Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 319 | Jase and His Bible Get Censored & the Danger of Identities That Aren't Rooted in Christ

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Phil decides that cellphones are actually a good thing. Zach shares the unlikely story of injuring his wife on a golf course, and Phil now believes golf is a contact sport. Jase takes it as a bad sign that a photo of him holding his Bible has been censored on social media. Zach and Jase chew on the ethics of liberating golf balls from a pond. Jase stops traffic in the pouring rain to "save" a bullfrog from the middle of the road. Al has jokes for people who don’t know how to silence their cellphones in church. And the guys talk about the utter hopelessness of finding an identity in race, gender, or hollow, humanistic philosophies instead of in Christ. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So I go to play golf yesterday. I was just trying to play golf. I hadn't played but maybe twice in two months. So my buddy gets me there, Al, at the place we usually play. And he said, well, there's a tournament going on. So if you want to play, you've got to get in the tournament.

I was like, well, what kind of tournament is this? It's like playing the ball down. We're going to play by the rules. It's some kind of they had letters, you know, I forgot what the letters were, M.G something event. And I was like, why would I want to do this to myself? My game is not in tournament shape. So I went in there, paid my entry fee because I just wanted to play golf.

I was like, who cares? And I made a plot to, I said, why don't y'all just for people with handicaps worse than 10, why don't y'all just put a rule that says once you hit double bogey on a hole that that's it up pick it up i said they're not going to win anyway so and the guy who's running the golf course and the tournament he looked at me bewildered he said but that's not real golf i was like he's like why would you want to do that i said because i don't want to spend six hours out here waiting on someone who's run out of balls because some of these people in the tournament

are not capable of finishing the hole. Do we really want to watch somebody make 10 on a hole? No. And guess what, Al? On number, what was that? Number six, I made a nine on a par four. And here's where it all started. We're on the T-box.

And we had started on hole number nine. No, this was number seven. So I'd played all the way around. I actually played pretty good. So I'm fixing it in my T-shot, and somebody said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Look in the fairway, and there was a dough and a fawn in the middle of the fairway. Of course, I made a joke. I said, trust me.

Safest place they could be. They're good. And so then I said, I got the wrong weapon in my hand, boys. and they were like, well, I've never heard that before. So then I had to tell them the Sye story. Can I tell this story? This is Peechee. It's a famous duck hunt.

We were together. I don't know if we've ever told this story. But Sai, you know, there's no bathroom in the duck hunting area. You basically have to, when nature calls, especially if you're at a certain age, older. you know when you got to when you got to go you got to go and so sire had to go the world is your urinal at this point we're hunting we had killed no ducks and it's like eight o'clock in the morning and so sye is doing his thing which was awkward and all of a sudden 12 gadwall come into the decoys everybody cut them we bum my bum boom boom boom boom boom and the whole time we're shooting

sigh is hollering saying I got the wrong weapon in my hand boys I got the wrong it became one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life and so I said that about the deer and then so I was distracted my point is I lost my focus

I missed the fairway by about 75 yards I was by a tree we're playing the ball down I tried to chip out I hit another tree I eventually hit in the water and it just it was not fun so so i made a nine but my point is that when you make laws for things it just kind of takes the fun out of it you know and granted i didn't win and i made it i did birdie the next

hole which i thought in a way i made a nine and then the next hole i burtied it to finish the around, which just shows you that life is not so much about what happens, but how you respond to it. So that was my spiritual application. And I would say that golf, Jays, is probably the one of the most legalistic, you know, I say that in quotes, sports anyway. I mean, there's so many rules about so many different things. And then you're right. Some people just love to be there to enforce every little thing. Did you address the ball?

Was that really a swing? did your ball move? And we watch golf, these guys are professionals. And obviously, they're not worried like a guy like me about can I even advance the ball. But for me to be able to enjoy golf,

I can't, if I play ball, it's not fun to me to go out and shoot 112 because, you know, I couldn't move the ball off a route or whatever. So it's just, you're right. I mean, is it fun? Are we doing this for fun? Are we doing this to try to...

Well, Al, we're... I actually paid money to put. myself in this situation. And I would say half the round we spent in consultation trying to figure out what to do. Because the professionals are playing on courses and I played on them in these pro-am type things. But the courses they're playing has been maintained at a level where the rules are easier to uphold. I'm, you know, when you're out here just, you know, playing on a course And you're like, is this ground under repair? There's no circle here.

But I would call this. I mean, yesterday we were having a debate. I said, I would call that ground under repair. It actually needs some severe repair. So I tend to lean on that when I would be giving my opinion. Jay, you remember recently we told a few podcasts ago, I told the story about when I hit that golf ball and it hit that little bitty small rock marker. and it came back and hit me right in the groin in my thigh, thankfully.

Well, I didn't say this on the podcast, but after we got done laughing five minutes of just, I mean, laying on the ground laughing, including me, we get up. And my first question is, well, how do I count? Is that a stroke? I mean, is that a, is that a man-made job? So then we spent the next five minutes arguing.

I've just now almost, you know, neutered myself. And yet we spent the next five minutes arguing about whether that should count. and am I hitting three now because of what happened? You're not going to believe this. Same hole yesterday. I'm playing with a buddy of mine. He is, he's down the fairway and there's a ditch that goes across, that bisects the fairway. And so he's over on the right.

He's going for the green and two. It's a par five. He hits his shot, but he came up on the ball, and the ball only went about a foot. off the ground, but he smoked it. But he hit into the side of the, there's a concrete, I don't even know what you'd call it. They have a pipe under,

and there's a little road. The facing of it is concrete. He hit that concrete, and the ball came right back where it came from with probably twice as much speed and went right by his head. And he looked at me like, what do I do?

I said, you'd be glad that you're alive. That's why I retired from golf because we were playing. I'll tell them this story. What was it? The worm burner closet? It was our last worm burner closet, thanks to Zach. Yeah. We've been doing it for 10 years and having so much fun.

Why is it called worm burner for our audience? Because just what you described, because if you hit the ball and you barely get it up and it goes across, it can kill worms as it goes because it never gets over two inches. It burns the worms. And we knew at Wight's Ferry Road. There were a few golfers, but for the most part, we're worm burner. So tell the stories that. So I'm out there playing.

It's me and my wife, Jill, and Paula Godwin's John Godwin's wife. And then Ben, my brother-in-law, because I think he sponsored. It was a fundraiser. So you put the four of them together, talent-wise, Jace. There's no golfers. You've got like my six-year-old grandson. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad, but I'm not a golfer.

That's combined, yes. I just started playing, and Willie was giving me lessons, which turned into more of like a roasting session, more of a, I felt like it was more like him abusing me and picking. It was ridiculous. He's the worst coach ever. Went back to your childhood. Oh, man, I was back in his armpit as a kid.

It was horrible. So I get out there, and I'm hitting the ball fairly straight, and, but Jill and Paula kept going up to the women's tea box whenever I would, me and Ben would tee off. I'd say, you guys, you can't go up there until we tee off. But I've been hitting them straight. And in this particular hole, I'm hitting to the right. And the women's tee box is way back to the left.

So they go up there in the golf cart, and I'm just like, you know what? I'm not worried about it. I'm going to hit this thing off the tee box. And I get my driver out. And I mean, I just smoke it. And that thing just makes a hard left. It goes in between the two golf bags, hits Jill and the, the back of the right ear. Are you kidding me? No, I'm dead seriously. She collapses. Paula lets out

an explicit, just a curse word rant at a church tournament. She's still not an new, she's still not an old enough Christian not to go back in a moment like that. And she's in the medical profession. Oh, yeah, she is. I'm freaking out. I dropped the club. I'm thinking I've killed my wife. I run up there. She's got blood coming out of her ear. The ambulance comes. We take her to the emergency room. It was about four days of healing, and everything was fine until about three years later, Jill's like, man, I'm losing my hearing. And I'm like, yeah, 25 years old, you're not losing your hearing.

So we get referred to a doctor, an ear specialist in Jackson, Mississippi. And this guy, I mean, he is the upper echelon of the ear world. And we get in there, and I'm not kidding. The guy walks in with a tuning fork, and he hits that thing on his hand, and he puts it behind her ear, and he asks her a couple questions, and he says, and she answers him, and he looks at me, and he says, has there ever been any blunt trauma to her right ear? And we were like, nah, and then we both at the same time were like, there was that one time. And we told him the story, of course, he's like, you idiot, man. and apparently when I hit her, there's three bones in your inner ear, and one of them was not loose, and over time it lost blood flow and disintegrated.

And so she lost 95% of her hearing in her right ear, and they did a prosthetic implant, implanted the bone, her hearing returned immediately. But that was, I retired. Let me give you the Paul Harvey rest of the story, because this was the last Wormberg. So that was the afternoon. in the morning, our old friend, Dad, Ken Bolden, you know, Bowden, right? Oh, yeah.

So Bolden, who's wider than he is tall, if you can imagine. He's a little short man, but he is a wide load. And he decides he's going to play in the Wormburner this year. So he's out there warming up, which means he's just spraying the ball left and right. And he pops his knee out of joint. But when he fell over, he's rolling around the ground,

the person who works at the golf, this is the start the day. because we had two rounds, round the morning, around the afternoon. They call an ambulance. And so, because they thought he had a heart attack. So I go running up there when he's popped his knee out of joy. And the amulet shows up. And then, of course, we send it back because we didn't need it.

And then that afternoon, I'm out on the chorus playing, and I hear another ambulance. And I said, you know what? This is the last year that I'm doing this. If you have two ambulance calls in one day, your church does not need to be playing in a golf tournament. So that ended the worm burner. Thanks to Bolden and Zach for their golfing prowess.

There's a reason I never played in the worm burner. And I went to that church and I played golf. These are the reasons why. I never thought of until today in the last five minutes. I've never thought of golf as being dangerous. Yeah, it's dangerous. Until I'm listening to two or three rednecks and I'm thinking, you know, maybe that's why I never tried that game

I don't think you miss less than that you get yourself kill out of time oh I know well I mean look yesterday I hit a ball I mean just a bomb unfortunately it was about 80 yards right of where I was aiming and so I and I hit it further than I thought I was capable of hitting it

so it went over the hill How rubbery is a golf ball? Is it like? Zero. No, it's about as rubbery as a rock. I mean, when you hit... Basically, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard.

So I hit this ball through the fairway. Well, what I didn't know was because there's a hill there, there were other golfers there. So I go up there. I'm in their fairway. Well, guess what they said. Hey, you almost hit us. I said, sorry about that. They're like, you know, that's why we holler for.

I didn't holler because they said, they didn't see them there across the hill so anyway well let's just take a break so jace why do you holler for anyway does it do you know that i guess is it f o r e yeah i think it's a european thing they they came up with it incoming incoming so that reminded me jays you remember when we first joined calvert we were playing what's now number one it used to be number seven and it had kind of a hidden it was a little hillyer back then if you're playing from the back and there it's it's It looked like the people had gone, and so we all started hitting our drives down there. And when we come over the hill, there's four guys standing there.

One of them is one of the owners of the club. We had just joined the club. And they're all looking back at us, and one guy's hopping around holding his backside. And it turns out that I hit him right in the rump. So you've hit people too. Oh, yeah, with my driver. And it was the owner of the club, his group. I feel better now.

We were so embarrassed, you know. So, yeah, Dad, it's hard enough to cause people to jump around. He called me a couple of names that weren't really, you can't find him in the Bible. And Zach almost killed his wife. So, yes, golf is. I've actually hit two people with golf balls. And then I was, I lived on the golf course. I was on the 18th Green, which had a pond there.

And it was late at night. And I don't think you're supposed to do this. But I said, let's go down there and get all those golf balls out of the because those things are expensive. So me and my brother-in-law, Ben, we go down, we're raking them out. I hear somebody coming. And so we started running, and I grabbed the rake. I hit him in a tooth and shipped his tooth. All this happened, like, in a three-month span.

And I was just like, you know what? Maybe golf is not your game. That's what you started telling you. You went from playing golf to stealing golf ball. Well, I mean, they were in the water. They were in the water in front of my house. And I'm like, who's going to get these? They're just sitting out there.

Wow. Yeah. Is it stealing? That's just grand theft golf ball. Well, if a golf ball, I don't know what the material is that they use, but if it sinks, that's pretty dense. That's a pretty dense ball you're playing with. Well, let's just put it this way. baptized and the evil one tries to steal your soul is it stealing well that's that's that's a that's a

stretch the question is who owns the golf ball once it enters the golf course because they go out and get those balls and resell them now you'll have to work that work that out if that's ethical because it was your ball that went in there but usually the course now i was getting other I was getting the other peoples. Yeah. I didn't know that was a, but I just, I mean, I didn't know the rules. I didn't know that. You know, Zach Preface, I lived right there.

Yeah. It was almost like, technically, I mean, it almost could be like my area. Well, there's a statute of limitations here because this has been about 15 years ago. I think you would be right. If you put a mark, if you marked your ball and you went into the pond at night and retrieved your ball, I think you'd be fine. But if you got other peoples. Well, they would not like it because they'd.

make money and I think you'd I think you'd be fine but you could probably work out a deal. They'd probably bomb from you at a cheaper rate because they still got to go in there and get them. But don't let Jay's be all sanctimonious because he's done, he and will have done their share of night raids. Oh, I've done it many times. I didn't say I didn't do it. I mean, he's laying it all out like, yeah, you terrible person.

Sanctimonious. Some of the greatest nights of. my life, I had a tow sack full of bullfrogs and golf balls that I had taken from the same location. Yep.

That's pretty good. Somebody sent me a video, Jay's one of our listeners. But unfortunately, it was so dark, I couldn't see what he was talking about, but he said I finally found somebody that loves frogs as much as me and my dad, Jace, and he was sending me video of them on a frog hunt, but it was too dark. I couldn't

see anything. Oh, I do. I think I realize that when I think I've told this story before, but I mean, I was leaving the church building with my family, the entire family. We're in the middle of town. I mean, now it's a, what, six-lane road, and it's pouring down rain. There's traffic everywhere. And my headlights, when I was fixed to take a ride, I looked in the middle of the intersection, and there's one of the biggest bullfrogs I've ever seen in the middle of town. and I said, wait right here. And Missy started screaming, like, wait, and I put my hands up and stopped traffic.

I got down into the ready position, and I put a show on for all the on-lookers. I literally shut down the highway, pounced on the frog, and I held it in my... Did they blow the horn? Oh, they were blowing the horn. People hollering obscenities. Like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm saving this frog. I kind of had fun with it, you know.

And so then people started cheering, you know, blowing their horn. And Missy's like, well, what are you going to do with him? I said, I'm going to take him home. I'm going to clean him. And then I'm going to eat him. Well, with that, with that story, we've talked about golf balls and bullfrogs. But so let's get out of something a little more meaty. Well, I'm glad you asked.

But Phil, in Romans 13, 8 through 14, the V. of the Holy Spirit, Paul, there's, there's a lot of references to real life to spiritual things, which is all we're doing. He makes the reference about being awake or asleep. He looks at being awake as a positive thing. Where's that at? Verse 11, understand at the present time the hours come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is near now than when we first believed. All right. Yep. Then he says day to not. night. He says the night is nearly over. So night, another earthly thing that we experience, but night is viewed as not favorable. The day is almost here. Let us put aside the deeds of

darkness and put on the armor of light, which is the next illustration. Don't live in darkness. Put on the armor of light. I just think it's interesting how the Bible does that. It makes spiritual references out of things. Unlike law, we're not under law, a law of works. Grace is a free gift. However,

knowing that grace is a free gift, let no debt, verse 8, Romans 13, let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another. When you come to Jesus,

there is a debt involved in that. And that text says, and the debt is you are, you must love your brother. You owe him. You owe him that. Even grace. You know, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness, all that, and to do good. But he's saying there, that's a debt that you can't repay, which is pretty interesting way to phrase that. Yeah. Well, I think his point was, where's that verse that said Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Yep. I think that's his point here, which is the law,

what love does to the law is everything the law was trying to prohibit and everything that it was trying to get you to avoid, love pretty much does the exact same thing without all the rules and regulations. That's right. So love when you say, well, but it's keeping a law. you owe your brother love. His point is you're not loving your brother

and you don't owe him your love because it's a work on your part. You love him because you are saved, not to be saved. Exactly. And you learn that from Jesus. But that's right. Since you're saved,

you say, well, I don't have to do anything then. Thank you, Lord. And I don't have to reach out to my brother or my neighbor for nothing. He says, nope, you're missing the point. Because you're saved, you love your neighbor, and you owe him that. Because look what God did for you because he loves you. He gave his life for you.

But you don't learn that unless you take yourself off and put on Jesus. That's why he said clothe yourself with Jesus. That's right. He becomes greater, you become less. Yep. Let's take a break. J-Sat was Matthew 517. Yeah.

He said, do not think I've come to abolish the law. I have come to abolish them, not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. And he said, the law, the prophets. You know what's interesting, Al, is that he said all the commands in the Bible that people that we didn't keep and we violate them are summed up whatever other commandment there may be. in verse 11 there can be summed up in one rule. When someone says there's absolutely no rules, well, there is one rule.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. That is wild. Well, let me ask you all what y'all think this means. No, it was perfect love, and you say you would have fulfilled the law. Jesus had it. We don't, but we can at least.

work towards that. Yeah. Let me ask you this. In Luke 24, you know, when Jesus appeared, now he died, he was buried, and then he's raised, and they were like having a hard time dealing with that, as I would. You see your friend die, and then three days later, he walks into a room, and you're like, you're doubting that this is him because you just, you knew that he died. and you remember the exchange you have with Thomas it's I myself touch me and see a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have then he asked a perplexing question

he said do you have anything here to eat well he obviously no longer needs food to stay alive because you can't kill him so that now their heads are racing but then he says this this quote in 44 and I want to ask and see what you

all thought about it. He said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Of course, then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. This is what is written that Christ would suffer and rise from the dead, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in the name, in his name, to all nations, which is kind of the point of Romans. So I was going to ask you, what do you think he meant, since we're talking about being fulfilled, he came to fulfill the law? What do you think he meant when he said, this is what I told you, that everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses and the

prophets and the Psalms? One of my favorite phrases that I use when I preach or teach is is the finished work of Christ. Yeah. You know, because I grew up in a faith tradition that was, his work wasn't quite finished yet. You know, I was almost earning my spot in by what I did, and I didn't see the finality and the completed work of Christ. His work is finished on the cross. What he accomplished there was a fulfillment of everything that had been prophesied up

into that point. So you have the prophets that prophesied about him, which he fulfilled every, single one of the prophet prophecies about himself. The law, which pointed to him, he fulfilled the accomplishment of what the law was trying to accomplish, which was, which was righteousness. And even that, it really wasn't put into effect to bring righteousness. It was put into effect to show that you can't be righteous without God. But then God came in human flesh. In Jesus, he fulfilled the law, he fulfilled the prophecies, he fulfilled all of the Psalms and the message. Asionic Psalms that David wrote that we're talking about this coming Messiah,

everything, everything was completed in the person of Jesus Christ in his finished work. And that matters because if it's not finished, then that means that we're not necessarily saved. You know what I mean? And we've got to do more or there's more coming. It's the whole book of Hebrews. There's nothing more coming. Hebrew 6. If Jesus ain't enough, Hebrews 10, there's nothing left for you.

He's all of it. What comes to my mind, and you're exactly right, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He was sinless, and he'll allow us to get in a position in him so that we are viewed as sinless because we're inside the sinless one. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. I was thinking about this in Colossians chapter two the other day when I was doing a little research on some prevailing philosophies of our day, but it says, see to it that

no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human traditions and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. So, in other words, don't buy into these humanistic man-made systems, these philosophies that men come up with. They're not rooted in Christ. And then it goes on to say, in Christ, in Christ the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And if you continue to read Colossius too, it uses the phrase in him probably five or ten times to show the centrality of Jesus. And I love that verse that you just quoted, Phil, because

it really does point to how we are made righteous. That's correct. Not in our own, not in our own position, not our own work. It's in Christ, we're made righteous because our identity, you talk a whole lot about identity today. If my identity is in my race or my gender or my pronouns, whatever I decided to be, there's no hope for me. But if my, if my identity, is found in Christ, then there is a way for me to be righteous. There's a way for me to be in a right standing with God. Yep. Yeah, I think he's, he made a really good point there in verse 14 when he said, close yourselves with Jesus. And then he says, and don't even think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. You know, he had gone through about let us behaving

decently, but he went to where it starts, which is in our mind. We have these ideas that are selfish. I mean, what's that, James 316, where you have envy and selfish ambition there. You find disorder and every evil practice. But part of putting on Jesus and allowing his power and spirit to work in your life is to realize the power of just what you think about. you know what you put inside your head and the more you are self-absorbed you come up with ideas and thoughts that are wrong and then it then you go down the the trail you know yeah that's good

all right let's say another break you well you become the uh you become what what the physicist calls a black hole when you're self-centered you think about a black hole by very definition it's a is self-centered and it pulls in everything around it. The gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that it pulls in everything around it. And when we become self-centered, we become like that. And we start pulling in all these people around us. But if you're in Christ, it's quite the opposite. Instead of pulling in people around you into your consumptive hole of nothingness,

you actually give and pour out. And there's life and there's life abundantly, which is the, I think that's the whole point of Romans 13. get into this idea of love being the core and the center and the only debt that we owe, it's the 2nd Corinthians 10 passage. It's a new weapon we fight with that demolishes strongholds that sets us up against the knowledge of God. It's love because love by its very definition is, that is who God is, 1st John 4-8. God isn't loving.

God is love. This is the description of who he is. And I think that's why it's the core of the whole thing is because it's the definition of a God who's love. And the reason why he's love is because he's triune, he's father, son, and Holy Spirit, who existed eternally. And they loved each other for eternity. That is God. You know, so everything that we see that's going to give life, it has to come from the source of life. That has come from who he is.

I think that's why the social media world has been so difficult on our society, because you're basically. basically marketing yourself to, and so you can think about how to make yourself look good. It's constantly on your mind. Jason, have you observed lately in an airport or somewhere? If you see a young girl, a teenage girl, maybe a middle school girl, do you see what they do on their phone constantly? Have you noticed it? They just sit there and either, they're either looking at themselves, like they're used their phone

as a mirror, or they're taking pictures of themselves. I guess to post. But when I watch them and I just think, man, you talk about just only about you. I've seen it so many times that I've just observed it. For every picture they post, there's probably, they've probably taken about 400 until they get the right one. It's labor. I see it every five minutes.

On the way down here today, everybody was going around a car. I said, oh, they're having car trouble. And when I got to the car, it's a red light. green there's four lanes so this lane this lane has stopped everybody's going around i'm going around going around i look it look this is a teenage girl she was on her phone now she might have been calling somebody saying my car broke down but the car looked fairly new i think she just stopped and said no i got to answer this right now amazing i mean that was an hour ago coming down but i was for some reason my wife had posted something about my metal detecting on social media and she was asking

me if it was okay i mean we're one so she she does it and she knows what i would do i mean i gave her the picture so i went on there well someone had commented on the last event i did with the truckers i told you all about that somebody had said thanks for coming to south carolina it was a good event well they had a picture but the uh social media provider had had censored the picture. It said this, so I couldn't see it. It said it, it contains sensitive material. And I thought, well, why would they, because, you know, I was scared to click on it because it was like, this is sensitive. But I thought, this person is saying, thanks for coming and sharing. They were at the event. I'm clicking on this. When I clicked on it, the picture was

me holding my Bible up as I was speaking. And I thought, are you kidding me? They censored me holding a Bible up. And it was a picture. It wasn't like I was saying anything. And I thought that that's where we got problems. When you're promoting you being self-absorbed, that's okay. But me sharing about the power of God, oh no, this is not promoting you.

You're promoting God. We're going to censor that and not allow people. to see that photograph. I thought that was a bad sign for society. Very bad. So, Jason, to your point earlier about the girl, I was just trying to verify it, but I'm not sure that I have,

but someone told me that there's a new law in Louisiana that this woman you described, if a police officer pulls up behind her, she's texting or looking at her phone, driving, that he can pull her over and give her a DUI, driving under the influence because now they've added electronics as an influencer, just like alcohol or drugs or all these other things.

So I'm going to verify that because I'm not, but I heard that that's a new law. I actually think it's a good idea because I say one out of three cars on the way anywhere. I mean, we just got back when we went to, you know, on the beach. That's the first time I had gotten in a car, drove it, driven seven or eight hours. one out of three or four cars were visually distracted by a cell phone device. Some of them were either going way under the speed limit and you're like, what is, what's happening?

Everybody's trying to go around and you get up there and it's just somebody is on their phone and they're just oblivious of the world going around. You've just explained why I don't have a cell phone. Yeah, but Phil, as a citizen, you have to drive and navigate around. these people. I understand. That's why I don't drive up there where there's a lot of them driving. Well, okay. You're a terrible example for this analogy because you don't have a phone. You don't have a car. I drive a four-wheel. He don't drive. He's got his own gas station at his house. Yes, you have your own gas station. The rest of this can't do that, Bill.

I don't need to go to town to fill her up. I just said, no. No. You've literally fallen through a crack of civilized, side you feel. I retreated from. How do you feel about it? I feel pretty comfortable about it. I'm glad I don't have a cell phone. However, I'm glad our audience does have a cell phone. I'm happy for you because you're clicking on and you're finding out why I don't have one.

But I want you to keep yours. You don't have to throw it away. But I'm just not going down that road. I'm just not going to do it. It's too much. stopping in the middle of the street and you see a little girl talking, you say,

it did make me mad. Well, I mean, I just, but I blew the horn. But look, I blew the horn. I just laid on it.

Can you just shut it off and drive until you get to where you're going and, okay, pick back up in the parking house? They have all kind of apps that you can put on where it, like, disables your phone while you're driving if you're not strong enough to avoid that or whatever.

But look, when I blew the, that horn, just, I mean, just laid on it as I'm going by. Well, don't you feel good? She looked up at me. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Don't you feel good about doing whatever you're doing and qualifying a period of time?

I'm not, I'm thinking to shut this off. Yeah. I don't want to hear anymore about anything from anybody. I just want to shut it. Dad, you make a really good point. Let's take our last break. So to your point, so a couple of weeks ago, I'm preaching at WFR, and someone's phone goes off, you know, it starts ringing.

It's got a distinct ring, and the whole auditorium hears it. And so, you know, but I'm a professional, so I ignored it. Some person didn't turn their phone off. I knew now they were going to be scrambling to turn it off. Well, about two or three minutes goes by. I'm still preaching. It rings again. So I'm thinking, all right, so it takes a little bit.

He turns it off. About another 10 minutes go by, it rings again. Third time. Well, now I've tried to ignore it. Same ring. Same ring. Same area of the building. FBI agent, I can see it.

Law enforcement personnel, I can see it. A medical doctor who's on 24-hour call, I can see it. But for just somebody to walk in there and put everybody else under the auspices of their own cell phone, whatever it does. I just don't get it out. It's distracting the audience. So third time I decided to try humor because that's my style.

I said, hey, whoever's calling, tell them they need to be here listening to this message. Well, everybody laughs. And I thought, okay, now I've called him out. Look, it goes off two more times. By the fifth time this phone goes off in the course of me, priest of a 30-minute sermon. I said, whoever that is, I can guarantee you they're over 60 years old and they don't know how to turn their ringer off. With someone sitting near them, I mean, now I'm literally calling this person out from the bullpest because they're phoned all five times.

And somebody told me afterwards it was about a 75-year-old man. It was just what I said. But why didn't he just get up and walk out is my point. So that thing rang five times near my service. To Phil's point, 75-year-old men don't need cell phones. Why wouldn't you just leave it? Why wouldn't you just leave it in your car and walk over and sit down for 30 minutes? Hear the word and go back in your car. Okay. And maybe wait till you get home to turn it back on.

I mean, I just can't think of a device that's that. What's the word? I think you should have done is that you need to respond. bring the phone, quote that verse, put to death the misdeeds, and just take a hammer at the altar call and just sacrifice that phone in front of the audience. Will that have been wrong? Do y'all enjoy at all the availability of just being quiet and nothing's going to, nobody's going to reach you at all?

It's impossible to reach you via cell phone, telephone, any kind of just just get away from it for a little bit. Is it possible? It's difficult. It's difficult for most people, but you're right, Dad. It has become too consuming for most people. I think so. And I don't know.

I read something that everybody has a phone, looks at it every so many seconds. Like now you're almost just conditioned to have to look at it. Well, you can look at your screen time, and it'll tell you how many times you've, I've already seen Jay's pick up as fun. phone about 15 times in this last episode. I've told you, I send text to myself, so we get to talking, and I'll have a thought about

a verse, so I have to check my text to myself. Some people use notebooks. We have a running suspicion that you're looking at your stocks. Yeah, that's exactly right. We think you're multitasking during the podcast. No, I haven't looked at those because I'm a long-term investor. If you get into daily emotional roller coasters, that's a recipe for failure. Let me bring up one last thing from Romans 13 in our last few minutes here.

Because what we talked about today, focusing on the last from verses 8 down to 14, when Paul makes the transition is all true, of course, and everything we said, I think is spot on. But we didn't really focus on what led into that because he makes that transition that when it comes to the government, you owe them. These are things you need to do. Submit to them. He used those words. When he brings it to the one another, he puts it in the love context. You should want to do this. It should be your desire. But a lot of people just kind of run right past this text. And I understand why. It says that's why you pay your taxes and give everyone what you owe them. In other words, pay your bills and pay your taxes. And then he goes into how we treat one another. But there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians that, you know, think they don't have to pay their taxes and don't pay back what they owe. And so I just want to make a charge of you guys out there that, I mean, it's pretty clear what Paul is talking about. If you owe people, you pay them what you owe them. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's a reflection of us as Christians if we don't. I think we violate the very idea

what he was talking about here. And I think we lost Al. But Al's got a point. And even Jesus, you know, you remember when they had that conversation where P.E. had heard overheard some of the authorities you know about paying taxes and so he went and asked Jesus and Jesus I mean one of the most favorite things from from my perspective as a fisherman I guess and you taught me as a commercial fisherman when he was like so what you know what do we what do we do what do we do about this situation Jesus is like well give to Caesar what is I mean he was basically saying pay your taxes yeah so but

But his method was like, go down there and catch a fish and you'll find what we owe. The first one you catch will be in his mouth. Yeah. Well, why do you think he did that? It's hard to say, but they couldn't trap him on anything. That's all I got to say. And he knows our heart. I think that's why he ended this chapter with don't even think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful

nature but let's face it our flesh we we want to be greedy we don't want to pay what we owe we want to hustle people out of money we want to participate in things you know he went through all these different things we get into in verse verses 13 but he gave us this image of being a part of the armor of light. So, so we had Al try to come back, but he did. And he started talking about paying taxes and they, he's like, no. Somebody put the quietus on them on that one. Yeah. We ain't paid no tax that we don't have to. I think there's a reason that even 2,000 years ago, tax collectors were not viewed in a favorable light. And, and I'll be honest with you, I don't like them now. Yeah. And if I find any legal, no one does. The legal way around it.

I've tried to get around it. However, I'm not going to cheat. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to compromise my character because of passages like Romans 13 that I know, guess what? The government may have a lot of corrupt tendencies. But if you didn't have them and you didn't have law enforcement and you didn't have all this, well, this place would be a lot rougher to live.

Oh, it's bad enough as it is. Yeah, exactly. The bottom line is, I think for us, we've presented. pursue Jesus' character, which was based on love. And when all these things come up, we should be the ones that people view as doing honorable and respectful things within our society, despite the fact that there's a lot of corruption that's going on in all these entities. Yep.

There's a lot of confidence when you just do things like Jesus said, reach out to the poor, the downtrodden and the ones the street people and when you help them out and freak out us but they don't owe you anything and you live your life like that before them there is something about that jays that's satisfying yeah it is for people who never tried it they're like you know they're not worth helping

they're worth something they're human beings and they're worth something all people and the quicker we learn that as a nation we wouldn't be near as divided as we are now that's for sure. I agree. Instead of name calling, just be good to your neighbor. Love your God. Love your neighbor. Rock on. 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 blazedtv.com slash Unashamed.