Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 232 | Phil Robertson's Sticky Chicken Recipe, Checking for Ticks, and Chasing Miracles

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Phil shares the mouthwatering sticky chicken recipe he got from Cajun and Creole cooking legend John Folse. Jase says no one can believe they eat squirrels and shares a few ways they cook them. The guys continue their study of Acts and take a look at how the miracles performed by the disciples inspired faith in some people and jealousy in others. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So, Dad, you got your second coronavirus vaccination, the second part of the plan. How did it affect you? Do you feel better? Did you get sick at all? No, I didn't get sick. I just felt tired, a little bit tired. And I had like a, during the night, kind of like a rigor. You know, where you shake, you know, you got real cold. I just had a little rigor, about like back in the day when I had the tick fever,

had to cut fever from a tick. It was kind of that way for one night, and your arm got pretty sore. The first one, nope, didn't even know you had the shot. The second one, I don't know, they might have kicked up the power a little bit. Well, I don't know. I researched it because they don't give you the virus, you know, like a flu vaccination, you actually get some of the virus in you and then your body builds the antibodies. But they said this was different because all they're putting in there is some protein into your body.

But I guess with that second shot must enact something that happens that now your body is building up those antibodies to the coronavirus. You had to remember if I had to do it over again, I would do it over again. It wasn't so bad that I'm like, I'll never do that again. I mean, it was just like a little rigor. Yeah. Like you had a little, in this case, did the same thing. You know, she said, I'm cold. So it was kind of like that.

But as far as like sick, no, no sickness involved. It's kind of like when, if you had to do it over again, that's why I've had, you know, my wife wasn't long into our marriage. I was like, I need you to check me. for ticks. And she was like, do what? She thought I was kidding. That ain't a joke.

No, it's not a joke. You know, they made a song. I think, who was that, Brad Paisley? I'd like to check you for ticks. Everybody laughed. You know, what's wrong with these people? No, that's a common practice in our world. Tick checking.

You better believe it is. Because you can get some really bad diseases from ticks, and there's a lot of ticks down here. I had a tough fever coming from a tick, which was akin to the coronavirus. You know, you get one from bats, where you get this from ticks that was on a diseased animal. They get on you, and they gave you the disease.

I told them what was wrong with me. They were checking me and checking and checking. And somebody sent me a Field and Stream magazine. It said, beware an article, Beware the Beastly Tick. And it had about 10 different fevers, Rocky Mountain, spotted fever, this fever, that tularemia, you know. So I thought, so I rang the doctor.

He comes in. I said, see this article in, fill in the stream? He looked down there at it. He said, yeah, I said, I've got one of those fevers right there, that tick. I told you, a tick bit me a couple of weeks ago, I found him. And he took a little culture out of that tick bite, ran it through, and he said, you were correct. He said, it's, I diagnosed myself and told him that tick gave him. it to me. Well, he checked it.

So, Tilleramia. Beaver, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, they gave me a regiment of about the biggest antibiotic there was. You got to remember I was 20 years old. Now I'm 74. But at 20, they checked it. And they said, your spleen is enlarge. You're really sick. So it came from one tick that bit me. but this coronavirus thing, it was a little like that, kind of rigors, you know, at night, but not near as bad as...

Is that just your vaccine? Tularemia was worse than this. Let me put it that way. Well, I wonder if this is like, because your mom said they had to pack you in ice. I mean, you were like, you were in a bad way. Oh, yeah. I was very sick from a tick.

It almost rhymes. Sick from a tick. Did it ever come back on you later in life or once you got over you over? It flared up two or three times in my 20s, finally went away. But it was nothing to laugh at. Yeah. No, I was just saying the funny was that I'd like, well, I don't forget how that song went. Check her for ticks or something like that.

I just remember my wife saying, what? I was like, no, this is a real thing. I can remember when dad. used to squirrel hunt and he would come in because he was squirrel hunted in socks trying to be quiet I guess and so he would come in you were young dad and I was too but I can just remember your feet mom having a light on your feet and she had a needle and she would pick thorns out of your feet for like an hour you remember that I did it because I mean that's what you do I mean you feel would tell us go in socks but I'm like tennis shoes will work I mean I

I just get off because I didn't like the thing sticking in my feet. And, I mean, through my life, I've had hundreds of ticks on me. They had to be the right kind of socks, the nylon, the old men socks, the nylon, real tight ones. You've seen that. No cloth. It was like nylon. But you could walk much quieter in the woods with that type of sock than you could barefooted. Oh, well, no doubt.

Well, I know one thing. You were a squirrel killer because I remember. helping you clean a lot of squirrels when I was young. Most people still think that that's weird that we eat squirrel. Most people that I know think it's really weird that we eat squirrels. It's because they taste good. I know, but people can't get over the fat. They see a little squirrel, and they're like, they just wouldn't eat it.

They are delicious. Because it looks like a rat, which I think it's in that family. Rodent. And they're like warm and fuzzy, and they just, but boy once you eat them they're amazing amazingly good like that's like everything else we talk about

in the wild game line I mean their diet is a good diet you know they're eating things that are good so therefore they taste good yeah they eat nuts it's all about what an animal that's one of the few things I haven't convinced my wife

to try I mean she's tried almost everything else along the way and been pleasantly surprised yep Yuppie is slow to go. She drew the line on the squirrel. She's like, you know, I just, just, just, just can't do it. It's just fine.

I'm like, more for me. I stop at four instead of having to go to six. Yeah. So, because I eat four. That's about what I eat. Yeah. You cook them like mom does with the gravy and all that? Oh, yeah.

And I, but I like young ones because, then you can just fry them. Yeah. They're awesome. If they're older, you have to do the brown them, put them in the oven, let the time break them down. Hour and a half, two hours. Yeah. Gravy over the rice.

Awesome. It's kind of like I fixed sticky chicken, you girls out there in computer land, especially you yuppie girls, cut up a chicken in pieces. Or a squirrel. You got one whole chicken or squirrel or doves or anything. What you do is put a little tab of butter. you know about about an inch wide or inch and a half throw that in the bottom of a pan little olive oil to cut up your chicken season them good set them over in that all oil brown them on one side turn them over on the other side on the top of the stove so you brown them on the stove

you dump about 12 or 14 little bits of garlic and you put that on top of them that's all you got in it is garlic this is a rough loose recipe yeah and you're seasoning your chicken out put a lid on that iron pot that you put on the stove, a little pat of butter and olive oil, brown them on both sides, put a lid on it, put it in the oven, hour and a half will do it. We call it sticky chicken, sticky chicken.

Iron a half at what temperature, like 3.10 degrees, 300 to 310, hour and a half. And look, it's one of the finest meals. You can take the chicken out if you want to make a gravy out of the drippings, the olive oil and the butter. Did you flour this chicken? No, no flouring. Oh, okay.

No flaring. You just cut the chicken up, salt and black pepper, seasoning. It's as zesty as you want it. Searing the chicken. Brown them on one side. and the butter and you fry them in that, turn them over, and brown, drop your garlic on there on top of them. And that's it.

Put them in the oven for a hour and a half, and people will come miles around to get it. That's a South Louisiana dish. Some case I told me about it. Lisa does the same thing with pork chops. She does her pork chops that way. And you put some, in hers, she put some mushrooms in there and onion with them. I mean, there's a lot of different variant ways to do it.

I like the mushrooms because it provides the moisture in the oven. You can put mushrooms in this. More moist because the moisture coming from the mushroom. I just made it handy in case you didn't have any mushrooms. Yeah. I know you got garlic. If you cook, you have to have garlic in the fridge at all times. So I know you have garlic.

Are you crazy? So you put a little garlic in there and put it in an oven, but people will come from miles around. Wasn't that our old friend John Foltz? That was his, like, grandmother's recipe? Grandmother's recipe. Yeah. Good work, folks.

I will say, it is delicious. I love it. I love it when you cook that. No, it's weird. When I got that vibe, I went to Ukraine, I got sick over there because I was staying in a, I've shared this before, you know, in a center of rare diseases, which we didn't know that. Ticks were coming from Russia and stuff. No, I didn't get ticks.

I just got a disease of some sort or some parasite. And so one of my buddies, well, I'll say buddy, one of the leaders in the church when I got back, he put me on a garlic diet. So I woke up every morning I would chop up, close of garlic, and just swallow it every day. So I don't know if that cured me. I used to put it on food, but garlic is very, very good for you. Actually, yeah, garlic. I take garlic every day.

Now, Jason, you can have it in a lot. like a gel form. Oh, really? Take a pill. The reason I know that, the reason I know it's good to eat it because I've eaten a whole lot of it. And it may be one of the reasons that I'm heading into the 75 zone

within a couple of months, but 75 and not one acre of pain anywhere. So I'm thinking, you know, that garlic might work. But you know what I did notice is every time I got around people? They were, what is that smell? And I hated to say, It's me.

You reek of garlic. It's me. Well, when you eat a lot of garlic, it comes out of your pores. Yeah. Yeah. Which is true. Yeah. Let's take a break.

We'll get into Acts. So we left off in Acts chapter 8 days. We, um, yeah. Last time we were talking about this deal about kind of preview and about Saul. Because he's basically wreaking havoc on the first. century church. But as we said last time, what's happening is now that's fanning the flame of the gospel. And so Philip winds up in Samaria. Yeah. We talked about there where Jesus had already kind of prepped it for him. And so he's, when the crowds heard Philip in verse six and said, they saw the

miraculous signs he did. They all paid close attention to what he said, which is the point of the miracles. And I love this with shrieks, evil spirits came out of many. I like the way Luke has kind of a flare for the dramatic. I mean, they weren't just, the evil spirits weren't just leaving. They were shrieking as they left. I mean, you can imagine what that looked like, what that scene looked like. Oh, yeah. I think some of the stuff here is what a lot of religions argue about. Because you have, you know, a lot of people, even in a religious world, they read this and they're like, well, we want to be exactly like they were. And so there's a quest to have miraculous signs. right today to confirm the declaration of jesus and simon wanted to buy that power of that power

which shows you that he was not focused on the right thing the pursuit of having this miraculous ability has never left people today want this same power i tend to think that in this day and age, because this was God's way of introducing his son to the world, you know, once he did pretty well the miracles while he was here on earth, and then the ultimate miracle, which was the resurrection of the dead, and then given the power to get people's attention, you would think through these miracles that this would work, but they still were having trouble getting people to believe in the power of Jesus. While Jesus was there, it's pretty amazing, Al, on how few, what few it was who could replicate, to some degree, his power.

Only given to a few, Al. Jesus walked the earth for the last three years of life. He was walking to and fro, healing those who were sick, driving out evil spirits. You say, well, why didn't they give that gift to everybody so everybody could drive out evil spirits? Everybody could walk on water. Everybody could raise the dead. I mean, why don't you give us all that where we can have some of that? Because I think the point is ultimately, and it's the same point, if it was all about the miracles,

why didn't he just heal or miraculously bring Stephen back to life? That's right. Why do you let him die? That's right. And that's the point. Look, I've had a lot of discussions, arguments, whatever you want to call it, with religious people over this issue. Because I'm like, there's a thin line between. believing that God works supernaturally today, and I keep going back to March 16, because

God is, it's his power in jars of clay to show that the power from him, not us. But I never want to be that person like Simon on a quest for God to work supernaturally or even miraculously in my life here. When having Jesus in your heart and surrendering to him literally trumps in. any miracle that you could ever get on this earth. Would you agree with that? I would not only agree with that, even if you could perform the miraculous,

if there is no love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in your life. What good would it do for you if you could perform? I can perform miracles, though, but if those qualities which as it turns out are called the fruit love joy peace they're called the fruit of the spirit well look at it in the way of importance while you're on the earth would it be more important if you could perform the miraculous but if love was not there and joy and peace and patience it kind of what have you what have you gained out because this is just on this earth

it was so enticing, Jace, they were willing to pay big bucks for it. And in this case, Peter slammed that idea. Well, there's a couple of things about that. One is that shows you how dangerous this could be in the wrong hands or really in the wrong heart, is a better way to put it, this ability, because I think that's the point of the story. And the other thing I think that's confusing to people is the Holy Spirit, you see two different activities of the Holy Spirit.

The one you mentioned, Dad, that was made available for anybody who was believed in Jesus and then, you know, and obeyed him. And then the Holy Spirit lives in you to bear that fruit. But that was different than this. Yeah, that was different than the laying off a hands and this miraculous ability. And the only people really ever see, including in this story, because, I mean, Philip is there and he has the ability, but he can't give it to Simon. they don't ask until Peter and John show up.

So it tells me that God wanted that ability to pass that on in the hands of the original 12. Well, what's unfortunate is I think the power of Acts 8 is lost in the religious world because of all these arguments that have come from mainly two things. Do these miracles continue today? and how were these people baptized but didn't receive the Holy Spirit? Because it seems to be in contrast to other, you know, what happened to this in Acts 2? It seems kind of simple all in a package. And then all of a sudden you get to Acts 8 and it's like, this is confusing.

And then you get to Acts 10, which is even more confusing because it's introducing the Gentile world. There had to be signs. God figured there had to be, I guess. I mean, it wasn't a man's idea. It was his idea to, oh, we need to show that no matter where you're from, you can have God's spirit, even if you're not from here. So it is confusing. I don't claim to have all the answers about it, but I don't mind talking about it.

But I think if the greater picture is missed, the greater point, which is that their purpose was declared Jesus. there is a promise of the Holy Spirit being received to those who surrender to Jesus. There's no doubt in my mind about that. And that Jesus is ultimately better than miracles because he, a relationship with him, him being the miracle worker, is a greater thing than having a miracle happen in your life. If you were in cahoots with someone who had the ability to do miracles, that would be of greater worth to you moving forward than an actual miracle happening in your life.

And to prove what you just said, Second Corinthians 5 is a great place to go. We know that if the earthly tent, you're in a temporary body, and it's called a tent, the Apostle Paul called it, and he's the one standing there killing Christians before he realized this, we live in is destroyed. If your body dies, it's destroyed. We have a building from God, another house, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. We groan longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,

the glorified body, immortality, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. While we're in this tent, we know this about this physical death coming up, and we don't like it, so we groan and are burdened, because we don't wish to be unclothed, your spirit and your soul, leave in your tent. It is God who has made us, verse 5, for this very purpose, and he has given us the spirit. Here's the reason the spirit was given to everyone who puts their faith in Jesus.

He's given us the spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what's to come. that's more important than if you could do while you're on the earth temporary miracles from time to time, in my opinion. This is worth far more. This is a guarantee for immortality here. And I think that's what we miss if we construe Acts chapter 8 in the wrong way. Yeah, I mean, look, Al, let me read this story about Simon and Sorcer. I mean, because here's why we introduce that this can be confusing. So I think if you figure out where does all this confusion come from,

and you get the big picture. Definitely, when you read it, you get the full contents. Let's take a little break. So in verse 9, it says for some time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people in Samaria. So he was already with fake miracles. What is a sorcerer?

He goes around performing fake miracles. like Lord of the Rings 2,000 years ago. A magician, right. You know, he was a magician, basically, except he, you know, he had it. And he had some way he was doing whatever he was doing.

He amazed them. But, you know, people have been doing amazing tricks, you know, since there was mankind on the earth. So he had boasted that he was someone great, which that's usually a bad sign. People who are going around talking about how great they are,

bad sign. Bad sign. And all, they reminded me of that, What was the Eastwood movie where he was talking about his dirty hair? He was talking about one of his lieutenants. And he said, he's a legend in his own mind. A phrase.

Well, think about a guy who's been performing fake miracles, he sees what real miracles are. And he says, I will pay you big bucks if you will get me, give me some of that action. Oh, this is the movie, you know, where the magician movie, where they see the trick and then they try to do the same trick. There was a series of movies about 10 years ago that swept. Was that the one that had Morgan Freeman in it? I can't remember.

They came out with a series of movies about that. It was all about who had the best trick and where did it come from. But I think that's how it works in the magician world. Because once you find out how they do it, I mean, I got news for you. If you go to a magic trick and they saw a woman in half, that didn't really happen. Well, I have to say that because there's a lot of people in churches that are like, they're trying to pursue the actual miracle based on kind of like what Simon is doing.

So make sure you're not in the same camp that he is. But you got to remember, it goes on to say here, he boasted that he was someone great. All the people both high and low gave him their attention and exclaimed, this man is the divine power known as the great power, which would be God. You see what I'm saying? Well, because if you have the power to manipulate the atoms and the molecules, if your magic tricks are so good that people say,

this guy, the only way he could be doing this is to defy the laws of nature and gravity. That means you're a really good magician. But so he's seeing. somebody actually define the laws of nature. That's right. And I think he's thinking, I got a, what are they doing this? Yeah, I want it. I want that power.

Why? Because they want to make some money. Yeah. So we're not even talk. We're so far off of loving Jesus. We can't be any further. That's right. So that's what you got to remember going on, going in.

So they followed him in verse 11 because he had amazed him for a long time with his magic. But when they believe Philip, as he preached the good news of the kingdom and the name of Jesus Christ, well, they were baptized both men and women. So now we have people that have responded to Jesus and hearing about the kingdom that they can be a part of it on earth. Well, Simon himself believed him was baptized. This is where it gets kind of confusing,

which makes me realize you can, there's a lot of people. Here's what I think. I think a lot of people have been baptized and they just got wet. There was no different. This one did too. Yeah, I think it's possible to go get and say, I'm going to be baptized. Now, because so far he's talking about how great he is, which is the opposite. Because if someone is cut to the heart based on Jesus, when they come out of the water,

they start talking about how great Jesus is. Therefore, and he followed Philip everywhere and look what he's astonished at. He wasn't astonished that all of his sins had been removed. Yeah, exactly. he will be empowered by God's spirit indwelling him and he would live forever the Holy Spirit guaranteeing given to him as a deposit

guaranteeing he's going around listen and he's astonished he's following everyone by the great signs and miracles he's out he can't get off of the miracle he wanted it that's right so in verse 14 I can work miracles God's giving me immortality yeah well which one is the most important

yeah he wasn't chasing Jesus he was chasing miracles. Chase some miracles. So if someone asked my opinion, the reason I think the next verse is here is because they say, well, if he believed in Jesus, I mean, we don't want to judge his heart and it's ultimately God's decision. But it doesn't seem like he was sincerely surrendering to Jesus. He was not.

So I think that led to verse 14, which says when the Apostle of Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrive, here's the next tricky part. They prayed for them that they may receive the Holy Spirit. Well, people say, well, how come they hadn't received the Holy Spirit because they were baptized? Well, there's a difference between receiving the undwelling of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous. How would you call that?

The miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit? Yeah. It's another operation. The Holy Spirit is the one that is empowered them. But remember, it fell on them. Remember, it was like the fire. I mean, like God just whooshed it on them. We know already that.

In Acts 2, you're talking about it. Right, from Acts 2. Well, in 16, it uses the same kind of statement. It says, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now, this is where the confusion starts. Because you got in Acts 2, 38, it says, you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This promise is for you and your children and their children, and it's a generational promise. So how would you explain verse 16 now, 816? So 816 says, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come up on, and that's the key phrase. There's different indwelling. and coming upon. I think that's the difference. They had simply been baptized in the name of Lord Jesus.

So they had received the same spirit every believer receives that deposit the dad read. Ephesians 1 says the same thing. Is it a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance of the resurrection? And the question is, how do we get that? Remember, they heard that the Samaritans that accepted the word, they sent Peter and John to them. You said, why did they show up? Because they knew they had the power to perform the miraculous. That's right.

So when they came down, they had to have them there for them to even see the miracles. Well, then in verse 17, it says Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Yep. Now, here's why I know it's miraculous that moment. Yep. Because the next verse says, when Simon. Saul. Well, what's his big thing? He's a magician. He's wanting what they have. Oh, hey, how, he wants what they have. We have some kind of molecular and atomic altered happening here.

I thought I could perform here because these guys put me too shame. This is legit. Then it says he offered them money and said, give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands on may ever say, I want to be able to give this power. Peter answered, may your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because, now here's the key thing, because your heart is not right before God. Think about it.

He missed the big picture, which is, look, whether we agree on the details of what we're sharing here and how that works, you can't miss the big picture. If you're not surrendered to Jesus and you want the ability to do miracles for selfish motive or money, you've missed this. So I personally think that you can't confuse the area of importance when it comes to baptism or even the miracles. And you say, what do you mean? Jesus is what saves you. They were going around declaring Jesus why, because that's God's way of salvation. Jesus living a perfect life, dying on the cross for your sins, being resurrected at the right hand of God.

When people heard that, they responded. They decided to repent. They decided to declare Jesus as Lord. Some were baptized. But if you could be baptized and not be cut to the heart through Jesus, like in this case. it all the time. And be a million miles away. So you say, well, what was that baptism? You don't put as much importance on baptism than you do understanding who Jesus is. And that for this very reason, same thing with the Holy Spirit. Now, a lot of people say, well, we believe that when we have the

Holy Spirit in modern day, these miraculous gifts are given to some. My initial reaction is that 1 Corinthians words at 9-1 that says to be an apostle to have this power to lay your hands on someone and give them regular gifts one of the prerequisites was that they were an eyewitness to the resurrected lord well i think that stopped at some point here unless he struck you down on the road right i sure did and uh let's take another break i think you exactly right jays and i think the that Philip doesn't have the ability to pass on what was passed on to him by the laying a hands on him proves that there was a shelf life on these miraculous signs. Philip couldn't do it. I mean, Philip went and preached to him, he baptized him, but then when it came to imparting

any miraculous gifts, it had to wait for Peter and John to get there, which I think that in itself shows you the limited nature of what God had in mind. And think about it, it makes perfect sense. Why would you keep that going forward? I mean, all you're trying to do is get this thing started. And so... But every time I said that, it makes people mad. I know. So, look, I've gone to places, me personally, some strange ways to get me there, but I ended up there. Here's a guy lying on the bed, tubes in his nose. He's not expected to live.

I pray that God would heal him, and I walk out the door. A few months goes by, this guy walks up, but he doesn't have tubes up his nose. And I was just looking at him when I was praying for him, but I didn't really remember his face. Months goes by a few months, he walks up to him, and he says, you remember me? and I said, I don't think I, I don't remember you. He said, I was the guy you came in and prayed for when they said I wasn't going to live. I said, so you, that guy, he said, it all went away, Mr. Robertson. He said, all my disease left, the cancer left.

So what I would say to that is there's a really thin line, and I mean really thin. I was thinking God healed him, but as far as. Let me finish my point. The thin line is there's a difference in saying God works providentially and supernaturally and saying God works miraculously. He does all three things and is capable of that and who am I to say he can't? So I wouldn't. However, in that case, I would say God works supernaturally.

I wouldn't call it a miracle because I think a miracle is something what Simon was seeing where there's, atoms and molecules manipulated in a way that is not physically or earthly explained, as in limbs being attached that are not there, or you know, you're blown up into, I mean, I hate to be this graphic, but I don't know how else to make the point. You're blown up into 14 different pieces, and your body parts are shipped all over the world. And then three days later, we look up and you've somehow gotten back together and are walking around talking. Well, I would say that's a miracle. That's not God working providentially or supernaturally. That was a miracle. So my point is he could do all three. How I think he works

today is supernaturally and providentially, I think the miraculous part was a stage in this time frame that he doesn't have to do today. Plus, if an atheist had been on my left, I just gave you one example. There's many examples, but I just gave you that one. But if an atheist had been standing there beside me, Al, and a Jew on my right and an atheist on my left and a hardcore law Moses keeper would have been on my right a Jew. They both could have said he got lucky. He got lucky and survived. That's all right. That's why I was calling this. There would have been an argument about who saved him because he just got lucky. You thought that God healed him.

You see my point? Oh, a miracle is like you said, Jays. It's undeniable. It's undeniable. And look, having said all what I said, if God wants to do a miracle today, he'll do it without my approval or i don't ever i would never say that he doesn't do it okay i he can do anything he wants to he's created the universe whether he wants to make it for us to grab a hold of fine but my whole point is if it was all about doing modern day miracles throughout generations and generations why did jesus come why is jesus not enough to me jesus is greater than modern day miracles. So when people come in and they say,

you ready for a miracle today? I'm like, I'm ready for Jesus today. He's greater than whatever miracle that you can give me. That he's better than miracles. And you read Hebrews 2-4 and it kind of validates what I'm saying. Once you're into him, you don't need to be convinced anymore about who he is and what he's capable of and his power,

which is to your point. I think you made a good point earlier, Jay's, when you set the context that, because, looks, obviously something's going on in the first century that's different from today. Maybe they're just, you know, people would say, oh, that's just because they were ancient and superstitious. But look, I mean, I've been all around the world. The evil's, just the evil spirit part of this alone. When Jesus was walking around in this early church, I don't see this people with evil spirits

and shrieking, leaving out of people. There was something, the context of God coming to earth. did something in the spiritual world and the spiritual warfare. Obviously, Satan was front and center because we read about him. He's right there. So something was happening in a supernatural sense that probably hasn't happened since this first 30 or 40-year period after Jesus was evil. I mean, I have, we've shared another part of. I've had a couple moments where I thought I was talking to someone who literally was possessed by an evil spirit.

And I, look, you said what did I, what did you do? I unleash Jesus with. everything I knew and I prayed. And, you know, I've been in foreign countries where everybody was talking different languages and I really tried to open my mouth and speak their language. It didn't happen. It would have been a miracle if it would have, would have. And I wasn't going to tell anybody.

I mean, I was like, Lord, if you can help me out here, didn't happen. My heart was pure and sincere. I was going to keep it a secret. But I just thought right now, learning this language would be really handy. Just give me the quick thing. Yeah. When I was preaching and having to, you know, go through a translator. Let's take one last break.

I mean, the bottom line is, my point is, the religious world gets too hung up on trying to make everything, especially the semantics of it. Yeah. Where they say, this is what we believe on this. I mean, it was a different time. It was a different situation. But to me, if you get so hung up on trying to get everything, to fit.

I think you missed the greater picture, which is these guys were going around and sharing Jesus and the Holy Spirit was being given. And when you get to all the letters that was written after this, to me, once you consider those, it seems quite clear that when he got to Galatians

and the problems they were having, when he talked about the fruit of the spirit, well, how come he's not listing any miracles there? he starts talking of love, joy, peace, patient, kindness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, something anyone can do on earth. I mean, that was the way God chose to have his servants act and see the results of an encounter with Jesus. So that's what I think you should focus on and major in.

Well, and I think that both of you guys, I think now is the time to say to our audience, because look, we got a lot of our charismatic friends and brothers, that we'll view this a little bit differently than we do. And what we're saying is we don't want to lose sight of us being together for Christ even as that. And I do not hold it against them. I love it.

I meet probably in more charismatic churches than y'all do because I, you know, I go to different ones. Because I like the energy. I like the worship. And look, I don't have to 100% agree with the details on what they think about this. me to meet there and love them they love jesus i love them so i'm saying that i i see that even in my own personal life it doesn't bother me at all that we don't agree now it bothers them they'd have to

run me off but nobody doesn't seem to bother them either you know and so that's why i say i think we should focus on what we have in common because you're never really going to agree with everybody if that's if that's your standard for who you meet with and how you operate, you're going to be in for a miserable Christian experience and lifestyle. You're just, it's not about agreeing on all of that other than, okay, yeah, there's a God,

creator of the universe, he sent Jesus, all the things that are the foundational things about those three entities of the Trinity to me is what we should agree on. And then how exactly the wordage is used on a given Sunday morning I'm not real concerned about. Well, and if you study, you know, you study this Bible long enough, you know, which is the beauty of it, because, I mean, the Bible says about itself, the Hebrew writer says it's living and active. It's sharp.

It's double-edged. It affects the human heart. It doesn't change. I mean, it's words on a page, but it seems to affect us as we study. going through our lives because we change. We go through different things and we see things differently. So when we study something like this, this is just our view of what we see there. But if we get Jesus right, I mean, then we're all kind of marching in the same direction. We talked about this a few podcasts back. Dad, when you were talking about having, you know, in one week, you had the

conversation with Ben Carson and then the emissary from the Pope. And yet look at the common ground you found with both those guys, even though we all come out of different backgrounds. And what we're trying to do to affect our culture. You know, and we're trying to get Jesus. Yeah, I think some people that are new to this, they're like, well, I don't even understand what we're arguing about. And we're basically arguing about in the religious world, here, these guys are turned loose in the name of Jesus.

And they're given special abilities to do miraculous things. Jesus said it in Matthew 28 and Mark 16. and then they're doing it. And they're to the point of where they're laying their hands on and there are miracles happening. I mean, you're talking about exciting. And so the phraseology, based on the situation, gets confusing

because you have people being baptized in water because John's baptism, which set the foundation for this, they were saved because they were looking ahead to the one that would come in Jesus. And so now, you know, Jesus says, make the selves of all nations, baptizing them. And Mark says, preach the good news.

And baptized for everyone. He that believes and is baptized. Yeah, he that believes in his baptized will be safe. So this is happening while miracles are happening. So people are now being baptized. thinking, oh, I'm going to believe in the one coming, which is Jesus, because we're going to get in that in Acts 18 and 19. It's going to get more confusing because people said, well, we ain't even heard of a Holy Spirit.

And they're like, well, what baptism did you get? And the reason I'm bringing all this up is it was a different time. You literally had people who were baptized before Jesus and after. That's right. You had John's baptism and you had after. You had miracles from the Holy Spirit. and you had pre the Holy Spirit being poured out in Acts 2 with it. It wasn't even available until then.

So there was a lot of confusing mindsets to that. So you saw, what do we do? We're trying to say, once you focus on the big picture issues, don't miss those. And all these others, we can talk about in each specific situation what we think. So, and Jason,

you mentioned about earlier, jumped ahead a little bit, which we'll get to with Peter and Cornelis. What you notice is, same thing in Samaria, that story there. I'm looking at the one in Acts 19. You just mentioned it was when Paul first got to Ephesus. It's always a new region that the apostles would go into where you're trying to get attention to be able to tell them about Jesus.

So that was also a real purpose for this. This wasn't just like willy-nilly, you know, doing Holy Spirit stuff and healing people. these were strategic, you know, going into this new area and then the apostles would show up. They would impart these gifts that people were able to do miracles to get the attention. But again, even when you get to Acts 19, it's Paul who was basically an extended apostle because, you know, this conversion. So it's it's very purposeful what we see in the book of Acts. And I think sometimes it's easy to miss that when you kind of just get caught up in just like they did into the idea of the spirit. And I think the story that we've been talking about with Simon

really illustrates it perfectly if you take the context of it and really look at it from that perspective. Well, I think people who are pursuing this in modern day, the problem is you want to make sure you don't have the same selfish motivations that Simon had. You know, I've been to churches where they're talking about what they can do. And I'm like, well, what happened to Jesus? This has now become about you and your power, which is no different than Simon, you know, today. So I believe the purpose, honestly, to kind of wrap all this up,

I believe the purpose of this happening in our history and for us to read in this Bible, is that it created a foundation that validated who Jesus is that would carry it throughout all generations to come. I don't feel like we need modern day miracles to validate who Jesus is because ultimately it's about faith, not proof. You know, faith is being sure of what hope for and certain of what we don't see. So if you're trying to find a miracle or have a miracle happen in your life so you can see God,

why is all this in the Bible about faith? Why did Jesus himself say, blessed are the ones who won't see. All this did was create a foundation that would carry this story of Jesus and who he is throughout all generations, is my personal belief on why God decided to do the way he did. And now here we are. You say, what do you do?

Do you go out there and try to convince people that you can do miracles? No, I share Jesus to people. I introduce Jesus. You convert to Christianity to follow Christ. It's sort of like there was a Seinfeld episode where one of Seinfeld's, people in his circle, you know, was going to convert to Judaism so he could tell Jewish jokes. And, you know, Seinfeld was so offended by that. He said, you can't become a Jew just so you can tell Jewish jokes. Well, that's kind of what Simon was trying to do here. He was trying to become a

Christian to get those miraculous skills. But look, his heart was bad from the start. He thought he was a great man. You know, his arrogance is ultimately his undoing. But I will say at the end of this to wrap it up, he did ask Peter because Peter is, I mean, he chewed him out. He said, pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen. So I hope that was a breaking of that arrogance for him going forward. So maybe we'll see him again and find out. We get to have it. Yeah. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to Blaze TV at BlazTV.

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