Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 15 | Jase’s Stalker, Sarai’s Faith, & the Opium of the People

Episode Date: August 4, 2019

Phil and Jase are having a hard time understanding each other in this week's episode. Jase tells about his North Carolina trip and his female stalker. Al begins the conversation about the importance of faith. Phil tells what Karl Marx thinks of religion.  See episodes of "Unashamed with Phil Robertson": https://bit.ly/2J4XsiX   See clips from Phil's TV show "In the Woods with Phil": https://bit.ly/2PNM6k1   To take a FREE 30 Day Trial of Phil's TV show and the rest of BlazeTV: https://www.BlazeTV.com/Phil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So, Jase, you just had a little trip to the great state of South Carolina. This is turned into an annual event for my family, as in my wife, three kids, which one of them is married now, his wife, and now we have our Nicaraguan young girl that, you know, she's sort of like the adopt. She's sort of like Rebecca to Willie's family. Yeah, we've kind of acquired her. She was an orphan girl from Nicaragua. She's worked her way to get a scholarship in the United States,

and she goes to college. But, you know, she has one sister, but no money. And you come to America, you don't know anybody. That's a good thing coming out of the immigration problem. The ones we're looking for, the ones you're suggesting here is exactly right. Oh, this girl has worked. Look, it's not because of us. she has worked her entire life.

The guy who ran the orphanage down there in the Nicaragua, he has been her mentor and has really helped her. He's one of our One Kingdom guys. Yeah. Well, the bottom line is since you brought it up, we're not at all anti-immigration as God's people. Immigants talked about throughout the Bible. Sure.

We love everybody, huh? That's right. Well, yeah, a shocker of shock. Look, but we do. We are saying that when the open borders and that kind of fiasco, he just can't have it. You have to have some. Well, you have to have a process.

Orderly process to get them in here. Even, even Karina, that was, she had to go through. She had a tough time. Oh, man. She had a scholarship here to go to school, but she got pushed out of her own country, and she couldn't get back in. Well, that was a civil war going on in. You talk about other countries?

She couldn't get back in her own country. Now look, this is what this girl did. She learned English just on the internet, YouTube, and so then she starts applying to other countries to get an education. And so she gets accepted in Germany. She goes to high school there on a scholarship by herself for four years. Goes to Germany. Never been there. Don't know anybody.

Don't know German. And so there she works her tail off, learns German, you know. and she's still working on her English. And then she applies, gets a scholarship from there to the United States, and now she's here. But, you know, they called us because they were like, we got a girl of the stranded. She can't get back into her country.

And it wasn't, you know, her time. She had like two months of interim time where she's basically stuck out of her country in a neighboring country trying to get to the United. No family. She loves her country. America. She's here. Yeah, but she loves Nicaragua.

she wants to make a difference there. You know, she works. And she's no handout here. She won't even take a handout. She works. She gets her a job on campus and awesome, awesome heart, loves the Lord. And really, that's what she attributes to her success. She's like, you know, I trust God and he's taking care of it.

But anyway, so every year for the last, I guess, four or five years, we've taken a trip. It's kind of an adventure-type trip. We went to Israel last year. So we went to Utah one year. and climb the mountains. You know, my kids, they're into this. You know, we're running hiking, biking, which is. So preferring godly immigrants might not fly too well with red lips and the squaw.

You know what I'm saying? I have no idea what that means. But anyway, so this year we go to South Carolina. The red lips at the squad. Because I wanted to do something along, you know, where I could fish. They got, you know, I just want to see the place. there's 100 golf courses on, you know, on the island at Hilton Head. So we went, Phil, you'd love it.

It's like the yuppies took over and they turned a wilderness into like a commune. Like they built a city in the wilderness. They don't cut trees there. I would love this. Well, I was being sarcastic. And everything's like cookie cutter. You know, and look, everybody bikes everywhere and they kayak and they jog and they run. there's little families, you know.

I really liked it. It's a, it is a, I mean, it's constant motion there. I know, you know what I'm saying? Everybody's always out. They're walking, the dogs. Oh, yeah. But I could never find a store, like, because there's no signage. Yeah, the signs are all, nothing is like out there.

Everything's in the woods. It'd be like if you had a town in our hunting property. Do all the roofs have mirrors on them yet? I don't know what that means. I'm not following you. Why would a roof have a mirror? Well, Because these people don't want to

Any kind of power They want to come in from the sun Only I figured this much Well You know what I never saw Well you couldn't because there's too many trees Well I never saw a power line though I guess it's all underground

It is Anyway I liked it But it's like you know how our culture Reverts back It's now like Writing a bike is the coolest thing ever It's like making a comeback Everybody was wearing

Was on bikes Going back to your route so you'll know with the Robertson clan, born and raised, this is your parents coming on when they were children. You say, was there ever one bicycle or tricycle? Did one ever come out of the Robertson clan, the entire seven children? Was there ever a bicycle or tricycle on the premises at any given? in time zero what you don't like bikes nobody had the money to buy a bike you walked well walk we all had a rubber tire a piece and when you were the closest we ever got the bicycle or tricycle you would take an old rubber tire yeah no rim or anything just a tire and you would

roll it and you would five or six of you would take off rolling the tires so you would pretend like boy it'd be nice to actually be riding the tire we've gazed who was the had the fastest tire well whoever the fastest child was had would win the contest on which which one of these tires is really get it well the fastest one but always win the contest pushing the tire he was he was rolling the tire man power we come a long way Oh, man. Well, my first bike didn't have the rubber part. It was just too, you know, I found it the side of the road down here somewhere.

I don't think we ever bought any of you a bicycle. No bikes. But we all had them because people. We held to that, no bicycles or tricycles around here. But we had them. Because people, you know, it's weird about being at the end of the road and the end of the civilization where you live is people come down here and just dump stuff. You know, like, you know. A lot of dogs.

A lot of dogs. But I mean old bikes. Right over here, there was a sign that said no dumping and people dumped there. That's where you went. They took the no dumping sign as they signed for, we need to dump stuff here. Willie and I used to just, every morning we would comb that. And that's where we got our toys and our bikes. The redneck just took dumping here, but they forgot the no.

The no is what they do. So I'm in South Carolina. Well, we go fishing. And they're like, I didn't want to go way out. they're like it's the largest shark nursery in the world so I mean you you basically if you put anything on a line and just put it out the side of the boat a shark's fixing to hit it and we prove that that seems like a wonderful place to spend three or four days well it was rolling I tell you this there were there were no people swimming in the water that I saw at any point at any

time and they had little beaches but there were people on jet skis and all and I thought, you know, there's a fine line between riding a jet ski and becoming, you know, a devil horse, you know, that bait that you use for large mouth. They never saw Jaws too. Well, my buddy that just popped in my head. My buddy the other day sent me some YouTube video. There's a guy in Gulf Shores where we go. He's on some kind of board where he's like, he's like standing up, but he's going on the board. And they had one of these drones filming it.

and there was a huge shark just trailing him, you know, behind him. Oh, whoa. So anyway, we... Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. So we go out there fishing, so look, you know, they were catching sharks. My kids going crazy, you know, Missy tied into one of those spinners. I don't know what they call, which kind of shark it was, but it was just literally spinning out of the water. She's screaming, you know, and the Nicaraguan girl, Karina, she's just going crazy.

She's never even fished before. first fish was like some big tiger shark or whatever and so I'm fishing this little cut because he said you know the fish you can eat he's caught some over there so I got a little spin cast and reel 25 pound test line and so I feel a bump you know I set the hook and I'm like what in the world I mean it just was just slow movement just whirr dead weight It was a fight lasted probably 20 minutes, but there was no runs. I just keep coming up. And he's like, that can't be a fish.

Because it just, and so we thought it was a stingray. But it just didn't, I've caught stingrays for it. It just didn't feel like that. So up this comes and everybody screamed because it literally looked like the alien in the alien movies. It looked like the hatch was. was going to drop and the teeth were getting. But it looked like the alien when it came up.

And I was like, what in the world is that? And so our guide started going nuts. He said, that's a horseshoe crab. And for you that, you know, you can Google a picture of them. I mean, they look like an alien. And he's like, oh, yeah. Well, he went on this, this kind of bothered me. You know, he said, oh, that's one of evolution's relics.

right there. You caught the crossover. You know, they're protected. We got to get him back in, which I want to take a picture. And he's like, oh, no, no, no. I'm like, well, you can't help but he bit my shrimp. I called him. It's not illegal to catch him. Let's take a picture and throw him back. And on its own, saltwater dreamed this thing up and said, no way.

Why don't we make a, what did you cut a crab, a horseshoe crab, guys? That's the first thought that went through my mind. When I saw this, I thought, you're telling me. This just came from nothing. I mean, this was like one of the most detailed creatures that you could imagine. There were legs going everywhere and I don't know. How big? How much the thing?

It was 20 pounds. Oh, okay. It was pretty big. Evolution's relic. Well, that gave us an opportunity to share. That's code word for we don't know where this one comes from. That's right. Exactly.

This is, this gave, you know, me an opportunity. intended to say, well, you know, there might have been a creator behind that. And he was like, do what? I mean, it's like, I had no idea what I was talking about. But it did make me think while we were there. I mean, I love the place. I love the community that's fishing. We're catching these things.

But the deer had taken over because there's no hunting on this island. And so it's the same kind of deal. A lot of times when you see in the millennial crowd and the yuppie crowd, They try to live together with nature instead of controlling it as a responsibility. Oh, we love it. You know, we love seeing the deer, but in the back of the mile, we know, look, that's the greatest thing you can eat on this island. It just ran across the car. And so their biggest problem is deer.

It's not car wrecks, you know, they're running over deer. It's more the deer running over the cars. There's so many deer. but they're malnourced, you could tell it. They're all small because there's not enough, you know, to eat around it. You need to turn, lose about 15, 20 rednecks in there, and they, it whittled all that down. Oh, Jimmy Ray could remedy that. Yeah, he could remedy that situation.

But it was a good trip. It was a good, good family. Do you have any fans? Do you have any fans? Oh, yeah. Look, so we don't, we. Well, I hate I missed it. Yeah.

We don't eat out for obvious reasons because you recognize, you know. But the last night we did. because they said this restaurant, I mean, they go, they take the, they get the oysters and the shrimp and they pull up to the harbor and dump them. You're not going to be any pressure. And then you can eat. Yeah. So I'm like, well, let's.

They did know what was good table fair. Oh, Phil. Look, we go this place. And, of course, there's an hour away. There's a thousand people there because I'm like, there's a thousand people here for a reason. So we get down there, it's right in the bay. And, of course, it turned into an event for me, you know. I'm taking pictures.

People recognize me. I'm on record as saying, Jay, since you're telling you, South Carolina story. I didn't know about the little island with the shark infested waters, but I did give a speech one time, and I said, I've been all over the United States, most of the states, few of them I missed. I said, but I'm here to tell you, the best people I've ever actually run up on was from South Carolina. And some guy in the back said, you stay around here long, you may change, mind.

But I was just saying, well, I was impressed. The South Carolina, but look, I was telling her good people. My wife. North and South Carolina. Well,

the people I was taking pictures with and this kind of deal, these were just tourists from all over. And my wife got so upset because I had one woman who just, I mean, she was a lot older than me. She was way bigger than me. She was really loud. And she just thought she had in her mind that she's in South Carolina.

and she's going to go out on a date with Jace from Duck Dynasty. I'm looking at you, Jace. I'm trying to see what exactly was it that was drawing her to your presence. I have no idea. I could say the same thing about you. Tell some of your stories. My conclusion is there's a lot of hard-up women out there. So what do you do?

Just kind of skirting. Well, first I brought up my wife. I'm here with my wife. you know, but it didn't, it wasn't a deterrent. Well, I didn't know my wife is watching this. Because she's been way too. They're watching all the time. He's been way too friendly here, you know, and evading my personal space.

So here comes my son who says, uh, excuse me, ma'am, my dad's here with his family, and it's time to go, you know. He just, but so I'm like, why did my son do that, you know? Well, Missy sent him over. Missy sent him over and said, hey, your dad needs help because that, he was trying to be. send us words some of the guys that speak a lot and they said it would be better that when you're staying in a hotel and someone rings the doorbell it would be better if someone else open the door not you feel not you personally don't open the door I'm like what are you talking about

They said, well, what they do is they have these women that they'll send up, and they might not be as big as the one. He said she was a large woman. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I was just saying. It was intimidating. But you see one out the door, you open the door, hey, what are you need? And she just embraces you.

Somebody else is down the hallway taking a picture. Then they put the picture on the Internet. You know, there's Phil Robertson, you know, one man, one woman. you know, for life. Nersfield Robertson, and Loevee Dewee with some chick in a hotel. Bo, we got him now. And I'm like, do what?

What happened? So they basically said, don't open the door. So to this day, when I was warned about that, I had never even thought about that. But I said, I know why. I know why.

I just wouldn't think there would be a woman knocking on your door. Well, I don't know. That's what I'm saying. If they chase Jace, you know, why not the old graveyard over here? Anything's possible.

I mean, I don't. did in the first year of Duck Dynasty, I pulled out of my house, took a ride of the stop sign, came up to the next stop sign, and a car just come pulling in front of me, like you'd see in a movie. And I thought they were going to get out with guns. Well, there was two girls, two young girls, dressed scantily, and one of them comes around, I have my window down, and she just comes at a dead run toward the truck. And I'm like, what is going on?

I knew there wasn't a weapon, so I wasn't, like, startle. and she just jumped in my window, in my truck, basically in my lap. Well, I looked at the other one because I'm like, what are you doing? I mean, it startled me then. And the other one was video on it. And so the girl looked at you get it. Did you get it? Yeah.

And I'm like, get out of my. Well, I never saw it, but I don't check it. That was, I mean, that was like seven years ago. But I thought, okay. It's just frolicing and fun with Jeff. you know, the guy that goes around and preaches. Here's what he's doing. And they show that.

It's out there somewhere. I'm sure somebody sell it. Well, I guess it pays to be careful. You know, the Falwells told us that with Jerry Falwell, the senior dad, that back in the day, because, you know, he was after the pornography. And you remember, he was one of the early guys to speak up nationally. So they were after him. And they'd do these setups where they try to put women in his hotel room.

So it got so bad that he was. have to send an advance team of people in to make sure there wasn't anything because it happened apparently once, but they, you know, they didn't get a, they were trying to get pictures of him in a compromising situation to ruin his reputation. That's why you never go anywhere alone. Here's a news flash for America. When you, when you hit about 73 and you're a godly man, if you're truly a godly man, you hit about 73, there's a long list of things that are more important than sex. So everybody will understand.

By 73, okay, yeah, we made a run at it, but that's way down the list. What do you say? You're in that stage now where you're just trying to get through it. What's on your mind when you get up? Wow, women. I said, the resurrection of the day is on my mind.

I'm 73 years old. I got four years, and that's the average age of a male when he dies in the U.S. someone said, are you after the chick? I said, not hardly. I'm after the resurrection of the day I do, dude. There is a lesson in that, like, because I travel a lot, and you do too.

And, of course, I'm always having my little team there with me or whatever. But every once while, there'll be a woman come up and be like, what are you doing after the show? I always say the same thing. I'm going home or I'm going to the hotel and I'm calling my wife. She's like, oh, that ends it. It's over. Yeah, and I don't travel. I mean Lisa is always with me, which you told us that day when we were young, never leave the house without your woman or your Bible.

That's it. And so that's good advice that I've stuck to. So where are we today on the podcast here? We are in Genesis. We're talking about Abraham. Last time Mom was with us and we sort of looked at the sort of the family relationship. You know, Abraham is a big deal in the Bible. And in fact, today I want us to talk a little bit about, you know, he's mentioned.

more in the New Testament, you know, post-gospels. Well, I mean, Jesus mentioned him several times too. But he's mentioned more in the New Testament than any other figure other than Jesus himself. Father of our faith. Father of our faith. And so, you know, you think about him. Here's a guy. He's basically just kind of living his life.

He's obviously a man who believes in God because he listens when God calls him. So in Genesis 12, we talked about this last time. he basically says Abraham I want you to take your family and I want you to go to a place you've never seen and I'm going to bless you and you're going to be a blessing to many people and you're going to have at this point Abraham is he's Abram he hasn't changed the name yet but he's 75 years old and he has no children. Sarah his wife Sarah at the time was barren she couldn't have children and you know people were living longer in his day. 150 years. So I guess, I don't know if it's just a middle age, but I mean, 75 years old. Yeah, the exact word is you is Abraham, Abraham against all hope. That's right.

Yeah. Having a kid to 75, your wife's about 90. By that time, how old was he? Well, it was 75 when we first see him. Yeah. Yeah. And then God comes back to him when he's 99. So 24 years have gone by.

And God comes back to him and says, because at this point, And you mentioned this last time, Dad, Abraham is, he believes in God and he believes the promise. But here he is, he can't, they can't have kids. So he's thinking, well, maybe, maybe I need to do something. Maybe God needs me to, you know, help the plan here along. So Sarah has a, has a handmade, has a, you know, person that is, you know, her servant. And so Abraham marries her, which was, you know, in that day, that's with polygamy. and then she gets pregnant by him.

So remember Sarah is the problem. She can't have children. But Abraham, even at, you know, hit this age. We'll pass our lineage down through Hagar here. Right. So that was his thought process. The problem was that wasn't God's plan. So Abraham realizes in Genesis 16, it's like, you know, I got the son.

Because God sometimes says, oh, by the way, by this time next year, Sarah's going to have a child. the promise I told you, you're going to have a son. Well, Abraham laughs, and he's like, he already has a 13-year-old kid by Hagar, who he thought was all the blessings were going to go through him. Remember last time we talked about the two warring brothers, so you got Ishmael who winds up being basically the father of Islam, because, you know, when you follow his lineage all that. And then you got Isaac, who is the father of the Jewish lineage as it went down through.

It's amazing. It came from the same person. It's amazing. And he was thinking. and he was doing a good thing, but he wasn't. And that's what I love about the Bible, because Abraham is a central figure, and he is a, obviously the father of the faithful,

and yet he was a flawed person who made a ton of mistakes. That's one of the reasons, Al, I believe the Bible is true, because here's the father of the Arabs coming from Abraham, him trying to kind of outdo God, help him out a little bit. Right. So Abraham and Hagar, here comes Ishmael, the father of the Arabs. And then here comes Isaac, the father of the Jewish lineage, the seed line of Jesus. And you look at it and you say, how do you dream this stuff up?

If it's all a man-made thing, how in the world, could you come up with that? It's a strong evidence. But it also shows you that God uses families, which is why I told about the trips that we go on. Because it's our, I'm trying, my number one goal in life. is to make sure I do everything in my power via God's power to get my immediate family wife and kids headed north, you know, to heaven. And so when you take a trip,

and that's why a lot of the things we do are hard, like when we went mountain climbing in Utah, and it kind of breaks you down, but you've got to come together as family, because now my kids are getting older. They're all, you know, they've moved across the country. So we come together at least, you know, to do that. But Al, when you mentioned about how despite the flaws,

a lot of people they read the Old Testament, and they're like, well, these people were terrible. You know, I think of David, you know, and what he did, and you see Abraham and the problem. But really, when you think about it, we're all terrible at some point. That's why he would eventually send Jesus, and that's why he uses us despite, you know, our flaws. It always comes back to that.

And all families are different and all roles, you know, change from time to time based on circumstance. But the bottom line was God knows a heart. He knows if your heart is right. And even though we mess up and struggle. And infallible God working with fallible human being. That's a story of the Bible. Well, and you're right, Jay. You think about it, people look at the Bible and you talk about Abraham or Sarah or Moses,

all these people that we're going to be talking about. about. And they almost put them in this place of it's holier than than real people. They become characters. If somebody was writing our story today, like if God decided he was going to have another revelation, he's just writing about his people, we'd have the same thing. We'd have mistakes. You talked about it with the cell phone deal. I mean, in a family struggling trying to figure out when the evil one comes in, I mean, that was a godly solution. Isn't it amazing, allow that God goes to great lengths to show us throughout the ages, beginning way back to here, Genesis, Abraham and all of them.

It's amazing that he always shows their flaws. That's right. He always points out their flaws until he himself shows up in flesh, Jesus, and with him, there are no flaws. Right. And when he speaks, he's the one that started it way back. And he rolled all the way through history, showing the flaws of mankind,

but accepting the ones by faith, counted as righteous. It is interesting. All people's on earth, he's talking to Abraham, would be blessed through you, all of them. The whole human race. Exactly.

You just think about the weight of that on a man, so when you look at his faith, you say, I'm beginning to see why he was the one chosen. Well, and he also said that his descendants, would be like, you know, sand on the seashores. Yep. Or stars in the sky. I mean, it would be, you know, countless.

And that's exactly what happened. What's interesting is the reason he's the father, the faithful, is so Sarah gets pregnant. She's 90 years old. Abraham's 99. By the way, when she heard what Abraham said to her, she's over in the tent laughing. She's laughing. And he said, why are you laughing? She said, I wasn't laughing.

She laughed. That's fine. She thought it was a joke. It shows the. flaw in nature. You know what I mean? I'm gonna laugh. And I do think it's a shadow of when Jesus would come.

If I looked around to Ms. Kay when she's 90 and I'm 99, I'm like, we're going to do what? You'd be like size. Si, say, hey, boys, that ship has failed. Trust me, it ain't going to happen. I'm just seeing it at 73 at 99. I'm like, whoa. So however you look at it on the age thing, it was, the Bible says in Hebrews that his body was as good as dead. Yeah.

And hers too. Which is not real good word, encouraging words when you get up to 80 or 90. Well, that's what happens. That ship is sailed. Believe me, it's real. But I do think it was a shadow. You know, everything in the Old Testament is a shadow of what Jesus would fulfill. And I do think the difficulty, not impossible, but difficulty of having a child here,

which with God, with God, all things are possible. Well, then when he got to Jesus in the sea line is hell, well, it was just, with a virgin. We went from you being 90 and 100. Too old to cut the mustard I get kids out at. To like, well, this is impossible, which I think is a trend that, you know, when it comes down to our everyday lives,

no matter what the situation, oh, there's always a way out. Telling you. Well, that's exactly right. So he has, so they have a son. And so now he's about 13. And so Abraham's like, you know, now he's, you know, 110 years old, 113 years old. And so he's like, all right, well, we did it, God.

We provided the air, you know, all those blessings are going to come through him. And then God throws him a complete another curveball. And says, I tell you what, I want you to take your son. Now we're in Genesis 22. And it says, doesn't it say your only? He says your son. Then he says your only son as a reminder. You know, this is the only one.

So I don't think you're going to. That's the one your seed through whom I'm going to bless all nations. Exactly. He says, take him and you go over here on a mountain. And I'll tell you where to go. Again, he's just this call. And he says, I want you to sacrifice it. Now, there's been, I've read commentaries through the years.

People try to say it was, you know, wasn't really going to kill him, blah, blah, blah. No, he meant sacrifice it. Yeah. Kill it on a pile of wood. And a lot of people get offended, people that don't believe when they hear their story They're like, this is just absurd. Right.

Why would anybody... But they underestimated what faith is. You know, he explains it in the Hall of Faith chapter. Hebrews 11. Which I, I mean, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I read that. Because, you know, in Hebrews 11, he says that he reasoned that God could raise him from the dead. That's right. I mean, you just think how hard it is to live in Christian life.

And we hear the resurrection. He's going to bless all nations through my child. He wants me to kill him. Let's see, now. Oh, I get it. He's going to raise him right back there. He's going to raise him from the dead. Right.

We're in my knife. Because he's the God where all things are possible. Well, I have two. I have four sons. Y'all are two of them. I would find it very difficult to take those orders from the Almighty to say, take out, stretch him out on a pile of wood there, Phil, get your knife and kill him. Right.

I would have found that very difficult to do. As would most people, which is why he was called in the New Testament, the Father of the Faithful. I mean, that's the ultimate. Granted, he did have God talking to him, which I do think affected the situation. It did. You know, if God is not whispering in your ear but just talking in your ear, audible. You would say, you know what?

I guess he's going to take care of this. It'd be a little tougher to do through faith. But it would be possible, you know. Well, and remember, I think it's in Romans 4 that when Paul says, talking about him having the child to begin with that 99, which was also a faith moment. Against all hope, in hope, Abraham believed. So you think about that.

That's a huge phrase. Against all hope. In other words, it was a hopeless situation. And yet he somehow managed to have hope. So much so. that he raised the knife up, and he's about to kill him. When God says, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, and he sends out a sacrifice, an animal,

and says, here's what I want you to do. So the skeptic would say, well, why I go through all this? Why make it so hard? Why? Because that's the way life is. You're always questioning why this is happening. That's right. You can't see the direction.

You're trying to figure it out. And so you have these stories that are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and they're real. It's not like we made up a story. This is what happened. All of a sudden, you start saying, oh, there's a bigger plan here. You know, here I am this finite little being like a speck, you know, on a planet compared to the universe.

You know, God's got this. He's in control. I need to be seeking his will and finding how this works in my situation. But when I read stuff like this on what somebody could do. duct and reason and then actually do. Oh, it's incredible. And it's inspiring because it just seems like my problems aren't that big compared to that. You know, I just did want that they'll be seeing on Blaze TV about four or five little sessions.

But guys like Karl Marx started out as a religious guy, whatever. I don't know what group he was with, but they morphed out into an avowed atheist. one of the questions would be what would an atheist think if they're sitting here, which I doubt, but you never know. And they heard this story because Carl Mark said the religion is the opium of the people. It's an illusion. It's talking about the heart, he said, in a heartless society. There's no such thing.

It's what these people, these religious people are saying. But when you look at the reading and you look at the history and the time frame and what happened as you followed the faithful from Abraham all the way to Jesus until the present day, if you look at it historically accurate, archaeologically, it's sound, the names, dates, places. They, you know, they've proven beyond a doubt, all these places and all these dates are correct. Right. Well, you would think at least it would at least be worth investigating in my mind. Right. Oh, yeah.

And, you know, it's really interesting because people are hopeless. I mean, there's people watching us on this podcast, and they're in a seemingly hopeless situation. Their mindset is, I don't know how to, like Jay said, I don't know how to get past where I'm at right now. And so the reason we're talking about this, think about how cold and, dead if you just if you had no belief and no chance for anything beyond whatever your problem is that's a pretty that's a pretty we get the charge we get the charge all the time well y'all if we're athist you hate us we're like let me tell you about a guy Abraham over in the old testament and we tell them this story you say oh no we don't hate you at all we're just saying

investigate this yeah and that's why you tell the story stories. And look. Is it possible? Right. Is it possible? Well, let's see. But that's why we're practical, Dad, because, like, Lisa and I wrote our book, we've written several, but we are very open about our lives. And, I mean, we had some bad stuff in there, some very hopeless situations where it was just, you didn't think the marriage was going to survive all this. And I was doing a, I was doing a radio show at one time, and a guy said, why, why would you, of course, you know, the show was going and people like our family. And he was like, why would you tell all this bad stuff Why would you talk about your mistakes?

Yeah, why would you, because he, here's what he says, because people love you guys. I mean, but they're going to read this. It's like, these guys are terrible. But I just remember in that moment, I looked at them and I said, well, they're saying they're sinners. That's right. I said, people are hopeless. And if they read our story and think they made it, they got past all that, then it provides a chance for somebody else to do something.

So, you know, it's the old power of the testimony. So all we're reading about with people like A. Abraham and others are the testimony of what they've done in their lives, which brings in something else I want to bring up to you guys. Because Abraham is another interesting thing in the New Testament. So Paul spends Romans 4 talking about Abraham and faith and how it impacts. Because remember, Paul's come along, which we'll get into this later, but when the law shows up with Moses, things change, you know, for the people of God. And so then it kind of becomes this, you know, situation, law versus faith and works versus faith. And so that's going to be like the Jewish narrative.

So Jesus shows up on the scene. I mean, he spends most of his time trying to get him out of this works mentality. So Paul spends a lot of time in Romans talking about the power of faith. And he uses Abraham as his illustration. But then James comes along, and he writes an interesting little piece about what's not just your faith. I mean, it's what you do. Your faith and your actions working together. Right.

And his faith. And he used as Abraham as his experience. His faith was based on what he did, meaning with some action. It seems contradictory just at face value. Right. Which is why I want to bring it up because, and this is a little more in the weeds of church and all that. But there is sometimes this thing about it's either faith only or law only or works only. And so people want to just take one or the other. And it's just, I guess it's human

nature, you know, for people to look at it that way. But, but basically the New Testament uses Abraham as the example to say, faith is what you believe, but also faith is what you do. Well, the greatest text in the Bible is when they questioned Jesus. And he said, oh, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it. Fulfill it. I mean, and I'm going to show you what perfect love can accomplish. You will keep the entire thing. Unfortunately for the human race,

he was the only one that actually kept it. And fortunately for the human race, because he kept it, our faith in him will save us. It's counted. We're counted as righteous, just like Abraham. You know, it's pretty interesting over in Hebrews.

I think it's Hebrews 11 mile. Abraham, with all the faith that he had, you say, well, at the time, It was counted as righteous, but check this out. Where is it where it says none of them received what was promised. That's the last verse in Hebrews 11. Yeah, Hebrews 11. They were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised

because at the time, God had not become flesh yet, died on a cross with very and raised on the dead. Well, there was no grace. Yeah. You know. So God had planned something better for us, the arrival of Jesus and his death for the sins of the world, his resurrection, him keeping the law perfectly, our trust and faith in, so that only together with us would they be made perfect. So God went way back in time when the blood of Jesus was spilled.

And it went back to when Abraham and Noah and all. all of them coming through the book of Genesis, you say that blood went all the way back. That's right. But that's why he said in the next verse, I mean, chapter 12, you know, man put those chapter breaks in there. But he then said, so we're surrounded by all these witnesses, all these halls of faith. And then let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Well, he's the one that brought us all together, present, past, past, future,

all under that umbrella of grace. And what I wanted to say in response to that, I think in the religious world, people, they try to look at it like a college course. I'm going to go believe right, you know, dot all the eyes and cross all the T's. And then that's it. I go out there and live however I want to. But I think in our case, Jesus brought that grace, which motivates us to have that faith and the resurrection, kind of like Abraham did. Because this was almost 1900 or so, almost when this went down in the Abraham story, that was almost 2,000 years before Jesus showed up.

So when you look at the way God looks at time, you think, man. But a focus on grace and the resurrection, then, I mean, when that produces that faith and that belief, well, then you can't help. It's not like, oh, I need to go. I mean, if you're looking around at the scenes, I need to do this, I missed it. You just can't help it. It's like, to me, when people see that debate about faith versus deeds, it just doesn't happen that way. Like in a room, taking a college course, I need to do these 14 things, and then I'll be, you know, it doesn't work.

It's like when Jesus said, you know, the kingdom is like a guy that finds a treasure, you know, in a field. and then he goes and sells everything he has and buys the field. I mean, it's just like a radical, well, that's crazy. You know, you found one. Everything you could imagine that you have to do, Jesus said, let me make it simple for you. Do two things. Love God and love your neighbor.

And everything will be all right. Yeah. So I think you- That's not asking too much of us. You focus more on the experience of it as far as understanding, you know, getting to know this who Jesus is and what he did and the whole scheme of redemption. And then all of a sudden, you know, you kind of start falling in love with him and you start believing. And when you start focusing on that, these things start happening because you can't

help it. I mean, it's like me. I've shared many times. Y'all know my story. You know, I was real shy when I was young. And it's just at some point I got to this point where I'm like, you know what, I'm just not going to be shy anymore. But it was all basically. on grace, you know, in my faith in that, I just made that decision. No, I'm just going to go out there and do this. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to do this, so I'll get some points or I'll feel better. It's like, I just can't help it. You got to hear about this.

God raised you up, Jason, all of us. And at some point, he said, now, go. And here's the thing. Here we go. But we all have those fears. We're here. And it's available. It's available for everybody.

What I love about the Bible, and specifically when James was talking about Abraham, it was credited to him as righteousness, this idea that he believed, like you said, going forward. And then he says in verse 25, in the same way was not even Rahab, the prostitute considered righteous because she believed. Now, this is a woman that lived 400 years after Abraham. She was a famous person in the Bible because she was in the lineage of Christ. She was a whore. She was a whore.

And he, so think about this. Now, he's writing this to a primarily Jewish audience. He brings up Abraham, the father of the faithful in Rahab in the same sentence about being righteous before God. That's the beauty of the Bible. And that's what it's available for anybody. Oh, that's what's great. That's what I love about, you know, the church where, you know, that, hey, the guy that drove up to Arkansas and shared Jesus with you at a bar. I mean, that's pretty radical faith.

I mean, I'd have probably said, no. You have whores and then you had whore mongers. Yeah. You say you and that crowd. Yeah. Who would have thought God would have smiled on me? Yeah, let's go get in a vehicle and share Jesus. But one of the things we do at our church they've always done,

nobody said this is what we do. It just happens is when they have, I guess what you would call the altar call or whatever, people actually share specifically, sometimes graphically, which is embarrassing sometimes. But they'll go down and they feel like it's a safe place that they can share their problem. and nobody's going to throw rocks at them and nobody you know they're wanting to get out of this and they hear about jesus and they come down and they're like i have this problem and we're you know we put our arms around them and we're like you know it's such a part of our culture that's the way we grew up at our church being that way recently there was a older couple and 68 years old you're

talking about getting past prime and he had an affair just a crazy situation that he found himself in the evil one got him, you know, Facebook. You know, we talked about social media, old girlfriend. This is the guy that's spent most of his life leading other people, and Satan got him. And they come forward. So Lisa and I go in. They call us. We go.

We have a two-hour conversation on late on a Saturday night. Next day, Sunday morning, they're down front with WFR. And he didn't have a note or anything. And so I just, I told it. Of course, afterwards, he was a little shook. He was like, you just told it. I was like, yeah, that's what I thought you wanted me. He said, well, I did, but it just sounded so shocking to hear it said out loud what he did.

And I told him, I said, well, brother, the only way you're going to get past it is to shine the light of truth on it. Otherwise, you'll be right back in the situation again. Interesting thing about Christianity and salvation and redemption. When you know all your sins have been forgiven, you don't mind telling anyone on the front end all your sins. That's right. When you know they're forgiven, you don't mind discussing them. That's right. You're open. But for the unredeemed and the ones who have nothing put their faith in Jesus,

it's like prying it out of them with a crowbar. That's right. Their past sin. That's right. Pretty amazing. I know I've read this before, but right after John 316, for God's to love the world, you know, he got down and he said in verse 19, this is the verdict.

Light is coming to the world, but men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Yep. Everyone who does evil hates the light will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. It's best to give them the dirt on the front end. I think that's what people, and even churches, they want to set themselves up as perfect, and we got everything figured out.

I bet you were drunk back in your past. I said, guilt is charged. I bet you were immoral, guilt is charged. I bet you told lies, guilt is charged. You say, that's why I follow Jesus, man. That's right. Well, in 21, which is what I want to read, which is why we do share, because a lot of people that bothers people when they come to their church, they're like, why are they sharing their innermost secrets? This is, this is awkward, which it is awkward.

And because we're saying, look, this is, verse 21 says what it's about. But whoever lives by the truth, Jesus, comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. And that's what's awesome. What you saw in Abraham was God working in his life, his power. He even saw the signs of the resurrection there and the impossible. But it's no different than what he does in every person's life that puts their faith in him. You see God's transformational process. So people say, why are you sharing that?

You're like, because I'm showing you what God can do. This will work. No doubt about it. It's the strongest evidence. You want to talk about evidence that there's a God? the transformation of people. That is right. That is correct.

Ephesians 2 led around by the dark powers of the world. That's what Karl Marx never saw. Grace givers. So John wrote it best in one verse, one of our favorite verse in the Bible, Revelation 1211, they overcame the evil one by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, transformation, and also that they did not love this life so much

that they would shrink back even from death itself. That's right. And that's that boldness you're talking about. So if you live those three, trust in Christ, tell exactly what he's doing in my life, and then live it boldly that I wouldn't back away, even if somebody says, I'm going to kill you. It's fine.

We believe in the resurrection. You can kill me. I'll be back. I mean, that's powerful. Yeah. It's according to Carl Marx, it's as powerful as the most powerful drug there is. It's an opium of the people.

I'm like, you're on to something about, Carl. You're almost there. We're high. We're high on God. Can't get off of it. There you go. All right. Well, I think we've exhausted our Abraham discussion, but man, that's just, it's sort of

the beginning. And so the rest of the Old Testament is basically following the journey of Abraham's seed line, which is going to finally come to fruition in Christ. And so we're going to hit some of those highlights as we go through because there's a very interesting stories, just like Abraham's, of people that were in the situation where it looks like the line ends here, hopeless, and yet God's going to do amazing things throughout this history of Israel. So we're going to talk about the law, and when that comes in and what that means to us, this kind of idea of law versus spirit as well as we go along

in our studies. So man, we're glad you guys are along the journey with us as we just kind of tell it like it is. If you have a better story, this is me to our audience. If you have a better story, what is it? What's your story? We have ours. I'm looking at the story and I'm thinking, if this is true, there's life beyond the grave and immortality. If it's not true, we're done. now. Our listeners, us, and everybody on planet Earth that's ever been here, we're done. I just, I'd rather go with Jesus and hope. You want to sing an invitation song? If I could sing, I would, but I can't care tune in a bucket.

So I can't either, but he's famous for it. So we're so glad you guys were with us today. You can subscribe on iTunes or Spotify or YouTube or Facebook, and be sure and rate us on iTunes so that other people can know about the podcast. Thank you.