Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 277 | It's a Lie That You Can't Mix Religion and Politics

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

Phil and Al make the case that Jesus wouldn't be a Democrat OR a Republican. Zach points out the biggest problem with a culture that worships race, sexuality, and politics. Jase is appalled that we're putting oxen and bats ahead of human beings. Al witnesses the religion of environmentalism in San Francisco. The guys talk about house churches, general revelation, and the purpose of creation. And Zach nails the reason conservatives fail when they go up against the Left. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So I'm coming from, I have joined Zach in North Carolina for a remote. I'm coming in from one California. Dad, I've been to California for about three days. And I spoke to about, I think it was about 600 people the other night at a pregnancy center fundraiser. fundraiser. And it was really interesting because first of all, I used your opening, I used your line to open. I never tried it before, but I hadn't been in California in a while. So I said, you know, when my dad meets somebody, somebody comes and visits us from California, he'll look

over at me and he'll say, Al, they look perfectly normal. Look at them. So when I said that, it was a roar. So the line worked. And then I told them, I said, it's almost like you guys are in dad's mind from another country like you're an alien you show up we're trying to figure out you know what you are so i said just just so you know that's kind of how we do you down louisiana but it was a great crowd's first time they had had a gathering of people in this county in over a year so to say they were enthusiastic uh is an understatement but it was a roseville california was the town and you were a rock star weren't you i was i was a big deal you know that's a big deal coming out of quarantine in California. It was big. And I told him, I said, you know, the thing about California is

your weather is perfect, but your politics are terrible. In Louisiana, our politics are decent, but the weather is terrible. You know, you just can't depend on it. So I guess it's a tradeoff no matter where you go. So, Dad, where are you heading? I know you're heading someplace. I'm, uh, they told me get ready to go to Beaumont, Texas. There's a crowd that's gathered. I'm quite sure how it all came together but I'm just a low-tech man trying to live in a high-tech world. Did you think that all the silence in your head that you had stopped hearing? We were trying to be respectful. We had a sorry going on.

Apparently there's a lot of crime going on here in North Carolina because that's the third siren I heard since we started the fight. Look, I was thinking the same thing. I thought you boys are living on the edge. Just living in this high-tech world is a chore, I'm going to tell you. But at Beaumont, Texas, there's a crowd gathering. How many I do not know. They said 15,000 probably.

So I'm not sure why they call me in, but I'm going down there. Are you worried you'll have anything to say? Are you going to have something to say to them? No, I'm not. I don't have any notes. So I'm pretty well going to pretty well just after studying the thing like the book of Romans, I basically might give them just the outline of Romans, the greeting, the Thanksgiving, the thesis, the doctrine of condemnation, the doctrine of justification.

But I don't want to get too deep in the weeds. I was going to point them to Jesus and I'm going to see if I can get out of their life. Have you noticed Jason with dad, wherever we're at, that's where he's at. If it's gun smoke, if it's Romans, that's what you're going to get. My bodyguards consist of a sheriff from North Carolina over there where Zach and Elmar. He's here, deputy sheriff, Stone, who is a jiu-jitsu man and his trainer. So I have some pretty good bodyguards. I mean, I feel pretty good about them.

as far as hand-to-hand combat. Yeah, you'll be a good hands, Phil. I thought about you this week, we got a gas shortage up here in North Carolina with this cyber attack. When I tell you last night that every gas station in the area had a line of cars, 40, I mean, each pump was 40 deep. And I kept thinking about your place. I said, man, it would be nice to have my own gas tank and my own diesel tank. That would be nice right now.

I thought about you, though. I pretty well have a generator that fires up that will run anything and everything we have around there, probably more houses than mine. That I have fuel on the premises, little generators you fire up to run your fuel tanks, the motors on your fuel tanks to get fuel from the tanks into your vehicle, into some heavy piece of equipment. In other words, we can do our own tree clearing if it blows trees down for, you know, two miles. We can clear them out.

It won't take long. We just, we get socked in with falling trees this year. I don't know. The weather's getting pretty well. Certain groups of individuals said it's getting a little rough, but I will say the weather has been pretty violent in Louisiana this year. As far as two hurricanes back to back, a late, freeze for everything, you know. So it's been pretty, but the backwater's down this year, so we don't have a big backwater.

I'm feeling pretty good about the whole situation. Every day I get up, I look around and say, the resurrection is looming, larger with each passing day. Well, I thought the same thing last night. So we were coming from Sacramento to here. So we had to stop in Dallas. And the flight's delayed about an hour because of weather. you know, in the Dallas area, there's some bad storms around there. So we're waiting for our plane to get there.

It gets there. We're about an hour late getting on the plane. We get on the plane. We sit there about 45 minutes. I thought about Jason's tale from a few weeks ago. Nothing's happening. Finally, they said, well, we're having trouble getting gas in the plane, but we're called a mechanic.

I thought, oh boy, when you hear a mechanic coming to the airplane, that generally means we're not leaving the ground. It's typically from my past experiences. It finally gets some gas. So we've been on the plane about an hour, an hour and a half. I think it's jet fuel. So jet fuel, yeah. So to get the jet fuel on the plane.

And then it's like, all right, well now the weather's back. So we can't, you know, there's no ground crew here. So we're just going to have to wait until they get back here. So that was another 45 minutes on the plane. Finally we start moving back. I said, well, here we go. Two hours later, but we're good to go. We get all that.

Of course, there's planes backed up. forever. So after 45 minutes sitting at the end down there waiting to take off, he comes on and he says, all right, we're one plane away. And so a plane takes off. And I said, all right, here we go. Then all of a sudden we're sitting there another five minutes. He said, well, they just grounded all departures. We're literally the last plane about to take off. And I've been on the plane now, three hours waiting to take off. And there's lightning and striking. I said, well, it just looks like it's not going to happen. Zat's going to have to do it on his own tomorrow. I'm not making it North Carolina. And about that time, here we go. I mean, through the lightning and rain,

I looked over and told Lisa, I said, well, there's only one more thing that can go wrong with this flight. And if that happens, the next thing we know is the resurrection. So I was, and two o'clock this morning, here we are. We made it. I was on a flight from Monroe, Louisiana to Atlanta, Georgia, the big airport there, Atlanta about seven or eight years ago. We're flying along. The pilot comes on and says, ladies and gentlemen, we have an emergency, so we will have an emergency landing here at Montgomery, Alabama. So when he flew over Alabama, he said, all right, shut her down, emergency. So we get into a, you know, kind of a frantic stage there, you know, and he lands the thing in Montgomery.

And I look out the window, and I'm looking around. The plane is just sitting there. and I see a long figure coming out from under a shed, a man. He's walking across there heading toward the plane I'm on. The man is carrying a crescent wrench about that long. He walks out of the building and walks a couple hundred yards with a crescent wrench. I thought, you know, I was thinking a little more high tech if we shut the bang down. one man with the Crescent Reach in about 15 minutes. The pilot said, okay, ladies and gentlemen,

we may proceed to go on to that matter. So I don't know what it was. There was a boat or nut coming off or something. But one Crescent Wrench put us on their way. That's incredible. How confident do you feel that that one guy in the Crescent Ridge had fixed the problem? I felt less confident because I said, wait a minute here. I mean, it's like a piece of farm equipment.

He walked out there with the Crescent Reach. got up on, I heard of banging around a little bit there, and we got back out there and took it off again. That's when you need a cell phone, because you needed to, if you could have captured that image and then put it on the internet, Phil, you'd be more famous than you actually are. I know it. I just looked and thought, well, there's going to be some, not sirens, but lights flashing and several vehicles going to pull up and, you know, maybe a shoot. We're going to, but no, one lone man with a prison.

Not in my toolbox. Huh? So they must have identified the problem in flight. It's a true story. One man with the crescent range, I told Ms. Kay, I said, one lone man with the crescent range and we're back on our way. I said, I wonder what that was. But something needed to be tightened up.

Yeah. Well, you know what I marveled at last night was that, you know, they got their protocols that they do. And I kind of keep an eye when things are not going right on the, you know, the people, only people you can see, and that's the flight attendant. Yeah. And there, nobody's getting too. panicky, but at the same time, we're hours now, and people are getting a little bit stressed,

you know, and so with every announcement, now we're starting to hear an audible, like, reaction from the plane. And so I thought, well, here we go. So, of course, getting out of there was just, you can imagine, we're flying through a thunderstorm, so we're bouncing all over the place. And everybody's just kind of frantic, like, what's going to happen? Well, finally, we get up and smooth. Once we get out of there, we smooth out. What I thought was funny was these flight attendants. As soon as they get the smooth there, they just went right back in, to okay we've got uh you know we've got our drink service here and we've got you know alcohol purchasing the bad blah blah blah they just went right into their little zone of you know

we're all fine here and I just watch the flight attendants that's that's what's the flight attendant if they ever get panic then that's time to panic but we were we were going uh Phil probably remembers this and we were we were coming back from Baton Rouge on a flight I was about four years ago and we get up there about 25 minutes in into the flight. It's not, it's not but about a 40-minute flight. And all of a sudden, there is an, I mean, just an explosion, just a, I mean, a boom preceded by a, a sucking sound. I just like all the air was being sucked out of the cabin. And, of course, I thought we thought, I thought we were going down. And I had my son bear with me. I thought he must have opened the door.

Like, you know, bear. I mean, he'll do anything. And, and of course, everybody's kind of freaking out and I'm really, really nervous thinking this thing, like me and my son and my wife was on the plane, Phil was on the plane. I said, we're going down. And I look over at Phil, and Phil, do you remember what you said? I don't remember. I remember the racket, though. Boom. Your famous line, this is what I knew that you really believed in Jesus. The first thing out of your mouth is you looked at everybody in the plane and you said, all right, boys, it's resurrection. time. I was like, oh, I wasn't that comforted when you said that.

But after I look back on it, I'm a little convicted by it. That's about how close it is, the resurrection day. Every day, Al, you never know. Yeah. That's exactly right. I've had a couple of emergency landings, and I surprisingly held up well. I mean, I thought, well, this is it. This is it.

So, Jace, you're on the road today. Tell us what you're doing. I'm going to see my lovely wife and daughter in Austin, but she's hosting a citywide community event tonight. I think she has sharing Jesus in mine for ladies. Let me see. Is in North Carolina right now, right? Correct. So I want to North Carolina.

California. You're going to, from California, you're going to Austin, Texas. Where are you going? I'm going to Beaumont, Texas. Are you driving? flying. Y'all might ought to just drop me off while you. We'll work that out later.

They're picking me up at about a ride. There you go. We're working a deal right here on the Hunter Shane podcast. I like it. But you better watch it, Jay, because Mom will try to get you for, you know, half of that flight. Oh, here we go. Well, if you think about it in this high-tech world of the Apostle Paul and his people, he said, you know, I've become all things to all men that by all apostles,

means I may win some. So when you get down to the by all possible means, this day and age, there's a lot of means of travel that they did not have in the first century. Things moved at a lot of slower pace. So not a whole lot of change except the whole thing has been, it's sped up. It's speeding up as far as getting from point A to point B to where we're going. But we're all into the same movement, as they say. So, you know, I feel pretty good about it. I have no wakes and pains and on my way. Yeah, that's that Omega X-L.

Let's take a break. Yeah, Phil, that's the, that's why when I came to you with the idea of a podcast, I remember you said, that's the dumb idea. It'll never work. So I had to rephrase it and called it an Internet Bible study, and you said, oh, now you're on to something. That's how this whole thing got started. I don't own a cell phone, but I'm amazingly, I'm happy because most people do.

Because if they didn't, we would just be talking out in the thin air, you know? You're slowly coming around. There is a place for mass, the speed, and transfer of information like that. So I think we're on the right track. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, Missy's having the same experience. that I've been having, and, you know, I've been staying part-time in Alabama. You know, we've been in one place a long time.

Of course, we go and speak to crowds of people and, of course, do ministry that way. All of us have always. But we've never really been someplace that you actually live different than West Monroe. I mean, none of us, I mean, Zach has, because he's a tumbleweat. But for the rest of us, we kind of just had that one experience. So, like I've noticed, if you're willing to just go around and be Jesus, I mean, like we talk about all the time. People will flock to it. I mean, it's been incredible. My whole neighborhood is just turned into this community. And they're all like, when are we going to meet?

You know, when are we going to get together? Because we're going to start a little community group. We took a guy out and baptized him, old JD, in the pool out back. And I mean, all of a sudden, it's like, you know, you realize if you just kind of go into this mindset of into your community with just being Jesus, I mean, people will respond to it. Yeah, they're looking for. We started during COVID. We started meeting in our home. just with a little Bible study with a couple of families and and that thing's blossomed into a church plant and so we've actually you know doing a church plant right now with what we got you know with it's growing and we've got a community of people that are but they want to they want to be the kingdom right you know they want to do what Dieter bonhoffer his book you know life together do life together yeah I mean my wife is actually just she started the house church just from women and now it's evolved into doing this community outreach. And then this weekend, there's some local church got wind of what she's doing.

And so she's speaking to the women, I think, on Friday night, and I'm speaking on Saturday night, something like that. So it's amazing how a spark starts up. And then all of a sudden, like one of the local churches, they're like, well, hey, can we be involved? So I'm pretty excited. I think that's about the way it went down in Beaumont. I think numerous churches came together. The people came together with them.

And I'm there to bring good news. So I kind of like, I see the underpinnings. I see a movement out there that I've not seen in my 75 years of people who are coming and going. Four, I think it was four, were born again. Sunday morning up there, but they were all from different states. Same thing the week before and the week before. But you got to remember, too, from my perspective, you know, I told you we were eating crawfish other day with Mac Powell from Third Day and Zach Williams and Kane.

Well, they're going to be in Austin this weekend. So we're, Mrs. is doing that community group. Then we're doing the event. Then we're all meeting up because I'm looking at it like, oh, God may have an idea. here. Things are coming together. We got the events. We got the worship coming in. And so I'm taking that as a sign. I mean, I've just noticed in the midst of this political upheaval, upheaval, as they say, in the middle of all that, there is good coming out of it, boys. We just got the, we just going to have to stay the course. Do not veer to the left or right.

straight somebody said well which wing are you on i said i'm right down the center where jesus is i'm neither left nor right i'm right down the middle center center wing that's where jesus is that's where jesus is center wing he's not on the right or the left but you made this up right i didn't read it anywhere i don't know but i like it he's not even jesus isn't even on the the the spectrum. Well, that's what I thought. You know, Jack, you remember this book? There was a book a few years ago.

Tony Campalo wrote a book and would Jesus be a Republican or Democrat? I can remember there's a lot of debate, obviously, back and forth about, you know, naming a book that title. But as I thought about it through the years, it's a, like as Jace would say, it's a bad question because Jesus wouldn't be in a political party. You know what I'm saying? He's so far above this idea. That is correct.

That's my point. Parties or politics. I mean, this is what. way bigger than that. Yeah, we're trying to get people to do something that's, when they look at us, they say, are you crazy? You're trying to get us to do what? We say to love your God and love your neighbor. And they're looking at us like, is that what you want us to do?

I said, that's what I'm trying to get you to do. And they're looking at me like, what in the world? Well, you talk about a freaked out old dude down down the river. He thinks he can get us to love God and love our neighbor. I mean, is the guy nuts or what? That's where we are in America. Well, when you think about it, though, so what we've just been describing here on the podcast this morning

is really the acts model that we just studied because Jace, the Philippian church was started by a group of women that were gathering to pray on the riverbank. And then Paul interacted with them. She became a Christian. Next thing, you know, a whole church starts based on this group of women down by the river. And this idea of us traveling around us,

speaking to groups that are coming together, that's exactly what Paul and Timothy and Titus and those evangelists did. Those churches would gather together. All those little house churches and all those different cities, they'd gather together, get inspired, and keep doing what they were doing. So, I mean, that's actually exactly what we've been doing. Our marching orders, if you look closely at all these epistles, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, first words out of his mouth, right into a church, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures to use old Jesus line from Genesis all the way starting with somebody coming out of a woman,

the seed of a woman, will crush Satan. Well, that's where you start. And Jesus is coming all the way to Matthew. Jesus is here, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then we're in the book of Romans. he just left. This is about the mid-50s AD when this was written and you said, hmm, that's just 25 years or so from the time Jesus came,

died on a cross with bed, resurrected. He told him repeatedly what he was going to do, then did it. Yeah. Then he's standing there and saying,

what about it? And he showed him the scars on his hands and his feet. He said, I pulled it off. I just conquer death for all of you

if you all want in on this action. And we're here. We're here with precisely the same message, the same story. Nothing has changed in the hearts of men. Oh, the Al's tough. Sin for men and they all die. They all sin.

They all die. We've given them the solution. And we're saying, come on. I mean, let's go. Let's get together here. I mean, there's a way out of here. The escape hatch has been on the earth and laid it down. It's simple.

It's not rocket science. To Al's point, if you read the last chapter in Roman 16, you see all the people that he thanked, all these house churches and, you know, there were some women, and then there was a couple, you know, Priscilla and Aquila. And so all these people are mentioned, which seems like, you know, a boring section to put in the Bible. but it gives you a image of how God works and brings people together in towns, in communities, and does a greater good. Because the last verse in the book of Romans, you're talking about a sentence.

Because you kind of forget what's going on. You get into the technical aspects of all different cultures. And when you think of Rome, you're not thinking about a group of people in homes being representatives of the kingdom of God, you're thinking about gladiator fights and emperors. And it just doesn't, you know, come across from a culturally standpoint,

like this is some, the kingdom of God that will crush all other kingdoms. Hey, Jays, before you read that, let's take a break. The last verse says, now to him who is able to establish you by the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings

by the command of the eternal God so that all nations might believe and obey him to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. I mean, that's what we do. That's what he did then. That's what he does now. Plus, a lot of people don't realize part of our work. You got James, Chapter 5, that we've put this into practice the last couple of weeks. Is anyone of you sick, he should call the elders of the church to pray over him or her

and an anoint them with all in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in, faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise him up. So, you know, I tell the story about the little girl that her teeth had rotted away. And she had six teeth that had just rotted down to the gum line. And she was in misery. So we prayed for her, got a hold of one of the brothers as a dentist. I said, take care of that girl because she's really in some misery. So he called me later and said, boy, that girl's mouth, I'm glad you sent her. She was really, really in miserable shape as far as her teeth. Last week there's a girl that was a young girl,

about 10 or 12 years old. She was born with her hearing gone out of one of her ears. She had one ear that she could hear out of. We did the same thing with her. So during all this, when we meet these people coming from who knows where, there's physical ailments along with spiritual ailments, and we are there to help.

with both. So, you know, I just quoted, that's James five for some of you people to say, what are you talking about? Callie, L. He doesn't pray. I've just read you the text that said, you do that, you know, them with a little oil, and you pray for them, and you ask God to help them. So that's ongoing too while we're at it. But I think this whole thing started, you know, when he wrote the, he starts off saying that regarding Jesus in this prediction that he would be the Messiah from God. And in verse four, it said regarding his son through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the son of God by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ.

And then, you know, when you fast forward to what I just read in Roman 16 about we proclaim Jesus. When you go back and look at Jesus' life while he was on the earth, when you were saying about helping people with their infirmities, I thought about Luke 13, where in verse 10, you know, on a Sabbath, Jesus was teaching them in the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and couldn't straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, Woman, you were set free from your infirmity.

Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened. straightened up and praise God. So when you think about all the details, you would think, everybody's going to be happy about this. I mean, when you can't even stand up, and you've been that way for 18 years and he sees her. So what happens? Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,

the synagogue ruler said to the people, there are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath. Ooh. the Lord answered him you hypocrites probably said it a little more fiery than that doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water then should not this woman a daughter of Abraham whom now listen to this whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years be set free on the Sabbath day from what bounder. Of course, when he said this, all his opponents were humiliated because they were right. But it made me think about where we're at in Romans about this lie and this, this bow down to created things and images made to look like birds and animals and reptiles. You know, here's

religious people who can't celebrate in the love and rescue of what Jesus did with people. And then the very same people, now if their ox is stuck in a ditch, well, they'll get that out because why? It's their ox, and it does work for them. But they don't have the capacity to enjoy in this, the holiness of God. I mean, here's a special moment. I mean, to me, that's the travesty in our culture. Well, you know, it's interesting because when you go back to the first two chapters of Romans, the first condemnation, what I think Phil called it the doctrine of condemnation,

is not towards religious people, it's towards Gentiles. But think about what their cardinal sin was. Their cardinal sin was that they worshipped and served the created things rather than the creator. So they flipped it. They worshipped the things of God rather than the God who made them, which is futile in thinking. it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's and he's it's it's it's and he says hey but but you have no excuse either because you do

the same exact thing that they do and we may a religious people of pharisees in this case they may have done it differently but it's the same sin they were working worshiping the Sabbath instead of the one who the Sabbath was about. They were worshiping. What Phil mentioned, that scripture, I forgot where it's at, Mark, or one of the gospels that says you, you know, you study the scriptures diligently, and by them you think you're saved, but yeah, you miss me, the one that they point to. In other words, Jesus is like, like, you're reading about me and you're worshiping

the words that are about me, but you're like, I'm here. It's me. Yeah. And so we're, the cardinal sin is always to flip and worship things that, you're, you're God made, even good things. All things are good. When the evil one, when the evil one pushed through the thought of, and you've heard it probably your entire life, when someone came along and said, you can't mix religion

with politics, religion with your business, you can't mix those two. We bought into that lie, and the church sort of shrunk back a little bit, and they were not so bowl, but the thesis of the entire book of Romans is Romans 1, 16, and 17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for the salvation for everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, because in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, and it is written. The righteous live by faith. So we start there. They started there. They started there. the thesis of the entire book of Romans is built on that Romans 116 and 17.

Then he goes through what happens when people do not, in fact, remember their God every day of their life. And you look up and you say, this history, it just keeps repeating itself. They fall victim to their own desires. And, you know, God, who's that? Well, you can't say that anything about God here or there. they begin to just pine away and you end up with a few people going on the side of the road sing a few songs and that's pretty well it that's why by the time you get to Romans 12 it's the doctrine of Christian living

Romans 12 1 through 15 so it's all there in the book of Romans from start to finish but even the Romans 12 says in view of God's mercy yeah which which the point I I read about that on the Sabbath is the whole point of the Sabbath, you know, you read, I think it's Deuteronomy 5, is that God had rescued them and liberated them and freed them and provided everything they needed. And so you take that day, you know, and reflect on that. You fast forward, Jesus is the ultimate holiness and liberator of all our problems. He has all that, the power and forgiveness. and they're caught up in the trees of life and the rules of life, and they're missing the entire point.

But I think the same thing translate whether you're a believer or not. There's always a temptation to follow the herd politically or, you know, to celebrate created things. Even something as small as like, you know, I told everybody the bat story. And I've been inundated with information that you, You cannot harm a bat. They're protected. And so I raised my hand to my buddies and said, so let me get this right.

Hang on, Jay's. Just let's take a break. If somebody breaks into my house, I can shoot them. But if a bat breaks into my house, I got to let him go. You got to live with him. What are we doing? That's what led me to Luke 13. I thought, we're putting oxen and bats ahead of the huge.

human condition. And that's a dangerous thing to do in that order of things. I was going to say the flip side of that, too, is even the ones who are being healed and being helped, you see in the day of Jesus and the first century church as well, sometimes they put more emphasis and people do still today on that aspect, the physical healing part, than on the spiritual part. So you'll have people that'll say, well, we want to see another miracle or we want to come because we want to be healed physically, and they again miss the point of Jesus. So even on the flip side of that, it's easy to miss what Jesus has done and why he came here, especially if you're hurting in some ways. So, you know, there's a lot of different ways to miss it here. And you still see that today.

Same thing. People say, expect a miracle, but then they miss the miracle worker. You know, through all these epistles, I just jotted this down on this little scrap of paper. night. I was looking to some of these things. And it's the rescue of the human race. So we are rescued, the Bible says, in the epistles, including Romans, we are delivered from confinement. We are set free the truth of Jesus that he died for us, was buried and raised from the dead. That delivers us from confinement from the devil. We are, our sins are born. blotted out. You say the guilt of their sins are blotted out. You say, we're not under law a system of works where every day you get up and you just unless you do ever. So the law is canceled the

written code in Colossians. You read about that. And then we are rescued from the grave itself. So you have redemption, ransom, Jesus paid the price, to save us from Satan's sin, guilt, law, the grave, to display compassion, which is all this is about, to give comfort, to give love, to give joy, peace, patience, kindness, to forgive, receive mercy. You start adding all those things up, and you're like, man, who, no wonder when trouble. comes or whatever, when you're in Jesus, you just take it, you smile, and you move on. So it's a wonderful thing what God has done for us, a wonderful thing. Peace of mind is a rare commodity on planet Earth at any time in history. Peace of mind's hard to get, boys. Well, this gives it to you.

Yeah, I think the peace of mind is, that is a rare commodity, especially in our culture, because we're fighting against an ultimate reality that we can't change. We're trying to change it and make ourselves the center of it, but we can't, and that's where the frustration comes from. But I was just going back to Romans 1, when I was reading this last line, I was thinking about how we have a hard time believing that God's this obvious, but if you read this, it says, for the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven

against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them. Since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. In other words, the creation itself is the purpose of it is to reveal the glory of God. I think some people read this and think, man, but it's not that obvious. But you know what's funny to me, if you go back and I love to read a lot of philosophy,

and even guys like Aristotle who had never heard of, he existed before Jesus, he never really heard of the Jews, he never knew about this Bible. But just through an honest assessment, through a logical process of him looking at the universe, he's looking around and he says, you know what, I've noticed that when objects move, move. They move because another object bumps into them and makes them move. But whatever made that object move was another object that was moving. And through mathematical equations and logic, you know, you know he deducted in the end? He said, you know what? There's got to be an object that doesn't move that causes all the other objects to move. Well, I mean, that's God.

You know, God is an unmovable object. He's not an object, but I mean, even in Aristotle's like rational thinking, who had never read the Bible, the glory of God was clear to him. Yeah, two or three hundred, two or three hundred years after Aristotle, he would have loved to have seen that unfold before him. He said, well, what do you know? What I was thinking, I'm seeing it up close in person now. He just didn't know anything about Jesus yet. Yeah. A little early. Let's take a break. Well, you wonder if he would have been able to accept the, as Paul call it, the foolish of the cross because, you know, intellectual minds sometimes have a hard time

wrap their minds around the simplicity of really what the gospel is and that you can come to it. But, you know, as Zach just explained, we can go as deep as you want to go and you're still going to find God because you're not going to get a deeper well than him, right? I've often said if someone could have been teleported in the day of Aristotle and all the rest of them, Socrates, Plato, all of them, if someone could have been teleported, reported to them pre-Jesus and say, here's what's fixed to come down the pipe here, boys. You pay attention because here's what's fixed to happen. And you had just elaborated on Jesus with them.

They would have been dumbfounded, just shocked at what you were telling them. So, but they just didn't know. They were in a time frame where they just didn't know. What's interesting, even what Al was talking about, about more kind of the foolishness of the cross, you look at the book of Romans, first two chapters, Paul's basically saying three things are being revealed from God. One, Romans one, that he's there, and he's really, really big. Like, there is a God, there is an initiator of all this.

Romans 2 says that in verse 14, it says when the Gentiles who did not have the law, which will back up a little bit at some point talk about the law, do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law, are a law to themselves and that they show that the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience bears witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them on the day when according to the gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. In other words, the second thing he reveals is that there's a moral code that is written on everybody's heart.

I don't care if you've never read the Bible, never heard of God. You know right and wrong. You've talked about this a lot when you talk about, you know, people creeping up in the old prairies to steal someone's horse. They knew that that was wrong to steal. They knew it was wrong to take someone's wife. And the third thing is that he reveals in here is that one is God is there, two, God is good, and three, we are not good. Yeah. We are not.

Yep. Unfortunately, we all have that in common. We all sin and we all die. That's for sure. I mean, this line of thinking made me think about that story in Acts 14 where they, Paul, they healed a fellow. And then all of a sudden they started bowing down and worshiping them, kind of at a owl's point earlier, you know, they were so wild by the miracle. And he says in response, I think it's in 15 of chapter 14, why are you doing this? We are only men, humans.

We are bringing you good news telling you to turn from worthless things and turn to the living God. And then to Zach's point, he makes a point about from what has been made, you should be able to see this. Because he says, who made heaven and earth and see and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way, which is a point that God has given us a choice. you can choose where you want to go. Yet he has not left himself without testimony because he shows his kindness daily by giving you rain from heaven crops in their seasons.

He provides you with plenty and fills your hearts with joy. And it says even with these words, the people had difficulty not sacrificing to them. So they came up with a scheme that says mother nature will take care of us. Mother nature, Mother nature, instead of Father God, they went with Mother Nature,

like who is that? But they just dreamed it up, Jace. Yeah, well, that's my point. I mean, that hit me, that story because I thought, you see the same, this same line of thinking in other instances in the Bible where they're not just a, you know, yes, they're going around and declaring Jesus,

but then people come up with all these excuses, which he says, look, you're without excuse because you should be able to look around and say, yeah, you're depending on the rain. You're depending on the crops coming up. He's showing you favor despite the crap that's going on in our world. We just all take that for granted that, well, what if you went out there? Because there was a time, you know, early on when they would go out and plant crops and guess what would come up? Nothing because the ground was cursed. You know, I mean, there were instances.

throughout the history of mankind where it was a different situation. But here, you know, God's favor and his evidence, his kindness, and his power is clearly displayed on a daily basis. And the lack of an alternative, it should lead you to say, you know, I think we are to look into whatever's moving the object, Zach. but unfortunately just not happen they don't call him the author of life for nothing it's one of the ways you can you can test your own kind of heart and where you're at with the lord is are you looking at the creation around you and are you are you basically enjoying it for

the sake of itself i heard a one pastor say that a desire becomes idolatrous when it terminates upon itself in other words when it when the desire just ends with itself and it's not pointing you to God to see His glory, then that desire is an idolatrous desire. And so all these things, all these wonderful things that God has created are meant to point us back to His goodness and His glory and His wonder and His Majesty. And I think that's where we've gone, where we are going wrong. We are, again, we are worshipping the things God.

We're worshiping race or worshiping sexuality. We're worshiping politics. But we're getting our identity from all of these different things. but they're all inward. All of that's, and then on top of that, we want to derive it from within, and then the second part, then we have to express it to everybody.

And we wonder why the world is in so much turmoil. Well, it's because we've, we basically said we want all the benefits of you, God, but we do not want you. We don't want you. And that's where it falls apart. So I was just in, I was just in San Francisco areas where I was.

I was 30 minutes outside of San Francisco, which is, I guess you say the epicenter of left-wing theology and ideology. It was interesting because I was listening to radio because we were driving the airport. And so I was listening to the commercials. And about every third commercial was about the environment or about how bad fossil fuels were. You know, it's kind of just that whole deal running itself out. I looked over at Lisa.

It was funny because as I was listening, I thought, man, this sounds so simplistic. And, you know, just they're not really thinking this thing through. and yet it was so strong. And I thought, how do these folks just buy this? And then it hit me. It was like, because it's their religion. Like, they have full faith in all the tenets of that the planet's going to be saved by this and you've got to quit doing that.

And I thought, to them, it's just like we believe in Christ. They would look at us and say, how do you believe this stuff about what Jesus raised on the day? It sounds crazy to me. But it's the same thing for them. It's a religion. So if that's your thing, if that's what you're worship, and whether it's environmentalism or, you know, some other ideology,

then I understand how you can be so swept up in it that you just can't even see or the outside of it or the common sense of it. And so I thought, man, if that's what you're worship. And for the first time I said, I think I'm understanding why people can follow this ideology. You're quoting Romans 1. Although they claim to be wise, they became foos, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles. They bow down to the creation instead of the creator.

I mean, it's just... You see the same thing on the right, though. It's... That's why we're not having any victory, because on the right, we're looking to some kind of political or economic system to save us, and that's not going to do it either. That's right. I told some very high profile, very, very high profile conservative operatives. I told them this about four or five years ago.

I said, you got to keep in mind that, Schaefer said it, conservative humanism is still humanism. So it's not a better, it's no better. And so we're trying to make this case against the quote unquote left, but we're not talking about God. And I hate to say it, but I don't hate to say it. I love to say it. We have no case. We have no case. We're back to the center.

Center wing again. Center wing. You know the difference though in Zach and the rest of us is that he knows high conservative operatives. That's the difference than Zach and the rest of us. He knows who these people are. We're just simple men who live on the river. That's the difference.

Zach, you're running with a crowd. But you got to keep in mind. The reason why I know them is because. is they want to know you. So I've basically, when you talk about wings, I've been riding on y'all's wings here for the last this is 2014. But really, I think that is the point. We should be viewed as God's highly simplistic operatives because we're not sophisticated.

But his plan is working from town to town through what people think is nonsense and simplicity. I have to say is we're traveling at a speed of 66,500 miles an hour as I speak as we're having this conversation. My whiskers are not even moving. And I'm thinking, I am moving at a rapid rate of speed. And on top of that, the earth's spinning a thousand, 40 miles an hour. And you're going to move to Beaumont tonight. Yeah. Good luck. So I'm just looking at it. I said, the speed at which we're traveling, and I can't even have that sensation of movement, I said, this is. This thing is a well-all machine to be moving and stuff's not flying everywhere. I'm like, what in the world?

We're out of time. Yeah. We're out of time. We're out of time, all right. 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,

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