Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1297 | You’re Being Gaslit About Love … and Most People Don’t See It

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Jase, Al, and Zach kick things off with a nostalgic dive into classic rock, using songs from Foreigner, Sweet, and AC/DC to highlight how culture has long wrestled with defining love. The guys open the door to a deeper look at how modern views on love, sexuality, and identity have drifted from their original intent. Zach contrasts cultural messaging with a life-giving model of love rooted in sacrifice, purpose, and connection. They offer a simple but powerful filter for life: whether our choices lead to fullness and life or isolation and destruction. In this episode: Genesis 1, verse 28; Mark 12; Ezekiel 23, verse 20; Proverbs 7; 1 John 4, verses 7–8; Romans 6; Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 6; Ephesians 5; Philippians 2 “Unashamed” Episode 1297 is sponsored by: https://stopboxusa.com/unashamed — Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% when you use code UNASHAMED at checkout! https://cozyearth.com/unashamed — Get up to 20% off when you use our link and code UNASHAMED! https://chministries.org/unashamed — See why Christians are ditching health insurance for good. Get a simpler alternative at half the cost! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. 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 Chapters 00:00 Jase’s Love Song Rabbit Hole 06:45 Culture’s Shift on Love 11:45 Why Sexuality Matters 16:30 The Battle Over Purpose 21:40 A Graphic Picture of Lust 27:10 When Love Turns Destructive 32:00 The “Highway to Hell” Connection 39:10 Adam’s Failure in the Garden 45:00 Why Dying Leads to Life 50:00 Your Body as a Temple 53:30 Living Out Real Love — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. I do want to remind you guys, we do a podcast every Friday for Hillsdale. And it's John Luke and Christian and Zach and I. Zach, where do you go to sign up for the courses? Because we encourage people to take the courses with us and then listen along with our podcast. Yeah, we're at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And they're free. And so it's good context, too, because now we, last podcast, we brought it Philo. And, uh, Jace, you were kind of randomly studying him as well.

We were doing, I brought him up, but you were already kind of on your little own rabbit hole. I just noticed a philosopher named Philo, who predominantly used the Greek word for love, which, friendship, which is what, where they get Philadelphia. There's a lot of Phil, Philo. Yeah. That's the brotherly love. Jason said he should have been a heavenistic Jew instead of a Hellenistic. Yeah, heavenistic versus Hellenistic.

I thought that was funny. That was clever. It turns out of five minutes to get. No, I thought it was a great point that I did not come up with on my own, but they said the Greek philosophers didn't use what became the Greek word for the ultimate love, which is Agap. it was rarely used until Jesus got here. Yeah, that was breaking news to me, Jay's. I did not know that. I did not.

Someone wrote a book about that. I'm sorry, I can't remember who that was. I didn't read the book, but they said that was in the book. And I think it was like an Italian scholar. Notice that. And I just thought it was awesome because, you know, I had this song stuck in my head. I want to know what love is.

And I told you about all the Google searches. That was every 80s song, right? That was good. Well, that one is stuck in my head. What was the other one that I'm all the one? Oh, love is in the air. Is that a song? Yeah.

And I have a new one because I thought, ooh, I'm going to do a great podcast segment because from my childhood, my dad listened to rock and roll every day, all day in the duck call shop. So I have all these songs in my head. And one of them he loved was, Al, see if you remember this, love is like oxygen. Love is like oxygen. Now, my dad liked it because of the guitar run, which went something like, But when I looked up the lyrics of that song, I was kind of embarrassed that.

I mean, I'm glad I didn't listen to the words of the song, but I thought, okay, this is stupid. Because it's like if you get too much, you get too high and not enough and you're going to die. They said, ooh, that's it. That's it. Let's sing a song about that. So they repeat that line over and over. But who is that? I don't think that that's biblical, defined love by Jesus,

because you can't get enough of this. And high is love for us. So what I want to know what love is. That's foreigner. I thought I remember that from 84. Love is like oxygen is sweet. Sweet. That was the name of the band, late 70s.

I always like Tina Turner. What's love got to do with it? What's the love got to do with it? Which was one of the point is everybody's looking for love in all the wrong places. That's what Lisa uses. Lisa uses that in her testimony. She said, you ever heard that Mickey Gilly's own looking for love in all the wrong faces? Looking for love in too many faces?

Apparently that's the next line. But I mean, I thought I had an epiphany noticing that the first time love is mentioned, it was in a sacrificial context, you had the evil one presenting himself early in creation when two humans that God created male and female to become one flesh. Well, that's when he entered upon the scene. And he's never left that alone. I mean, you're thinking about in our culture,

there is an attack on children I mean, which is just fascinating to me from the spiritual forces of evil. I mean, you just think about where our culture dividing lines are. Yeah. I mean, killing children, which they say, well, it's not a child in a mother's room. Well, what is it? What is it? I mean, it's just so ridiculous to me that this is even a debate.

that it's a human man it's just a small human but i think that shows you where the attack is and even dividing the marriage you know and even this revolution of having women outside the home and all this what about the kids what are we doing well think about the the attempt to take away just the human part of us and who we are because we've advanced now in technologies where you can have a pill that you can send anywhere in the world and to anybody in the world. And there's very little being done to regulate it at all where basically like you take a pill like for ibuprofen for a headache, you take a pill because you're pregnant to get rid of

a living human being. And it's just like the same. The idea is, well, yeah, that's just, you know, what you do. You just, that's a problem. them and it's like a headache. You know, you just got to take a pill and take care of it. But it's so much deeper than that. We know that.

I mean, this is the person, as you said. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's not love. No. That's not love. That is the opposite. Because if you, well, the, because the byproduct of, at least the physical, the physical love connection in the, in the marriage bed is life.

I mean, that's literally how life happens is, you have two people coming together in one flesh and then they reproduce, reproduce more life. And you understand if you start to start thinking about that and in allowing yourself to think about the intention, the purpose, the design of even the human body and how everything functions in this way, then all of a sudden you understand why the evil one wants to shut it down. the point of humanity, the vocation of humanity, the job that we were given to do, is another way of saying that, like, what am I supposed to be doing here? Genesis 1-28, be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and fill it up.

I mean, that is the call. And so there's a reason why I think the evil one attacks sexuality, and he also attacks through obviously the right to even live. live, he goes there primarily, and that's where most of the emphasis is put, because that is the epicenter of what it means to be human. So if the evil one can actually tear that down, and he can turn sexuality instead of it being something that is primarily used for reproducing, instead of it could be something that you consume for your own, just your own in the moment, then he can actually thwart the entire purpose of humanity. And that is kind of what the big

fights about if you want to say it's a fight. I mean, I think it is. It's like that's the battle that we're up against. And then we've been so inundated with a different story about sexuality that it's really difficult for any of us, even those race in the church to access the story that God that God has written, the one that is actually true. It's hard for us to access that. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can. We can actually experience what love is. And God's called us into that. And so I think that's so important. If you could wrap it and what is what is to tell us what's the intention what's the design what's the but Zach even even you're so right and even think about it in terms of how in culture

I mean we've seen a pretty it happened quickly where we even the terminology because words matter we would call two people together in a relationship in a covenant relationship especially we called it making love which is a great term for it it is it's two people that love each other and they're making love when that happens you know, they do produce something. They produce a birth. And then there's more love and there's excitement and there's this idea that it just goes generationally. And then somewhere along the way we quit calling it that and they just started calling it sex. So then it could be with anybody, whether covenant or not, any relationship, male to male, female to female. But yeah,

we get away from the love aspect of it. I'm not saying that from their perspective, love may not be there. but even our terminology changed. And then the evil one just keeps winning, the further this gets away from the will of God. And then it just destroys and just, and it's catastrophic in the results that you see. And it's so much bad happens instead of the idea, God is love. And he says, here, make some of that. So let's be real. Owning a handgun for self-defense comes with a huge responsibility.

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airline travel as well. For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Stopbox when you use the code unashamed at checkout. Head to Stopboxusa.com and use the code unashamed for 10% off your entire order. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that our show sent you. That's code unashamed at stopboxusa.com. That's such a good point. When you read Ezekiel 23, there's a passage in there. about these two sisters that they were they were lusting after these Assyrian warriors. And it's a picture of Israel is what it's a picture of. But the metaphor that she used is these two sisters.

And I mean, Chase mentioned in the last episode how graphic Song of Solomon was. If you want to read something super graphic, and I mean graphic, Go to just go, I mean, go read Ezekiel 2320. And you read this whole story and what you actually see as the progression of her sexuality. And in the end of it, they were brutally raped and murdered. It was the end of love. The thing that she gave herself to ended up taking her life. And it was the most brutal ending.

And that's why you see that for Israel. That was a story of Israel. But that really is all of our story. if we're not, you know, somehow if the Holy Spirit doesn't intervene in us, this is our, this is where we end up at. And I think that, so we have to talk about what real love is. Real love is not being taken over by lust and just being consumed by the consumption of another human being. It actually is about the mingling of souls or the, to bar from Matt Chandler's book, or the union of souls. it's becoming one.

It reflects the very nature of God. Well, and think about Jason, in the last podcast, Jays went to Mark and Mark 12, and where Jesus was talking about the idea of love being one, one God, and then that love that thing goes to one another. And again, you see that no more closely than you do in the relationship in the covenant of marriage because that is when we become one,

you know, two become one. And so in essence, we're striving after the same relationship that God has with us that we strive to have with him. And then we aim that to another person. And for the first time, we get the ability to create like God created because we create life. And then that life is born. And we get to have that love come back for us and that love that goes to a child. I mean, what's more loving than a little baby that you have to care for? So it keeps going back to this idea about being born and being born again.

So you see how all these metaphors come together, whether you're talking about Israel and God, or whether you're talking about us and God, and being reborn or us in marriage. It's the same concept over and over. And the one common denominator of destruction is the evil one. And then when we sin and we follow his will and our own will instead of the will of God, that's when things start to break down at any level, at a personal level, at a relationship level, at any level. And when you put any parameter around that,

I think the accusation that you'll get from the world is you can't tell me what to do. You can't tell me what to do with my own sexuality. And the answer is, yeah, you do whatever you want. I mean, God's answer is, do whatever you want to do. I mean, he doesn't stop us from acting out in any way that we want to act out. God's like, you do what you want to do.

And if that's what you want to go do, then go do that. But what God's saying is, but if you want the abundant life, this is the path. weight. And you may not want that. We can't force that on people, right? I mean, people can, they're going to do what they're going to do. But God's offering us something that's much more fulfilling because he's actually saying, I'm going to connect you with your actual purpose and the way I've designed you. And I've created you with the intention that you would be in relationship with me. What is the two great, the two greatest commands? I've created you with

the intention that one, you would love me. You'd love the Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We would be in right relationship. And then as a, as a, as a, a, As a byproduct of that, you would love one another and you would be in a relationship with one another. I want you to experience the fullness of what I am, speaking as if I'm gone here, I want you to experience the fullness of what it's like inside the inner life of God. You may not want that. You know what I mean? And if you don't want that, then you can go choose hell and you can choose the other route. But the question is, why would you do that?

Well, and it's a good point because you come up with this idea that a lot of times you'll hear. sort of in the protest world is, you know, we don't want to be tolerated. We want to be celebrated. And the idea is, you can't tell me what I'm doing is wrong, which my retort is always, well, I can tell you, you don't have to believe it if you don't want to. That's up to you. But I can tell you, it is wrong. And there will be a price to be paid. And you can't tell me what or it's not true. I mean, I think that's the way I frame it up. That's not true. Now, they may say what's true for me. And I say, okay, I think, go, go do what you're going to do. I mean, I don't, I don't feel really a burden to, like,

enforce, you know, what the Holy Spirit has revealed to me on anybody, mainly because when I read the Apostle Paul, he says that the natural mind cannot accept the things of the Spirit. So my, my goal, and even talking about this stuff, like, if I'm in, like, an open setting with non-believers, I'm going to share with them the truth of God's word, but at the same time, they're like, that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm saying, well, of course, I'm explaining to you the things of spirit. Well, you can't make somebody believe, but it is still truth. Still true.

It's like saying there is no God. No, there is a God. If you choose whether you believe it or not, but he's still there, whether you believe in him or not. That's true. That's why the irony of all this, which is why I said, if I had to go with one definition of that agape love, which Jesus redefined the word when he was on the planet. You know, live a life of love like Jesus, which is why, you know, when you read the red letters,

I mean, there's a lot of great characters in the Bible, and you could get some pointers in how to do different things. But when it comes to love, he is the model. It is God's love in human form, which we're humans. So if you're trying to figure out what love is, but over and over the Bible writers say in the context of love, here's what love is. This is how we know. Jesus gave himself up for others. So if you just read the definition, if you Googled Agape Love, just listen to this. It is the highest form of love, selfless, unconditional, and sacrificial, defined as a deliberate choice. to seek another's will, to seek another's well-being over one's own, rather than a fleeting

emotion. Rooted in Greek, it is often called God-level love, focusing on action, empathy, and grace, regardless of merit or return. Well, that's quite the definition. So what does real all-day comfort actually feel like to you? Well, you've all-day comfort. I had that experience with items that feel awesome on the first use. But then it turns out to be less and less great. That's why I love cozy earth. These things, I mean, I'm telling you, I've got all their stuff. It just keeps getting better and better.

It doesn't matter. Their socks, their sheets, the comforters. They're just ridiculously soft and breathable. That kind of everyday comfort that's long lasting, just like you've been looking for. I think we have all stocked our house full of cozy earth stuff. I think I'm in the lead because my wife loves these products. So we're all in. Yeah, we love the cozy earth, bamboo sheets, and the pajamas.

Also have their bubble cuddle blanket. I think we all have that. Yeah, well, Zach, what I love about it is the, I connect it to rest because my favorite things are the sheets and also the pajamas, as you mentioned. And so I connect that to my rest. I mean, that's my best time to need comfort. And I love it. They fight over the blanket at my house as well. Yeah, hey, look, if you're looking for a Mother's Day gift, anybody, or if you're looking for a nice Easter surprise, I'm telling you, go to

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first marriage is because these lifestyles in our culture that have rationalized, oh, I was born that way, or it's my choice, or these different arguments that people come up with, these things end in death. So I heard an interesting sermon by Tim Mackey. The reason I listened to it is because of the title. It said, love is not a black hole. I thought, oh, got to go listen to that. And so he equated the scientific phenomenon,

because science just tells you how things work. So we have these black holes in our universe, which if you go down that rabbit hole, Let me just go ahead and spoilor alert. They have no idea. But all they know is that anything that goes into it is gone into oblivion. It doesn't come back. It just sucks up energy.

Not even light can function there. And so... There's one thing that can come out. What? It's called hawk and radiation. Well, they say that's the cure for black. holes. I saw that term, but that's the only thing more heat than I got. Yeah. That's more heat than I got. But the point, but the point remains that a black hole sucks in everything

around it. Into what? Just oblivion. And to end to singularity. Yeah. And it ends in destruction. Yeah. And whatever said thing is. And so you see where it's a point where love is. You got one man, one woman, it multiplies generations happen. It's a contagion, and God is love. So it's kind of the opposite of a black hole, which is a good rule of thumb when you're trying to figure out these cultural issues. Does it lead to death and extinction and destruction? I mean, think about speaking of graphic stories. The Proverbs 7 about warning about the adulterous wife.

I remember my dad, he would, I mean, bring that up. Because the story is so, it's, it has all that camouflage of a guy. Here's a young man. In Proverbs 7, you can read it in your own time. But he's just walking down the streets about dark. Of course, you're like, why is it? Why is a young man walking down the streets about dark? Well, he's looking into windows and he's seeing who's out.

And, you know, here comes. Out comes this woman dressed like a prostitute. This is verse 10 of Proverbs 7 with crafty intent. She lurks on the streets in the squares. At every corner she lurks. She took hold of him and kissed him. And with a brazen face, she said, I have fellowship offerings at my house. I have fulfilled my vow.

So I came out to meet you. I look for you and I found you. I mean, look, what guy wouldn't like this? You're the one I've been looking for. This sounds like one of the websites. She's d-gled. We're mainly. Yeah, she's dressed with crafty intent.

What does that mean? She didn't have many clothes on. she's accentuating her positives and now I found you and now look I've covered my bed with colored linens nothing about what we're doing in the bed look at my bed you're not going to believe

I just got a new pillow set I want you to see colors and the linens and the sheet look and I've actually put perfume on my bed oh boy look here's why I wanted to read this. Proverbs 718. Come, let's drink deep of love till morning. Let's enjoy ourselves with love. So here's one case where the word love, I don't think, is laying down your life and looking

at someone else's interest in front of your own. And here's the key line that should make you run. My husband's not at home. Oh, boy. He's gone on a long journey. He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon. With persuasive words, she led him astray. She seduced him with her smooth talk. And then all of a sudden, this story takes a turn for the worst. It gets graphic in a violent way.

All at once, he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose. So here's an alternate word for that. It's a buck in the rut right there. It says the meaning of this Hebrew word is uncertain, the noose, till an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare or coming into decoys. You know what's fixed to happen?

Boom, boom, boom. Little knowing it will cost him his life. I say that big buck that Jay's, always looking for it's when he's chasing that dough is when he comes out across that road. And Lytle was about 16 or 17. So you had this little boy that was liking her. And we were at the lake. And I watched her everywhere he would go at the lake.

He'd follow her around, like just like right behind everywhere she went. And I said, hey, I won't say his thing because we may listen to the podcast. I said, hey, come here real quick. Let me. I want to ask you a question. And he said, yeah, yes, sir, Mr. Dasher. I said, do you know anything about deer hunting? He said, yeah, I know a little bit about it.

I said, do you know in the best time of year to kill a deer? If you want to kill you a buck, when's the best time? He said, I don't know. And he started naming months. I said, now I'm not talking about months. I'm talking about what season. He didn't understand where I was going. I said, when they're in the rut, and I just stopped and I paused.

And he was looking at me. Do you know what that means? I said, when they're chasing the female, that's when you kill them. Yeah. I just stopped. I said, don't chase my daughter around. But I tell Max and all my boys that too,

I said, guys, I mean, this is, I mean, it's right there in the Bible too, apparently. Well,

that's why I'm reading this because I wanted to bring up an obscure love song that I think will help followers of Jesus, especially man. And here it comes. In Proverbs 7,

there's a love song that, and I mean love in the context of proverb seven where she said let's drink deep of love till morning so the song is introduced thousands of years ago and then it came out let me see when this song came out before i introduce it i'm trying to get you on the edge of your seat i'm there do you know what it is i do not in verse 27 of chapter 7 he gets to the end of the story after the deer You know, you got an arrow in your liver, you know, when you went to the perfume bed with the husband not there.

And it started when you were just looking. You know, walking along. It started when you, because that's how all these stories start, you know, when we talk about divorce and adultery and pornography and all. It started when you started walking down the street about dark looking. So let me see when this song came out. It's like one guy said a long time ago, Jay's, when you're nowhere in particular, you're somewhere in general. So here's the love song.

It was released in 1979. I was 10 years old. I was a freshman in high school. Well, you might have been on this street. I probably was. I probably was. So he gets to verse. 26, he said, many are the victim she has brought down. Her slain are a mighty throng. And then here's the love song that came out based on this verse. Her house is a highway to hell.

So you never realize that ACDC, I'm on the highway to hell. That is a Bible verse in the context of the wrong. definition of what love is. So you guys know I've got five kids, which is, that's a lot. And having a big family like that, it'll make you pay attention real quick to where your money's going, especially when it comes to your health care, because traditional health insurance just keeps climbing up. It's starting to feel like we're getting boxed in. That's why my family and I switched to Christian health care ministries that we haven't

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I don't, you know, it wasn't the song itself, but riding on a school bus and a girl walked on the bus and I had seen her the year before and she walked on the bus that year and she looked a lot different. And then I started thinking a lot different. And that started it. I'm telling you, I can remember it. I can remember when the evil intent awakened in my heart. Well, here, here's what's interesting as you're reading.

that what I was thinking of I was thinking of how even what we're saying I mean think about that the absurdity of this what we are saying right here is controversial like it's very controversial it's kind of stuff to get you canceled and you think well why there has to be a limit to what you're doing you have to put guard rails around it what we're saying is is that the guard wells aren't arbitrary guardrails they're actually the guard rail is what fits into reaction and the way that you can test that is what you just said, Jase, very simply just asked this question, does it lead to a death work or does it lead to a life work? And if you say no to the death work, yes to the life work, you're going to live a life.

That's the whole thing. This whole thing is about living and living life to the fullest. So just ask yourself the question, what's the end result? Isolation, death, and loneliness? or is it abundance, community, and life? And if you choose the latter, you're going to find yourself in what we call the kingdom of God. But you nailed as there in lies the hypocrisy. And since Chase brought up ACDC, who I quite loved during this era of my life,

you shook me all night long song and then compared to Highway to Hell song, which is hypocritical in its own nature, as you're describing. Because what happens is when you're unfettered, when you throw off anything and call it love, then you wind up finding yourself on a path of destruction. But then you want to curb other people that you don't agree with. Yeah, we're being gas-flip. And so think about that that's what the evil one does. He gaslights us.

But we talked about this in, I'm not sure if it's aired yet, in one of the episodes on Hillsdale with ancient Christianity, the professor, what's his name? and Professor Calvert. He was talking about in the Garden of Eden, and I'd never thought about this. In the Garden of Eden, when you got the first original sin, basically Adam was there,

but Eve was the one who was actually deceived and took the fruit and ate it first. And that's one of the things that Paul brings up later on in the Bible when he talks about gender roles, he says Adam was formed first, and I think he says something like it wasn't, it was Eve who became deceived, ate the fruit. And so he's anchoring in kind of these different gender roles in the creation

event and also the event of the fall. And I never really understood what that second part meant when he said, when he says, Eve was the one that became deceived because I'm like, well, Adam, you know, he was there too. He was in on it. Well, it seems like Paul's blaming Eve. That's not actually what he's saying. And I didn't understand this until like literally last week when we were doing this, that lecture. Adam received the instruction from God before Eve was ever even on the scene. So all that existed was Adam and God, and God said to Adam, you can eat from any tree in the garden except for one.

That was the instruction to Adam, not Eve, to Adam. Then fast forward, Eve arrives on the scene. God creates a suitable helper for Adam. then the devil comes and he says, hey, did God say that you can't eat from any tree in the garden? Now, he was the one that responded, but Adam, like think about it. Eve wasn't there when that conversation was even had

between Adaming. Adam was the one who fell. Adam did not protect his wife. Adam did not protect her. He knew. He knew. He was the one that had the conversation with God. And he should have said, well, hold on.

Actually, hold on. no, that's not what happened. Or he could have gone back to God. God, the devil's here telling us to this. Like, that's not what you meant when you, like, what's going on here? But he did nothing. He sat back. He abdicated his responsibility.

He fed his wife to the wolves. And boom, sin enters into the world. And that's when death entered in itself. So I think that it's interesting when you start thinking about how God set this whole order up. It's not, I mean, the order is actually set up for human flourishing. Like, this is actually the way to human flourishing. So if you want to have a conversation about that, that'd be an interesting conversation. But you ever notice that no one wants to have a conversation about what leads to human flourishing?

What people want to have a conversation about is, you can't limit me. It's the great gaslighting. I agree. And I've always thought that my opinion was that Adam, was waiting to see what was going to happen to Eve. He really wanted as much as she did, but he threw her under the bus to let her try and see what it. Because, you know, the concept was which would you die? And when she didn't fall over dead, then he ate some.

So I firmly believe it's a violation of the first order, and that was to protect. You know, he was supposed to protect the garden. That was the original sin. That was exactly right. That was it. That's the first one. Yep, I agree. Well, what I wanted to say is,

You know, this is a, this gets me upset because, you know, he's in 1st John getting back there when he's like, he brings up that being born and being born again, which we've talked about it, being little children, and it's love is woven all through this. We read that 1st John 4, 7, dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. What upsets me is all this stuff leads to death, the not knowing what the real definition of love is or where it comes from, which we've got the answers here. This self-sacrificial giving up, well, it sounds like death. And so when you think about being born again and you throw in the idea of baptism, you know, God's given us an opportunity to die. to give up ourself, which is the definition of love. And 100% Jesus' death on a cross and his resurrection saved us, 100%.

So you get that opportunity, though, and think Romans 6, or there's numerous passages about you can give your life up. You can give your life to him. And these religious people start saying, well, I don't know if you have. have to do that. I don't know. And I'm like, it is infuriating to me. Hey, where some debate, some debate came up about whether you should do that or not. Or what if you don't and all these questions? And I'm like, wait a minute, I've been given the opportunity to participate in God's love, which the definition is giving your life up.

That's why I read those verses where it says, live a life of love as Jesus loved us, who gave himself up for us. So you hear the story of Jesus, and you're like, I want to give my life to him, and you go up to the pastor, and he's like, well, you don't have to do that. Well, no, he wouldn't say that.

But when you read the Bible for what it says, you have an opportunity to do this, and that's why I think he chose to do that, where you literally humble yourself and say, yeah, I'm reenacting this. in water. I'm going to die so that I can live, which is what Jesus

did for all of us. That's exactly how he defined love. Hey, I think it's even more than, I mean, we have a hard time in the language. It's more than the way he defined love. It's the way love is because it's who he has.

And so when you said something right there, this is a deep thought. This is a very deep thought. I probably can't even articulate it. You said about giving your life up, and you said that sounds a whole lot like death. And we're sitting there saying that it's life. And you're like, well, it sounds like death. So how do you reconcile that?

Here's how you reconcile it. It's the resurrection. The Christ, his resurrection, it's more than just giving us like an escape hatch out of, you know, off the planet. That's not, it's more than just like putting life into my physical body. What his resurrection, what it actually accomplishes is it's actually

showing you, that no, actually dying to self is not actual death. To give your life away is not actual death. Now, if there was no resurrection, yeah, it would, Paul says, we are to be pitied more than all men, go out and consume as much as you can possibly get on this side because it's all you got. Go get after it. But if there is a resurrection of the dead, if that is true, this is the whole point of Apostle Paul's teaching, if there is a resurrection, of the dead, then now we can actually enter into the way. We can actually live our life as Christ lived his life. We can actually embody the same attitude of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not even consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,

taking on the very nature of a servant, being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place. So that Philippians 2 passage that Paul's writing about, the reason why we can live a sacrificial life, very simply, is because Christ rose from the dead. He conquered it. And so we too can conquer it. And now we can actually give our life away without fear that it's going to end in death. It's going to actually end in quite the opposite. Well, it's interesting because I had a perfect illustration of this yesterday.

A man came up to me in his wife, and they had their youngest son with him, who's a grown man and married and was all. also at the marriage refresh they were at. And he said, I was just going to tell you, this has just been two of the best weekends of my life. He said, I just got baptized last Sunday here. And I said, oh, congratulations, you know, new birth. He said, oh, you just, you don't know how the half of it. And then he gave me about a five minute, you know, quick recap of his life, growing up with an alcoholic father, abuse, all things that were there. Then he abused his wife and his kids and was just a terrible person and, you know, was becoming an alcoholic himself. And then finally realized that somewhere along the way. And first, he's just tried to be better, but he never fully surrendered.

And he finally did. And so he was just telling me, and with tears in his eyes, about what this weekend had meant to him, because now he's hearing things in a different perspective. And I told him, I said, it's because you're a newborn, you're new. And now you have the Holy Spirit. And for the first time you're listening with ears and you're seeing with eyes. And you're seeing with, eyes that see things differently. And that's why it's penetrating your hearts so fully. And then I looked at his son and I was like, and you are the benefit of this. And he said, I've learned more for my sons than I ever did for my fathers. And I said, well, praise God for that. But now look what's going to happen because they see their dad surrendering. And they see that's the opportunity for them as

they go forward. I said, what you did, brother, is you broke the generational curse that the evil one has put on your family. And you're saying, I'm not going to be this. And your sons are already ahead of you. Now you're going to, there's no telling where this family is going to be, you know, three, four generations down the road. This is how it works. But it doesn't happen until somebody goes into a grave and comes out and move. That's how it has to happen. I got to read this now. So Romans 6, where it said, we died to sin. How can we live in any longer? Six, two. Don't you know that all of us who are baptized in the Christ baptized in the death? We were raised through the glory of the Father, so that we may live a new life.

So then he gets to verse 8, and he says, now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Now, he's already said in verse 5 that if we died like this, we'll be united with him and his resurrection. So I believe in verse 8, he's talking about now, what's left of your life, being born, and now you have the opportunity of love. And to Zach's point, verse 9, because we know that Christ, since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again.

Death no longer has mastery of him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So when you compare that to where he would later say in Romans chapter 12, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is the way you worship. Don't conform any longer to the pattern of the world. Well, this sounds familiar with 1st Corinthians 6,

and this kind of goes back to when Jesus said he would die and be raised three days, and he linked that to the temple. Destroy this temple, and I'll come back in three days. Watch what he says. in 1 Corinthians 6 kind of with the highway to hell in the back of our mind

he says everything is permissible, verse 12, but not everything's beneficial. Food for the stomach, verse 13, and stomach for food, but God will destroy them both. And then he starts talking about the body.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, which would be sex that's not right. It's not more. which implies there is a sex that is right, and he's fixing to bring that up. The body is not meant for sexual immorality. Watch this statement, but for the Lord,

which is why he said in Ephesians 5, live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. So we give ourselves to the Lord. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. same language as Roman 6. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?

Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Should I go down the highway to hell? Oh no. Never. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it has said, watch what he brings up. The two will become one flesh. Now we're back to the garden and the creation, and that's where the Ewan showed up.

But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit. And this is so profound. Flea from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body. But he who sin sexually sins against his own body, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? You're talking about a verse that. It's been missed in churches.

I've heard more sermons about don't smoke because your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. You know, a smoke will kill you so you can make a case for it. But don't go here and make that case. He's not talking about that. He's talking about one thing. A misdefinition of what love is. It's that proverb 7, you're going out there by dark or you're getting on the, you know, internet and doom scrolling. looking for love in all the wrong places and all the wrong faces and you ain't looking at anybody's

face on the internet no you know you're looking from the neck down but i do think when he brings up that where the temple of the holy spirit who is in you whom you've received from god you are not your own you were bought at a price therefore god therefore honor god with your body what's he talking about bought at a price. That's the definition of love. God showed you, this is how we know what love is. He laid down his life. And that is what we're called to do.

And I think it starts in our marriage and in our family. Because if you want to be a father, guess what it's going to take? Sacrifice. You want to be a mom? As soon as you give birth, guess what you're fixed to do for the rest of your life. You're going to be a living sacrifice. because that's what it's all giving. That's why that sermon about the black hole was,

it was a good analogy, you know. Well, I think that's a good verse to end on because I think where we've not equipped people to have this conversation at church is we have, we've honestly, unfortunately, bought into an eschatology that is not biblical. Your body is a temple. Your body is the temple.

of the Holy Spirit. We're not waiting on something out in the future. No, no, no. The Bible says your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And what that means is your body is the connecting place of heaven and earth where God actually dwells now. God lives in your human body. Every other sin a man commits is outside of his body, except for the one that you mentioned, the misappropriated quest for love, except for sexual immorality. All other sit in, dipping, smoking, not good for you. Those aren't sins against the body. Apostle Paul is very clear.

The only sin a man commits against his body is this one. And this is why it's so important because what it does is it actually diminishes your ability to actually find the oneness of God, to find oneness with God. You were created for a purpose to be with God. And so if you want that integration, then you're going to have to submit to the revelation that God's given you of how to find that. integration. That's simple. That's good. We're out of time. We will continue this discussion on love. And the reason why we spend so much time here is because John does. And there's some still profound things to learn in this text, which are great. So we'll pick it up next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all

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