly little hands is not going to house the creator of the cosmos. And the answer is, of course not. So when going back to the problem of pain,

what pain does is it awakens us to the reality of what Saul said. I mean, sorry, of what Solomon said in First Kings 8, that my hands are not going to build something that will house God. That is the realization that he had is the realization that Stephen had, which got him stoned in Acts chapter seven, seven, right? And then it's, and the one who was there giving the approval of the stoning was Saul, who then had his own experience of pain on the road to Damascus,

and it brought him to his knees for what purpose, so that his eyes could be open and he could be awakened to the same, exact facts so that he could go on Mars Hill and he could say the same thing that he killed Stephen for saying he could tell those at the Ariopagus the Lord your God does not live in the houses made by your hands he doesn't need anything and I've always thought Zach to your point and it's just my opinion I could be wrong but when at the end of San Corinthians 12 when he has that thorn in his flesh remember and he prays three times and God keeps saying no I think it goes back to that original blinding.

He probably had vision problems his whole life. And he has all these ability to help other people and heal people from their stuff. And he's like, why can't I be made whole on that part? You know, I want this. And it could have been something else, but I think it was probably that. And Jesus said no.

Because if you have to depend on me, that's what makes you perfect. Is that dependence on me? And not on your own ability to see. And your eyes were open that day, but they were never the same again. And so even that idea of some sort of physical malady or pain becomes glory because if it trusted Jesus. So I just, I think Lewis got it right. What was his actual answer that God gave you?

My grace is sufficient. Not you. He didn't say, no, you're sufficient. My grace is sufficient. My perfection is made in your weakness. That's what he said. For what I am weak, then I am strong. Exactly.

This was my favorite quote, I think, from the whole series, and it was the one at the very end. The whole cosmic story, though full of tragic elements, yet fails of being a tragedy. Christianity offers the attractions, neither of optimism nor of pessimism. It represents the life of the universe

as being very like the life of mortal men on the planet, of mingled yarn, good and ill together. I just thought that idea of mingled yarn Is this something I'm going to take away from this whole? It was really good. And he said it was a quote from Shakespeare, right? The mingled yarn, wasn't that where it came from?

A quote from somebody. Yeah. That goes over in my head. Which was really. I love it. I love that y'all are like, that's fired me up. I was like, wait, what? I don't know what that means.

I like that. Are you playing like a, that's the Italian thing? He's playing like a Jace. Jace tries to act like he's like, oh, all shucks. Little old me. I don't know what all you're talking about. Yeah, Chris's over here. Like he's an old Aredale dog.

He's smarter and he looks. you know that's yeah well that well i mean those things yeah i mean like like like the tragic comedy like all these these just words i'm like yeah the ming the yarn i'm just confuses me well i'm just making sure this isn't a bit because i mean i because with jays sometimes i'm like jess you're a lot smarter they're maybe it's that chair because that's where jays it could be we have related why are you banning me right now i'm not i'm with you we've we've we have resonated the last seven weeks on this now you're the last five minutes the episode.

John Luce, you know why? Because I want to play Dungeons and Dragons with John Luce. You're hanging out to drive. The last five minutes of our episode. Looked into your universe. Oh, Christian has no idea what we're talking about. Poor Christian. Oh, Christian over there.

Old meathead Christian. Where'd you go? I'm with you, bro. I'm still with you. All right. We're out of time. So tell us how to sign up, Zach. Yeah, you guys can check us out.

Again, go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Sign up the courses are free. And I think we're going to continue this. We'll, we'll, we'll let you know if we're back or not. We'll let you know when we know. Yeah.

Yeah. If we come back, please let us know which one we should do next. That's right. Yeah. I'll tell you what, if you're hearing this,

that means that we, that we made it. And we're going to continue. If you're not hearing this, it's because this is the last time that we were doing something. We got annihilated. Yeah.

We faded into non-entity. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hill. 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 an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.