Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 165 | The Benham Brothers & Fake News, Silent Christian Celebs & Social Justice in the Church

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

David and Jason Benham were the targets of fake news and cancel culture before those things were trendy hashtags. On their "Unashamed" debut, the Benham brothers talk with Phil and Al about how to live boldly for Jesus, how to demolish anything that goes up against the knowledge of God, and how they built their real estate company on scripture. David and Jason look back at GLAAD's cancel campaign against them and discuss the agenda to silence, marginalize, demonize, and criminalize Christians. The guys also tackle the silence of many Christian celebrities and how failing to speak up hinders the gospel. And Al describes an event with 30+ pastors where he heard more about social justice than the gospel. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right. So here we are. We're on unashamed. First of all, Dad, we're, today we are minus Jace. So all the Jace haters will be so happy that they won't have to listen to him, interrupt you, endlessly drawn. I mean, there's a part of our loving, unashamed notice that Jace is like getting on their last nerve. I'm like, well, welcome to my world, you know. What do you say, ma'am day? He's never going to run out of stories. Well, I nicknamed him Long Wolf McQuaid. He's got a, he's a, he's a long prowler. But he's a good Bible, man.

He is a good vibe, man. One day we were hunting, and he had gone out ahead of us to set the decoy stuff out, and we went home for lunch. It was an all-day, you know, so we went home, mom and cooked lunch. We ate lunch, and we were bringing him some food. So he'd been out there a couple hours, I guess, and I pull up, and he said, man, that's the best company I've had all duck season. And I was like, by yourself?

And he said, yeah. So long one for quite. In Jason's place, we had to get not one but two. We had a twofer to replace Jace. The Benham brothers, Jason and David Benham. What a blessing. Welcome to Unashamed. Hey, thanks, man.

Hey, listen, I'll tell you, in Jace's place, you've got Jason Benham, my brother. Yeah, he's horrible. And let me just tell you, it's a major step up. from Jace Robertson. When I listen to these two, it reminds me a lot of Willie and Jace, because they're kind of the same. Dude, I will punch both of them. So the Benham's, so I call them, Dad, two live wires for Jesus.

You and I have crossed paths a couple of times with them. One time we were in Houston, when the mayor of Houston decided it was a lesbian woman, I guess that's redundant, a lesbian, well, I don't know these days maybe. A lesbian woman. Who knows? Who are you to judge what her do? gender is because she was proud she decided that she was going to have to censor pastor's sermons yeah to make sure they weren't leaving out or putting in the wrong

things or saying the wrong things on so there was an outcry around the country and uh and so uh we went down there you guys were there we were there governor huckabee was there Tony perkins a lot of people and we just showed up and did a big rally and there were 10,000 maybe oh yeah 90,000 online yeah and uh we basically did told, you know, anybody that would listen about that this was still America, you know, we thought. And so, in course, all that along with everything else, she, of course, walked all that back and backed it up. But, you know, they make those little incursions like that. That's what is the evil one here or there, just an incursion. If you don't meet it

with, you know, the force of God and the Word of God, you succumb. Can I preach for one second? Oh, yeah. Second Corinthians 10, the Word, of God tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but are mighty for the pulling down of strongholds and we demolish. That word demolish, like destroy every vain thing that sets itself against the knowledge of God. The word vain thing is logismos, which it means any reasoning or questioning or argument against the knowledge of God. And so what's the knowledge of God when it comes to gender, marriage, human sexuality, when it comes to even a pastor preaching in total freedom the word of God. That's what he's supposed to do. So anything that comes

against that, we have to demolish it. That's right. And that's been an issue today in our culture today is that we have a lot of believers that we've been taught by many of our celebrity preachers. Well, you just don't touch those vain things. Well, you don't demolish it. You converse with it. And as you're coming ground. Oh, that's so good because what's the saying now, we need to have a conversation about that. Let's have it. And I keep thinking, well, there's a lot of conversation going on, Nothing's getting decided. Except we seem to be going further off the cliff. You're not arriving at truth. That's the goal of conversation is to arrive at truth. So when a kingdom man or kingdom woman enters into a conversation, the goal is to arrive at truth.

And if that's not your goal, you've got a big problem. Now, I'm not saying we walk around with truth written all over our heads and, you know, bash and people are living out. But as we live it out, you know, as you're having people, we tell people all the time. Our dad baptized Norma McCorvey. And we'll tell you a little bit about the story, I guess, at some point. the Jane Row and the Roe versus Wade Supreme Court case. But he also baptized her lesbian partner Connie, who got saved. And then a week after that, we moved Norma out of Connie's house with a U-Haul pickup truck. So Dad explained to her that your faith now has to, you know, your theology, your thoughts about God, now have to manifest into biography in the way that you live your life.

And that was a conversation he had, but with both of them. Dad has them all the time. All the time. I mean, somebody will show up here and they're living together. Yep. And they want to know about Jesus. And so you take them through the whole process, the gospel. But then also, like, you can't stay living together.

That's not what the word says. And it's the life that goes with what we teach. We've married quite a few of them in our living room. Yeah. Wow. Right a few of them. Well, you know, it's going to be expensive. I say, no, we don't charge anything.

We just marry you. You're good to go. I love that. We'll have a meal, because I know people... We'll have a little meal, we'll cook it, and we'll come in, we'll baptize you, and then we'll marry you. We've literally baptized them and married them and married them on the same, the same event. Whoa.

That's great. I love it. Married to Jesus, married to each other. Good to go. Good to go. Now off you go. Dan doesn't do wedding, because our audience is going to ask, there's another guy, local guy that comes down to those.

Local guy. I want to let people know. Yeah. I'm going to get a thousand requests. I actually did think I was. He's going to say, Phil, now you're doing the weddings? No, no. But he will be there at the proceedings.

I'm not a, what's the word? I'm not ordained. Ordained. No. He's just a John the Baptist. So he eats strange things. He looks strange and he points people to Jesus. That's John the Baptist.

Yeah. And he's got a big bicep too. Yeah, he does. Although it's half of what it used to be. I'm not the man I used to be. The resurrection with each passing day is looming much larger. I'm 74 looking around like I'm running like a racehorse around here, these younger bucks. We have been doing a lot today.

So we were just for the podcast audience to know. So dad and Jep and Reed and mom did IMSEC, which you guys have said, IAMCII is. They're great. Basically just kind of take your story and bring it down to about a 10 or so minute video. And so dad shared the God. gospel in there and the other two talked about being prodigals you know and coming back to the Lord and I don't know if I told you this dad but there's been about 10 million views really of that one video and I thought you know who knows how many people that impacted

for Christ you know a lot of people look for it so they came back in town today and they did one they did my story today and then or mine Lisa story and then they did an update for mom and dad and then Phyllis our sister is doing hers as we speak across the street and then Lisa's going to go so this is a lot going on, which is why my dad was talking about running like a racehorse today, which he is. So I want you guys to tell the first time I met you guys, we were at an event in D.C. was doing like an awards dinner. Was it media research center?

Right, right. Center. Center. Right. You may be. No, that's right. Because Family Research Council Media Research Center was doing something at the same weekend, but we met at the MRC first. So we met these guys in the green room.

and you made a lot of interesting people in the green room. Yeah. But right off the course, I'm wearing camo, which totally got y'all's attention because they wanted me to wear a camo. I was like introducing some segment. These guys were actually getting an award for what I want to talk about next. But it was just the first time I met y'all, I mean, there was just a connection. I mean, we were having fun and all that, and your wives were there,

and Lisa was there. But I think we went and got coffee afterwards, and then the next time we spent more time together. And I was like, man, these guys are going to really be amazing. The reason you were getting the award, though, is because basically you two were the first to be canceled that I know of in the cancel culture. It's been a few years back. Now it just happens every day. It was more rare then.

It was kind of after our deal. They'd gone after dad. And they tried to cancel. You know, they put him on indefinite hiatus that lasted nine days until they realized how it was. They said, we actually didn't fire you. And I said, I looked up indefinite hiatus. that means not part of the program. So they were trying to find a nice way to cancel that,

but they weren't able to do it, although it's, it really, and I guess you could say the same about Chick-fil-A was a little bit before that. So all that was kind of happening at the same time. So tell our audience that don't know you, what happened and kind of how that went down,

because that intrigued me. That was what drew us together. This is before the hashtag cancel culture, or even, you know, now the newer social shaming, you know, if you don't believe, according to the radical left, well, then they'll just socially shame you at every level. Well, so I'm David, for those of you that aren't paying attention. I'm the guy that's much more muscular than this little weakling sitting next to me. He wears a medium.

I'm still in an Excel. See, I told you he'd interrupt. This is the Jace that's on the show. So we, Jason and I had started a real estate company. We played pro baseball. I was with the Red Sox. He was with the Orioles. When we got out of baseball, we relocated our families, and I was married five kids.

Jason's married, four kids. We live five doors down from each other. And so we started a real estate company, and we did it based on biblical principles. Because our dad, the night we were born was passed out drunk on the waiting room floor. He was a saloon owner and a drunken bum. But three months after we were born, he met Jesus. Jesus saved him radically, completely changed his life. And he surrendered his life to full-time ministry, so he became a pastor.

So all our memories are is pastor dad raised in the church. We were athletes. Use your sports background to glorify the Lord, but we weren't trained in business at all. So now here we are fast forward. We're married. We have kids and we've got to provide for these kiddos. And so we started a real estate company and we applied biblical principles. That's what we did.

We took the Word of God and we made it flesh in the marketplace. And we built our entire franchise company, which grew to 100 offices across. 35 states, we were topping Inc. Magazine, Ernst & Young, Wall Street Journal, you name it, all the business awards, we were getting it. And we would tell people in the interviews, how did you build this company? Well, we use the principles of scripture, and they work, because God's boundaries lead to his blessings. And so anyway, when Jason and I at the height of our company started getting phone calls from reality show networks or just, you know, HGTV, TLC, A, and E, they would call us and they'd say, are you interested in reality, television? And so we said, sure,

you know, whatever. This was in 2013. Right about the height of Duck Dynasty. We saw you guys. And at the same time that the debate over marriage being redefined by the Supreme Court was entering. Yeah. So Jason and I, we saw everything happening with Duck Dynasty and then the Duggers over on TLC. And we're like, man, that's a great platform. And we let them know, hey, do you know we're very vocal pro-life? You know who our dad is. We're also very vocal pro-marie. You remember 2012, President Obama came to North Carolina, our home state, and he went on this campaign about how he flipped his position on marriage. He had evolved according to what he was saying. And so a lot of businesses were coming out in support of that.

And Jason and I did, we didn't see any Christian business leaders, no celebrity Christians really coming out in support of what God defines as marriage. And so we felt like we needed to do that. And so we did it. Now, we thought we were going to lose business. As a matter of fact, we didn't lose business. We now all of a sudden had a reality show network from, I mean an offer from HGTV, and we got an offer from TLC. They said, we want to make you guys famous on our networks because we're seeing what's

happening with the Duggers and with Duck Dynasty. And we think that this is going to be great. HGTV told us that they had just hired this family called the Gaines family for this show called Fixer Upper. And so they wanted to raise us up at the exact same time that they were going to raise up the Gaines family. Well, I thought about before you guys really were the private. Brothers before that. I mean, I know it's a different thing, but twin, I mean, like,

the concept was really y'all first, and I guess that pivoted later. Well, they, the Property brothers had already been there. But what they wanted to do was they wanted to have us as twins, but we're family guys. So the property brothers were both single guys. So they were already telling us about the ideas for them showing up in their BMWs and David and I showing up in our Dodge Grand Caravans with our kids jumping out. And competing. HGTV was going to have a real good time with this. Let's take a quick break. And so David and I, HGTV came in and said, don't take anything from TLC. We're actually going to do a show with you.

We're going to bypass a pilot. We're going to do six one-hour episodes direct to TV in the fall of 2014. And so David and I were like, all right, let's do this. And they gave us all sorts of money, which the agents that we had at the time, who were the Kardashians agents. We didn't know that. They told us that they had never seen an offer like this for reality TV for unproven talent. So we said, hey, God is doing something here.

And sure enough, we signed with them. And then when things started to... But as we signed, it was funny because we had just signed, we had told them all about ourselves. They had scoured the Internet. They knew everything about us. And it's funny because they said, hey, most of us believe just like you do. Your producers at the agency here at HGTV, but we just don't talk about it.

And I mean, the reason they don't talk about is because we've got a lot of Christians that don't talk about it. And there was, I remember being around a dinner table with the execs at HGTV, and it was filled just after your GQ. Yeah, that was what I was going to, I totally forgot to say that. Just after your GQ interview. And David and I, I remember the execs brought it up. They said, well, what do you guys think about that?

We said, we agree with him. 100%. Like, he's actually speaking truth. Now, he says it in his fill way, right? We might have said it a little bit different, but 100% we agree with everything that he said. and that's when David was exactly right, that all of them around the table are like, hey, we totally get it. We just really don't talk about that kind of stuff.

And they asked us, they basically, they didn't directly come out and say, you cannot speak about being pro-life or about pro-marriage or about human sexuality or any of these things. They didn't say it outright, but they said, we're about to make you guys famous and put you in front of millions of people.

Could you just kind of be a little bit quiet about it? Because they saw what was happening with Phil. And that scared the snot out of the Jason. Yeah, see, that was like, there was very real fear there. So people got a chance to see David and I, however, it was about a year later where we got fired in front of a watching world and we had to stand boldly. But during that conversation there at that table and a few other phone conversations after

that, we felt extreme fear like a man-pleasing spirit was crawling on us and sitting so heavily on us. And what we realized during that time was that we began to focus on that platform that we wanted rather than the person who put it there in the first place. And anytime you do that, you become enslaved by that thing that you're focusing on. And that thing is oftentimes a good thing that God wants you to have. He just doesn't want you to wrap your fingers around it. And so David and I felt that fear.

And by God's grace, this is why it's so good to go to church. By God's grace, there were other men in our lives that could read our mail. And they knew, and one pastor in particular knew that David and I were feeling that pressure and kind of experiencing fear. and maybe we should be quieter, maybe we should do this or that. And he came up and said, boys, don't you know who you are. You don't have to give in to fear. God has raised you up for a time just like this to tear down the stronghold that is ransacking this nation.

So we had to deal with that fear. While we were actually producing a show with HGTV, we were five weeks into a film shoot. I mean, we were taken, we had cranes taken, well, I'll tell you, the title of the show was flip it forward. where we were teaching families how to flip houses. And they were letting, it's cool because when we signed with HG, because they were in a bidding war with TLC. So finally, HG goes, listen, we will allow you to incorporate your principles. We don't let you open your Bible and preach on the air,

but we'll let you incorporate your principles onto every single show. It'll kind of be a little subplot. We'll talk about healing a marriage, or we'll talk about maybe restoration with a child, or maybe an adoption or something like that. we'll let you guys do all of that because Jason and I that was part of the negotiation was we don't want to be silent about what made our company so big we've had thousands of employees we've done all this stuff but it's because we do it based on principles it's because we do it for

a greater purpose than just making a bunch of money so we were okay we'll do it we were five weeks into that film shoot and like I said before we were taking we had cranes taking roofs off of houses and we were doing all sorts of fun stuff and the commercials were running David and I were like we're not going to do your typical boring HGTV show, you know, where the people walk into a house and they go, ooh, this is amazing. I said, David and I in real life, here's how we would do it. David would walk them in, and I would be in a closet in paintball gear, and I would jump out, and I would start pepper in the wall with paintball. Like, that's something we would do. Well, they let us do it. And that does not even surprise me in the least.

Or Jason would be sitting in the shower. The shower turned to be clothed. Fully clothed. And he'd have a clown mask on. And I'd be like, hey, guys, come in here. Check this out. I think this tile in here is amazing. Pull the curtain back. Check it out. And they'd pull it back.

And Jason would have the It clown mask on. And it would freak them out. I've never thought about it until this moment because I hadn't heard all the details of your show. Because we'd never talked about what the show was. But there is nobody that was made more for reality TV than you two. I mean, these boys missed a big opportunity. It's all I can tell. Here's what's funny is the, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they,

brought us so chip and joe had just finished their pilot and it got good ratings so they were doing their filming in waco they brought their showrunner over to us and we're filming in charlotte same time simultaneously and the showrunner and his wife are really they were really really good they were stringing some of the episodes together some of the on the flies and stuff after it was over with and they were getting our wives there and they pulled us aside and they said guys listen we've been doing reality television for a long time this show is going to absolutely be epic it was it was would have been to my... We're excited. So we were five weeks in, and we got a phone call from one of the executives at HGTV, and they said, guys, listen, we're getting great feedback on,

from showrunners and our line editor on how good the show's going to be, but there's one problem. We're like, what? They said, this group called Glad, have you ever heard of them? You know, gays and lesbians against anti-differ, whatever, whatever, whatever. And David and I said, oh, yeah, we've heard of them. I mean, they've been, you know, stalking our dad for forever. And then when David and I were vocal back in our early business days about marriage, standing strong for marriage and life, they kind of started stalking us too. And they said, well, when Glad found out that you guys were going to get a show, they have come after us worse, I mean, and put more pressure on us to fire you boys than we've ever experienced before.

And at the same time, A&E had just brought Phil back. And so we said to them, this is happening at the exact same time. We said, look, this is a hundred plus million dollars. show that you've got over here at A&E and it's just generating them so much money. And look at just the overwhelming support that Phil's getting. Jason and I, we ain't even got beards. You know, we're like clean, shaven, good old boys here in Charlotte, North Carolina. But we told them the same audience that loves Duck Dynasty is going to rave over this show. Just give the conservative base an opportunity to follow in with us.

and they said, listen, we're going to stick with you guys. And we said, well, thanks. That's awesome. It's awesome. A week went by, and they called us about every single night during that week process, and they said, Glad won't leave us alone. They demand. We fire you.

Now they're threatening your advertisers. Now they're threatening the endorsers. And we had people that were interested at Kawasaki and Hyundai and Disney World and all of these groups that were lining up that wanted a part of the Benham Twins. Of course, the world didn't know this. This all happens behind the scenes, right? Which is, by the way, where these forces work best. Yeah.

If you notice that, it's the old dark things. Only the bad things happen at night in the dark, because it's always behind the scenes. They don't want to be like the ones that were quietly saying, we agree. Oh, that happened all the time. They just don't want it out there. So they were calling us, and we felt so bad for these folks.

I mean, executives from HGTV calling us, and literally their voice is just shaking. The general manager can't believe this is happening. called us literally crying. Like, I cannot believe that they're, they're like circling the wagons around your family. I mean, these people, these activist groups, they, they just, they start circling the wagons. And they said things about our wives and our kids. Well, let me back the story up for one second. The executive, like the main person over all of HG called us one night and said, I'm going to call glad and put this to rest once and for all. I'm not going to put anything in writing,

but I'm just going to tell them we're sticking with you guys. You guys are going to be stars on the network. The very next morning, our phones are like vibrating from texts like 6 o'clock in the morning. Hey, what's up with y'all show? Hey, I didn't know y'all were getting fired. And we're like, what are you talking about? We're not getting fired. They said, well, look at HGTV's Facebook page.

So we looked at that and it said, we are reviewing the Ben and Brother show. It's one sentence. And below it were just like hundreds. Hundreds of comments from people destroying me and David. And we looked in there, and as I looked down, I saw a, link to a story that had been written about us that very morning, like really early, which is not West Coast time. It was the night before. That apparently glad when they got the word back from HGTV that they were sticking with me and David, they tapped their friends right wing

watch on the shoulder. Oh yeah. And they wrote a fake news story. So David and I say we were fake news and cancel culture before all that stuff before it became a hashtag. Yeah. And so they they put lies and smears and said that we stood in front of a mosque screaming, God hates Muslims with our Bibles over our heads. We never been to a mosque a day in our lives. And God doesn't hate Muslims. He loves every single one of them. Then they started calling us anti-gay and women hating because we're pro-life and all of this. And HGTV called us that day. I said, boys, we weren't ready for this. We're canceled. Well, they, yeah, and they had tears in their eyes. I mean, they really had a hard time with it. And we told them, listen, we love you. Thank you

for believing in us. You get you, you did your best. But, but we, we spoke something that now looking back six years later we know was a hundred percent from the Lord we said this agenda to silence Christians this agenda to silence the truth because it's the truth that sets people free this agenda will not stop it will not stop until the first thing they're going to do is they're going to marginalize our beliefs then they're going to demonize us as people and eventually if they get their way they're going to criminalize us as Americans and that's exactly the path that we're on right now so jason and i we did 200 one-on-one interviews we were on all the shows and just they were coming at us like

do you guys want to apologize i'm like apologize for what you know and well you hate this person you hate this person and we kept saying find one thing we've ever said against an individual one thing you go find don't go rustle them up or that you hey let's take another quick break and this is why i want to wrap this up just by taking you back to whenever i mentioned the whole fear thing that we felt. See, during that moment when we felt that fear long before we ever lost our show, but when we felt that it was a little bit threatened, that God had to deal with us in that moment, that there were times where David and I really did say to each other, well, maybe we could take a couple interviews down, you know, offline so that people don't see that. Maybe we should do. Well, we talk about

marriage or life. We started, we started to talk like that. That's why we needed the rebut from that pastor, friend of ours. But what we learned from that time was that boldness apart from brokenness makes a bully, that God knew that he was going to put us in a situation to stand bold, but the first thing that he had to do is he had to break us of our own self-sufficiency. And so once you've been broken, oh man, Katie bar the door. Look, our dad used to say, only the horses broken by their master are fit to pull the king's chariot. The rest are left to pasture. Once God breaks you of your own self-sufficiency, it's at that point that you have to stand strong and you have to stand boldly. Now listen, the reverse is also just as devastating.

That's where you're broken, but you're not bold. Well, when you're broken and you're not bold, you become a bystander. I know you all have read Ephesians 6. In other words, on how many times he says stand, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. We're not wrestling against flesh and blood, rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, spiritual force of evil. Therefore, put on the full armor of God

so that when the day of evil comes, y'all saw it, it'll be more. You may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything, to stand, stand firm then, with the belt of truth, buckle around your waist, the breastplate, a righteousness, and play, with your feet fitted with the readiness

that comes from the gospel of peace. So if you read that, you say, how could that be so clear? 2,000-year-old writing. You're like, man, nothing has changed, boys. Nothing's changed. It's the same spiritual battle. And that's it. Anytime I signed our book and they say, put your favorite verse there, I write Ephesion 6, the whole thing.

Yeah, the whole thing, which is good. So I met you guys in that setting because we were just a few months removed from that. It was still pretty fresh. And they were giving you awards. And of course, Bozell, his thing is he basically pokes fun at the media or really just shows them for what they are. And so that's what the evening was about. But it's interesting because not knowing your story and then I learned it. And I thought, man, we're in this thing together because I met you guys for the first time.

It was interesting because you still had the platform that was built. You're still using it. It just wasn't what you thought it was going to be. You know, it was something different. And you guys, we spoke together in RB or someplace. and one of you said this and it left an impact on me. You said, if you hold your dreams in your hand, make sure your hand is open. That's right.

And that way, if God decides to take them and do something different, you won't get hurt trying to hold on to it. That's right. And I thought that was a super great illustration and wisdom, you know, about exactly what you guys went through. Yeah, we had to learn the hard way. I mean, and if you think about today's culture and the reality of the spiritual battle that is being manifest so clearly from a political,

social, from an economic, and certainly from a spiritual perspective, a lot of celebrity Christians today, they aren't going to talk. They're not going to speak about the very stronghold issues that are devastating. Listen, our kids right now, our teenage kids are struggling with identity. We need to give them an identity because God creates them male and female. And if they struggle and if they have questions about that, we need to lead them to the truth and love them enough to tell them the truth, or they struggle with their sexuality or any number of things with an unplanned pregnancy, whatever it may be, they're struggling with identity. And if we're not willing as Christian leaders to speak the truth, because that thing God gave us, like I got this big book deal, and if

I speak about the stronghold issue, and if New York Times doesn't like it, they're going to make fun of me, and then I'm going to lose my book deal, or I'm going to lose my congregation, or I'm going to lose my reality show. You know, that right now we have to say, I've got to die to that. Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, you've got to die to yourself. Pick up your cross, follow him, If you love your life, you'll lose it. But if you lose your life, which means your platform or whatever that is that God's put in your hand, if you lose it for his sake in the gospel, you'll surely find it. Yeah, and even said you don't hate the things of this world, those things that are insidious,

and then we try to own it to. We were talking earlier. I wanted you to mention that. I thought that was fascinating. I wanted you to tell Dad in our audience about Peter and Paul in the Galaisian thing. Tell that one. Hey, can I just say this real quick before, David, you need to share that. But during that time where David and I had our fear moment where we almost caved

and God had to get to the bottom of our man-pleasing spirit, Phil was such an incredible encouragement that I really do believe that God allowed that interview by GQ to take place for me and David. Wow. Like we needed that. Like, and I remember our dad used that as an example about a week before HGTV called and basically said, we're getting attacked. dad brought that article in and said boys you need to read this this is a godly man now they're

making him look like a fool all over the media said but he's a godly man and one day how did dad say he says one day god's going to cash in your chips god's cashed in his chips on this old man and he stood strong there was money behind it he did so and i wanted to make sure that your listeners knew this that you were a hero you know you look at things like this latest little Netflix thing Yeah. 11-year-old girls. Oh, crazy. Yeah, kidding.

Gyrating out there. You look at that, and I'm like, that's fine. Everybody's fine with that. I mean, where's the, where's the, where's the naysayers? Where are the people who say, what are you doing? Yeah. And there are a few that stuff. You look at it.

Satan, the forces of evil, they never stop. Yeah. They're in a lockstep. And here's the cool thing, that the problem is not the presence of darkness. The problem is the absence of light. I don't go to bed at night and turn darkness on. I flip light off. The only way that the Netflix gets away with that is because the light, the truth, the church

of Jesus Christ, First Timothy teaches us, is the pillar in support of the truth. And if believers, I'm not just talking pastors, but believers in general aren't speaking the truth and love, well, then darkness is going to prevail, and that's where we find ourselves with Galatians. Yeah. Because Jason and I, we've been in a lot of green rooms now. We've traveled the country, travel the world, and we speak, and we get to speak to a lot leaders that are not touching the strongholds. They ain't going to say anything. They'll give you a good life coaching sermon, or they'll talk about something that's just really not going to move the

needle. As long as it doesn't anger the radical left, they'll speak it. But if it's going to anger the left, you know, and we look at scripture where Jesus tells us, give, he tells the disciples, give to Caesar what is Caesar and give to God what is gods. He never said, give to Caesar what is gods. In other words, marriage belongs to God. He defines that. Human rights, life, human sexuality, all of these things, that belongs to God. We don't give that over into the political realm, and then all of a sudden our leaders now get really quiet about it. Well, that's what happened in the book of Galatians. Because we were traveling so much and speaking to so many leaders, I'm like, God, I need some scripture that shows where we are today, and the Lord brought me into the

book of Galatians. And at the time, when Paul is writing to the Galatian Church, there were Judaizers that had come in. These were Jewish converts that had come in saying, hey, you've got to get circumcised in order to be saved. And that's not true. It's just, it's a fault, it's a lie. Which was the main issue of their day. Main issue of the day. Now, Peter didn't believe that. Peter didn't preach or teach that, but Peter wasn't taking a stand. And so it says in Galatians 2, Paul said, when I saw that Peter was not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I rebuked him in the presence of all. And I believe that's where we are today. We got a bunch of Peters that are out there, a bunch of celebrity preachers and celebrity Christians that are not taking a

And it's not that they believe in gay marriage. It's not that they push transgenderism, but they're not being clear about the gospel to any of it. So then they wound up there. Let's take another break. I was just saying, he's spot on. Spot on. But I never, you know, I've read and studied that patches a lot of times,

and of course in the context of it, taught it and preached it, you know, and isn't this terrible about what was going on because you're weeding these Gentiles out? But I never brought it forward. as you guys have, and you're exactly right, is that the very silence of not speaking truth, then becomes a hindrance to the gospel. I mean, that's what's exactly the context of what's happening. Matthew Henry made a comment.

This is the commentator of Scripture. He's a phenomenal commentary, and Jason and I read Matthew Henry's commentary. He said, by Peter's timid conduct on the circumcision, it led believers to think circumcision. was necessary. Okay, just stop there for a second. Peter wasn't preaching circumcision. He wasn't endorsing circumcision, but he wasn't speaking the truth against this narrative that was set against truly the gospel. And so the weaker believers, the younger Christians were being led astray. That's what's happening in our churches. We got mega churches right now. We got mega churches right now. They're not dealing with abortion. They're not dealing with gay marriage. They're not dealing with

homosexuality. They're not dealing with pornography. We're not dealing with these issues. And so what's happening is in the quiet of someone's heart, in the quiet of a sinner's heart, like I know me when I was a young man, in the quiet of my heart, if I didn't hear my dad and some of the pastors in my life, if I didn't hear them in my ear saying, uh-uh, no, don't you be running around with that girl. That's not right. That's not God's best for you. That helped keep me on the straight and narrow. But if we're not dealing with these things, then these kids, no wonder they're struggling for truth. You mentioned fear a while ago. It says, when Peter began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group.

That's it. That fear. You all mentioned that being fearful that what's the left-wringer's going to say about it. When you think about that, we know that was a weakness of Peters because the night Jesus died, why did he deny him three times? Fear. Fear. Because maybe he kept saying, you know, I never knew him. I blankety-blank, I never knew it. I I mean, he built up out of that fear. That was his, and so you're saying the same thing. Oh, yeah. And circumcision just happened to be the issue at their time.

Right. So people that pastors that would come out and say, well, you know, Jesus didn't ever mention homosexuality or Jesus didn't mention, look, he didn't mention pedophilia either. He didn't mention snorting lines of cocaine. He didn't mention those things. But we have to look at what is the issue of the day. Where is it that Satan has his stronghold where he's putting his thumb down and says, you can talk about anything you want.

Just don't talk about that. And if you talk about that, then I'll take you out. So what does Satan seek to do? Rob, to kill, and to destroy. What does he want to do? He wants to rob, to kill, and to destroy. Look, if he can't take your physical life, what he wants to do is take your reputation. And I'm telling you, for a lot of the celebrity Christians out there, they will tell you, their reputation is more important.

They'd rather be a martyr than to actually lose their reputation online. We're fixed to find out in about two or three weeks. Yep. How America views all this. Yeah. I hope they choose wisely. Because the latest issue of the day is, of course, race identity, critical race theory. We've been talking about a lot on our podcast.

I'm sure you guys have been talking about it as well. And so that's the latest. And you're right, the same people. Because I went to some kind of summit last year. And so it was mostly attorneys because it was ADF, you know, and the work they do, amazing work. Those guys are fantastic. someone had the vision to know we were going to be battling this in court a long time ago. And so with the vision, they've got these brothers and sisters lined up.

So they had some pastors at the thing. And so I went in, I thought, oh, I'll sit in on that. Because I was a free lance. They was just an invited. So I was kind of drifting around and different things and watching and listening. So there's some pastors in there. And I went in there and sat down. I thought, well, that's an ministry and kind of hear what they think about.

Well, they started, it starts around the room about social justice, about all these terms I'm hearing. And these are, these are mostly in, they're in California, all these different states. And I didn't know any of these people, but they all have big churches. And when I was hearing them, nobody was talking about the gospel, truth, how do we, you know, how do we break this satanic stronghold? It was all, you know, people have been oppressed, and it's time for us to, you know, break people free and talking all about governmental stuff. And it really just, it shocked me. Because, you know, there were 30 or 40 pastors in that room. And I heard very few. that we're having the conversation we're having today at all.

And so I thought, you know what, we may be in trouble here. If these are supposedly God's people that are saying these things, when this thing is to a tipping point, I think they're going to go with them. And that's exactly what we're seeing in this moment right now. 100%. And do you remember when Bealem was approached by the king's men, Barrick, and they said, hey, we want you to come with us, and we want you to cast a curse down on the Israelites.

and Balaam, you know, goes to God, and God's like, why are you asking me? No, of course not. You know, so Bailam goes and says, ooh, God won't let me. And so they come back and they ask him, and they up the ante, right? And now obviously we know from the story that Balaam had it in his heart. He wanted the, he wanted the gold, he wanted the platform, he wanted that position in Barrick's kingdom. And so he goes back and ask God, and God says, yeah, go. You know, and then on his way, the angel shows up that's going to take him right out, right? And I just think about that right there, is that God, oftentimes when God allows you to move a certain way, it's because it's already in your heart, but it's not the direction God wants you to go. And so I hear about this pastor,

big time pastor in Nashville that said, look, I've been praying for two years about what God thinks about sexuality, and now I'm endorsing same-sex marriage. And I instantly thought of Balaam, you don't ask God about something he's already spoken about. Because if you do, he may very well say, fine, go ahead. But it's going to end up on a bad day for you. And that's what's happening with critical race theory and it's crept into the church. Listen, in Christ, that's the key, those two words. In Christ, there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, right? We are all one. There is no oppressed oppressor. We are all one in Christ. And here in America, it's not our system. See, we have a structural.

of government that is the people running the nation, right? And so if there are issues, it's the heart of the people. And when we bring the gospel, I love what Martin Luther King Jr. said, the church must be reminded that it is neither the master nor the servant of the state, rather it's the conscience of the state. And if we're not speaking this very clearly, then here's what we'll find. This is the same spirit that reared its head back in the civil rights movement when thank God we overturned the nonsense Jim Crow era nonsense that was horrible that kind of stuff but here's

what we had which by the way was a Democrat a hundred percent it was a Democratic Party I mean it was doing it back then as well let's take one last break then finish that up okay so what we found is you know 60 years ago 70 years ago thank God Martin Luther King Jr. and the church of Jesus Christ rose up and they marched peacefully during the day today it's the same foul spirit that wants to bring division and disunity to rob, to kill, and to destroy, and BLM is marching violently at night. It's two totally different spirits. It's the difference between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

We don't celebrate Malcolm X today. We don't have a Malcolm X day in America today. But he and Martin Luther King Jr. felt the same thing. They saw the same thing, but they had two totally different paths forward. One held a Koran, one held the Bible. That's right. But now you look in here today, look, there are things that we, We can walk through.

We can talk through. We can make changes. But the problem is, is now we don't even have the voice of an MLK anymore. It's nothing but Malcolm X, violence, protest, destroy. And you ask them, what's your vision for the future? What's your vision for the future? We'll defund the police. Do this, do that.

Well, just walk through any city street and talk to a normal. It doesn't matter if you're white, African American, Asian, Hispanic. Do you want the police defunded? Heck no. I mean, what? Who are you going to call? That's right. Right? Okay. So law and what it is, it's an attack. And this is my final sermon piece before I take up a love offering from my brother here, who's been learning so much. But here's what it is. You go to the Garden of Eden. Okay. In the Garden, we see how God created things. Did he create gender in the garden? Yeah. Did he create marriage in the garden? Yeah. Did he create human sexuality in the garden? Yeah. Thank God. Did he create work ethic? He told Adam to,

cultivate the garden, right? He gave Adam rights. He gave him all this stuff in the garden. Then of course, sin came in and it separated us from God. And then Christ comes and he heals everything, but it's not ultimately healed until he returns the second time, right? Okay. So all of that, Jesus teaches us to pray. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in. Okay. You look back at the garden and you see we have civil society here in America. God has given us all of these things. He has given us government so that mankind can interact peacefully in a fallen world, right? And God gives us this. And so what's the attack today is on God's design.

Anything that resembles the image of God, there the attack will be. You're not seeing attacks on other stuff. That's why you don't see a Muslim baker, Stephen Crowder took a video to seven Muslim bakers and said, bake me a gay cake. I want you to bake me a cake for a gay wedding. Every single one of them said no. Well, I think there was one that said, one or two that said, I don't know, but the one guy's like, get out. He literally, you see him on video, get out.

And yet, why are that, why is that not, like, why doesn't that make headlines? Okay, because here's the deal. The attack today is on the image of God. That's what the attack is on. So you can't talk about marriage. You can't talk about human sexuality. And now what's happening is God creates, he creates man and woman. he gives us the skin color he gives us.

This is an identity that he gives us. And now the devil is going to absolutely attack that. Rob, kill, destroy, bring division, disunity with no hope for the future. This is where Christian believers have to be. But that's why we are alive today. That's right. God put us here to be the people that would stand against this and raise up a banner of truth. And to find each other, which is what we've been talking about.

We've got a few minutes left. I want you to tell the audience about what you're doing with entrepreneurship. you up and because that's a pretty cool thing. So a lot of people know why we got fired, right? Right. But they don't know why we got hired by HGTV in the first place. Right. So we say the same thing that got us fired is what got us hired.

It was faithfulness. We tell believers all the time that faithfulness in your walk, or excuse me, faithfulness in your work leads to promotion, but faithfulness in your walk leads to persecution. So just buckle up and get ready for it. You don't, you're not the one who's in charge of the persecution of the promotion. You're just in charge of faithfulness. Therefore, David and I, after we got our rear ends tossed by HGTV, we kept building businesses, and we've discovered, you know, the way to do it.

I mean, we're serial entrepreneurs that built companies worldwide, and one of our companies that we built over in the Philippines right now still has over 1,200 employees. So we know how to do it, and what we started to do is we felt that God wanted us to take our intellectual property and download it to other entrepreneurs. And so we created a product called Expert Ownership. It's a little course that we created that will help you build and grow and sustain a business. But then we have expert ownership live coming up where we're bringing you guys on to talk with us. Dad and I are on there.

Yeah, buddy. John Maxwell's. Can't wait. We're swimming in the deep water. Yeah, the founders of Otterbox are on there. And really what we're tackling is how do you serve God, thrive in business, and succeed in life in today's culture? And how can you own a business without it owning you? We talk about systems.

We talk about team building. We talk about money managed. leadership, all of these things. Because being really good in business, in all honesty, at the end of the day, is one of the things that helped us to stand strong because we already had businesses that were running themselves and were wise with our money. So we had passive income exceeding our living expenses. So when HGTV pulled the plug on us, they didn't pull our financial plug. We were in a position where we could stand because we weren't beholding unto anybody. And so we want to help other people get to that point. And that's what I love about you guys is because

because part of this whole other side of movement, you see people that don't want to work, that want to just get a check and cause mischief. And, you know, just that's their life goals and they're still with their parents and they're like 35 years old. So I like not only are you true to your faith, true to the Word of God,

but also that part, which is biblical principle, that built America. That's right. And from the beginning, it was that kind of work ethic, it was that kind of understanding what it was about. So I like it. It's not just like, hey, we're just going to preach to you.

We're going to preach to you. But we're also going to show you how to build things. That's right. How to hire people, how to make money, and how to have a system that works, you know, which is a beauty. We actually just recorded, and it's not done yet, but expert ownership, the early years. We talked to 16 to 24-year-olds. And we say, here are 12 modules, 10 minutes each on exactly what you need to do to be valuable, to be faithful in little things, to produce more in value than you take and pay,

and all these things that we talk about. And we just walk them through it. We say if you do exactly what we say, you will never lack for a job, ever. That's awesome. So you guys do a podcast too, right? We do. Expert ownership. You know, we really got creative with that name.

Stuck with expert ownership. Well, you didn't build on that brand. So I know, because I know a lot of our listeners are going to check you guys out after hearing you today. So I have to, I guess I'll close with this, that the Benham brothers talked as much as Jace, but it wasn't as bad when you had two people doing it, maybe. Was that the deal? They were on a little bit different wavelength

from lawn wolf McQuaid. What a two-for-one tray for Jays. Well, I love you guys, and we've gotten to be really tight. Whenever I'm in your area, I always stop by for a visit. This is your first time to Westmanoe. You got some great Cajun food last night. Yes, we did. These two guys, they're big workout guys and all that,

but they had to work out extra hard today to work off some of the meat pies and whatnot. Boudan bowls. Boodan balls. Never had one of those before. Well, anyway, it's great to have. have you guys and safe travels. Thanks, brother. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast.

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