Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 328 | Phil Isn't Buying Jase's Fake News & Why Phil Struggled to Sing After Coming to Jesus

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

Phil recalls how sensitive the "Duck Dynasty" crew was to Louisiana bugs and laughs off Jase's tale of a person who created his own mosquito repellent. Phil gives advice to someone who questions his purpose in life. Phil and Al discuss why being persecuted is simply a part of being a Christian. And Jase and Phil explain why singing was the hardest thing to do after giving their lives to Christ. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? I've got you all stirred up because last podcast, a preacher tells me this story about this guy in Uganda over the mosquito repellent that's in his intestine. Well, turns out everybody got... You can't trust preacher's story, Jay's, I'm telling you. We have a license to embellish. Here's the deal. I felt like you believed it and I was listening to it.

And I was listening to what you were saying. But I was thinking, I said, old Jace, he's getting way out there now. That's why I said, what wing of Facebook did you get that material? Well, I don't surf the web, but I did since y'all got all started up about it. I looked and I feel like now it's more likely that that's fake news. I told it. I told it to Dan as a joke. Yeah, but now he's defending the story that I told.

Dan said, Phil, let me tell you. You remember Tim Dawson? I said, I remember Dawson of the Whitesbury Road. He said, he had the same capability because we were sitting there turkey hunting, and he said, mosquitoes were biting me, ticks were crawling on me. He says, in the spring of the year. And he said, I was being attacked by all these things. He said, but I noticed he never swatted anything.

He never scratched his arm. He never plucked ticks off of him. He said, he just sat there. And he said, I asked him about it. and he told, Dawson told the same story that happened in Africa, the man passing gas to get rid of the... He's emitting. And Dawson said, I emit a certain kind of material coming off my body

that ticks and flies and mosquitoes will not come near me. So Dan said, I actually ran out. I said, well, I didn't know what was happening here in America, too, that the force field was coming off certain individuals. I noticed that I attributed on why Dan gets stung more than I do, the mosquitoes bite him more than they back. Well, that's what I was going to say. I've noticed that in the woods.

We'll go in the woods and some people, it seems. The film crews at Duck Dynasty, they were being eaten up. As in, remember the guy they had to take to the hospital? Oh, they were hauling people off that were pot marked. And old birds, the sound man, he was slept in a hammock. outside one night up there at the Lair, I mean, that lodge where Phyllis Nimbus stayed. And he said, what, look at my body. And he was perforated.

He was just solid, just solid. But who in the world would sleep outside in Louisiana at night on the river bank in the middle of summer? I said, well, the mosquitoes. He said, oh, no, not mosquitoes. I hosed it down with mosquito dope and all that. Well, that don't matter. He said, there's something in this.

grass here and I was standing in and he said I noticed all of y'all you don't have red bumps all over you like I do they're from they were from one end of his body to another every 16th of an inch there was a pot mark where something had bit him and he said how come they're not biting y'all I said I think living in this country I think if you're born and raised in Louisiana you develop something because but it sends to be like to life and you're living in this country I think if you're born and raised in Louisiana you develop something because but it sends to be like light-skinned people seems to be the worse that are eating up. Because Dan, they just eat him up. I'm right beside him and they're not bothering me at all. So I can't quite figure it all out. But I don't think I'm emitting something other than, you know. Well, the bottom line is it could be fake news. But, I mean, we didn't have to get all stirred up.

I didn't want to burst your bubble yesterday, but I was thinking, Jason's got out there. Well, I don't surf the web. I don't do that. You know how people... I don't have the web. You don't have the web. I don't have it. But when then this all got started, you can kind of tell if that was factual.

So I'm leaning toward that was fake news. But I have noticed that in life, some people seem to be immune or they emit certain noxious smells. Because I've had, I've been... I think it's a long-term thing that comes from the dirt coming from. You know, the rural children did not catch polio. They proved that. The children out in the rural areas, only the city-dwelling children. They had the worst cases.

Now, this seems like fake news to me. No, they've proven this. Because no one in the country running around barefoot and all that, they said they noticed. Because their immune system was higher? Their immune system. They had a better immune system, especially against something like polio. I read that in like some doctoral journal. But the bottom line is I just noticed it as a kid.

I said, well, nobody out here in the woods seemed to be catching this stuff. They said the children that played in the dirt is the way they put it, that were barefooted in the dirt. They were far, far, far, very remote. They just didn't get polio. Well, I ought to be the healthiest person on the planet then. Because I live in the dirt. You think about it.

You would develop a natural immunity. People who went out west and all this, all these fevers that were getting them at the time. I mean, a lot of them, you either built up a pretty good immunity to it or you died. But you know, do you think about that, all the critters in Louisiana, all the things that can hurt you, when you and I went and visited Angola, they told us about the last two guys that tried to escape because Angola is a really interesting thing. I mean, it's not like a big prison you think with, you know, it's got a couple of walls

at the beginning of it. but most of it the barrier is the state of Louisiana. I mean, you got the river, you got all this marsh down there. So these couple of guys tried to get away, and they found the first one, he killed himself. Some of that stuff had gotten onto him and into him. He killed himself. They found the other one. He was about half dead, but they said he had been bitten by more things.

His body was just swollen. I mean, he survived, but it was a, I mean, whenever he got back, And they said, here's the guy that tried to get away. Nobody's tried to leave since. That was 30 years ago. So the critters of Louisiana are even a barrier to keep prisoners in Angola. Yeah, I've noticed a lot of people, they hunt with us in the time of year. Mosquitoes are almost around the clock every month.

When it gets really cold in the wintertime, you don't see them. But overall, the mosquitoes are always there and a lot of them. and it just seems they attack light-skinned people. We had one after the other being sent to the hospital when they filmed Duck Dynasty, when we got out and filmed some scenes in the outdoors, Jay's. A lot of, especially the little girls, but they'd wear little outfits, you know, their legs were showing.

Well, you know, they'd be just potmarked from, I mean, and they said, they come up to us. They said, how come nothing is, they're not biting y'all? I don't know. I'm like, y'all got, Sweet meat, city meat, sweet meat. But you had this idea of wearing women's perfume is somehow stops the gnats from attacking.

So I think that's based on fake news. Well, I tried it because someone said it was a certain brand. Who was the woman's name? It was only thing. Where is it? Victoria. Victoria's secret. The big secret was you could put that stuff on

and the gnats wouldn't foggy. But this was for the no-seum. No-seum actually is in the dictionary. I looked it up. No-seum is a small gnat, blood-sucking gnat. And somebody said, Victoria's Secret of Work. And I said, I said, I said, don't throw me under the bus too far. I said, well, I'll try it.

I said, but don't ever tell anybody you saw me use this. I said, Victoria's sick of some kind of women perfume. I didn't want to get the wrong right out of here. Yeah, the problem is when people get near you, the way you look, and then they smell that. They immediately think you're more weird than they thought. You can be so normal. You can be so normal on planet Earth that you seem abnormal. That's how they think.

I've always viewed that like Al in our family. I'm the epitome of normalcy. But people, they think I'm abnormal some of them. I don't know where they comes from. Yeah. A scale from one to two in Maryland. Normal enough, they'll say that's a strange deal. If normal was one and abnormal was 10, I would put you probably at an eight or nine as an abnormal human.

No. No. I'm so normal. It seems abnormal because you look around. You're like, good night. What's this month's doing? They said, we're just doing, we're the normal ones. I'm like, yeah, tell me about it.

Yeah. Well, I'm not saying that's bad. Abnormal is not necessarily a bad thing. By the way. Well, in this day and age, in this day and age, it's good to be abnormal. Normal in our culture is probably not good. That's what I was getting that. One of my bits I use when I speak is that the old show back in the 60s, the Monsters,

was a family of monsters. You know, it was Frankenstein and Dracula, but they were all like a little family in California. They made a show out of it. It was just a, you know, sitcom, I guess, for its day. But then they had this cousin that was beautiful. She looked like a movie. star, but she had an identity complex for the whole show because she was living with monsters. She thought she was abnormal, and yet she was really normal.

So that's kind of how I compare myself when I talk about it. They say, how do you roll? You say, well, I love God. When I get up in the morning, I love my neighbor. And I try to do what's right in all things. And they're like, that's weird. I'm like, no, that's not weird. that's being normal.

But we're at a point to where if someone tells you, you're telling me that if you love God and love your neighbor and you try with everything in your being, you just do what's right. You're saying you actually do that? I'm like, it's called being normal. Well, to our culture, well, they'll say, well, that won't work.

I think that's what's so important. Believe in some God and so you love him. And you look at your neighbor and you love you, you reach out to your neighbors and you help them. They're like, ha, that's weird. But what's so appealing about Jesus? You think I was looking for John 14. But I just flipped to John 10 and saw this phrase twice. The first verse says, I tell you the truth.

And then in verse 7, he said, I tell you the truth. I'm the gate for the sheep. But I was looking for 14, you know, when Thomas said, well, how do we know the way when Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And he eventually said, I am the way I am the truth. I mean, to me, in our culture, what's so appealing about Jesus is you have a place where you can go and get life's truth. Just think about how hard. I mean, here we are having a, some guy tells me something.

And people say, oh, that's not, you can't figure out what's true in life. And you have a place. This was written 2000. years ago, highlighted in red where Jesus, the image of the invisible God, where everything he said, you can fact-check it about the best way to lead your life, and it comes out to be 100% true. That is correct. It's pretty incredible. Yeah.

Look, solid foods for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. You say, what do you call that? You say, that's searching for normalcy. Yeah. You just know the difference between good and evil. You choose good instead of evil. It's a choice. So you get up in the morning, you say, well, so what do we choose in today?

Good or evil? You say, I'm going with good. Yeah. But it's like even when my kid, you know, parenting is hard. But when they're coming up with a narrative through the years that did not coincide with what I'm reading, they're like, well, why is this such a big deal? because I'm like, because I have a foundation of truth that I know what you're, what you're, the road you're going down. It's not based on truth because I'm reading it here.

And you're fixing to develop a pattern on which one you're going to embrace. Yeah. The words of Jesus are the words of our current culture. You say, well, you have a choice. So which, which, which road you're going down to it? I'm going with Jesus. It, it's, it seems way closer to the truth. Yeah.

Well, you remember when. You remember the way Peter put it in 1 Peter 2, 11. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visits. The idea there is that it's supposed to be, we're supposed to be different. We're supposed to be noticeably different than the world around us. A light of the world, salt of the earth.

When Jeremy wrote us the other day, we get hundreds of letters per week. I'm thinking that I may not have a purpose here anymore. That was his opening line. I don't have a purpose here anymore. Well, once you take God out of the equation and your response to him and you haven't trained yourself yet, Jeremy, you haven't trained yourself to distinguish good from evil, embrace good, shun evil. Throughout the Bible, embrace good, shun evil, no matter what. And a fool says you can't tell the difference. Oh, there's a big difference between good and

evil. And it speaks to each one of us. And for somebody to see it, Jeremy says, I just keep doing evil. And I thought all my problems were fixing to leave if I started doing what Jason's talking. I started following Jesus. What's all these problems? Where's all that stuff in my inner being that I'm struggling with? I'm looking at porn on the Internet. I don't know what to do about it. You say, well, throw your little black box away, throw the trash.

But at some point, your conscience, you know, can become seared. Or just keep your little black box, but get off that particular vein of, you don't want to look at that. Naked women running around everywhere. Yeah, I'm all looking at that. I can't change. All these problems. I have. Let's take a break. Yeah, we talked about that yesterday about the idea that you can't let

past hurts. I mean, that has, Jesus has to take that from you. And you said it right. That it's a marathon of a lifestyle. I mean, everybody, you know, coming out of the world, it takes a little while, you know, there's a few trips along the way and there's struggles that go along. But if that is where you focus, you're never going to be productive in kingdom work. which I was going to ask another person asked a question. I want to get y'all's take on it, especially in the context of what we're talking about right now. It was Tina. And she said, I love the Lord, but with everything going on, I find it very hard to love people right now.

How can I love and have joy like you all have? I can't keep my earplugs in all the time. And it's an interesting take that she has because what she's saying is I can love Jesus, but I really don't want to be around people because people are bad. She's struggling, she's struggling somewhat with when Jesus said you're the light of the world. Other words, you don't put a light under a lamp, I mean under a shade where you can't see it. She needs to understand that she needs to show people what Jesus is like by her behavior. She needs to show them.

Let your light shine before men so they'll see your. good deeds and and this points them to God she's uh but she also got to realize that we're all sinners sure i mean jesus also said don't don't pluck the sawdust out of your brother's eye and you got a plank in yours i mean i think there's always a tendency in religion to to gather yourselves in a building and say well we're the we're the good people and those are the bad people and we need to protect ourselves when you realize it should be those who know Jesus and those who don't. But we're still flawed in Jesus. And so loving people is not comfortable. It's not something you want to do. It's time consuming. It's messy. I mean, all these things.

It calls for discipline. Yeah, it can be scary because some people are. Let's face it, they're really rough. You think about it in our culture, Al, these days, even the word discipline is a scary word in our culture now, being disciplined and living a disciplined life by what you say, what you think, what you see, that covenant with your eyes that Job had figured out. He said, I made a covenant with my eyes on what I would see. and the detrimental stuff, I want to see that. So he had built a barrier, a self-induced barrier to know out of role. It's discipline. It's discipline and yet it's engaged.

I mean, you think about it for the last 2,000 years, how many people have gone and built them a place on a mountain somewhere and called it a monastery and spend all day praying and studying, but having no impact on culture, on what's going on in the world, they just removed themselves. It's a sad thing. That's been a thing. It still is a thing.

And the problem of that is, while they can personally be the most, I mean, they're admirable and that, you know, they're so seeking God. But if you're not impacting culture, that's the other half of the deal. Jesus came to earth to save it and to engage it. Yep. And he had no sin. That's right. So, I mean, I think he's the ultimate example of loving people.

That's why he came here. Well, you get to Romans 12, it's kind of, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, hard to grasp that it's your lifestyle in front of your neighbors. In view of God's mercy, Jesus removing your sin by dying on the cross, the resurrection, offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. Don't conform it along to the pattern of the world, meaning you stop going down the path the world takes, and you're out there.

you'll be able to, let's see, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It starts in your mind, Al, whether you're going to live a disciplined, godly life or not. It's in your mind because it controls who you are. The things you say, the things you do, it tells the world who you are. But he's saying, show them me. Show them, show them who I am. You go show them. So we are that with that.

I think my direct answer to her question is you find joy in other. people whenever you see them make the change. There was a young guy named Dustin that lives down in Lafayette, and he had sent me an email. You know, the podcast is impacting me. He wanted to, you know, straighten his life out. He wasn't sure where to go from there. So I reached out to one of my buddies down there that's a pastor in that area. And he reached out to him.

It took a little while for all that to happen a couple of months. Well, by the time he had found him, he had found some folks at a church. But the podcast is what aimed him that way. But now he's getting premarital counseling, with his fiance. say, you know, he's on that path. And so I just thought about it. I thought that's really the joy of what we get out of this is that's a young man who listens to our podcast that said, I want to change my life.

And you helped impact him to do that. You can't do that if you're sitting around as she put it with your earbuds in all day, never engaging other people. And so that's where joy comes out. I mean, all it takes is one changed life and I'm fired up. I mean, that gives me enough fuel to go on for a long time. Well, that's why when your family starts. begins to collapse in any nation.

When your family structure begins to, these things are left out. If you're not disciplined and everyone undergo discipline, then your illegitimate children are not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us. Well, if you look at today's culture, you're like, whew, these days I'm not so sure we have all had human fathers, who disciplined us and we respected them for it.

You're like, that's kind of flown away. If you just look at it, look at our country. You're like, hmm, how much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our Father's disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, you know, till you're 18 or so, then you leave the net. But God disciplines us for our good that we may share in His holiness. there's a lot to be said about discipline and the lack thereof is my point. Oh, there's no doubt about it.

And that's part of what Christianity does is it gives us that structure of what to do. And that's the power of the word. That's the power of the spirit that lives in us. And we've said this often before. The spirit of God that lives in us is the same spirit that Peter said carried along the message all the way back from the prophets, all the way to when Jesus came to this earth. that's the same Holy Spirit that provided us with the Word of God. So when you're living in both, when the Holy Spirit is living through you,

and then you're looking at the Word of God through his eyes because he's guiding and leading it, it changes everything. I think maybe one of the things we wrestle with is when the Apostle Paul said, everyone is persecuted, everyone who lives a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So the persecution is another thing that comes your way. you live a godly, upright, disciplined life, people, there's always some out that's going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, about it. You know what I'm saying? It just goes with the territory. I thought about where we're at in Romans.

Jay, let's take another break. I thought about where we're at in Romans 15. You know, it says, we who are strong are to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Now, you know, we've all been weak or strong depending on where you're at in your maturity in Christ. But he then says each of you should please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For even Christ to not please himself, but as has written, the insults of those who insults, you have fallen on me, which I think it's interesting that he starts talking about

being good to your neighbor. And in the same breath, he's saying, you may get insulted. That's why I said, loving people is not easy. that is correct. Most people, if you sat them down and made them tell you the truth, they just soon sit on the couch at their house and not deal with it. It's just hard to do. But then he goes on to say everything that was written in the past was written to teach us

so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. I mean, when you start dealing with people, you're going to need endurance and encouragement in the scriptures because it's just hard to do. And what's interesting, Jay says he's, he said that he's talking about the Old Testament scriptures. Because when he said that, that was the only scripture that was around. And so, you know, we look at that and think, oh, the Old Testament, you know, it's nothing but gloom and doom and law and, you know, judgment and all this stuff. But he's saying there's a lot of encouragement from the old scriptures.

And he gets down to say, I providing this for you. And so that verse six, with one heart and one mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he says, which is where I gave a tease last podcast, except one another then as Christ accepted you, which just shows how difficult it is to accept everyone because we all have sins. And we all have different backgrounds. We have different, what do you call it, ethnicities?

It's a large collection and a big tent out. But like we read last time in Colossians 3, we're all, you know, Christ is in all, which is the better way to phrase it. That's what we have in common. That's what brings us together. Yes, we're all sinners. Yes, we're all going to die. Yes, we're all in this spiritual war of good and evil. But we have the same Lord and Savior, who's the answer to all that, who's providing everything we need for us to have purpose, which is the one you read, and providing us everything we need to try to help people, even though we have sins.

Yep. I mean, my one statement I make every time I speak in front of people is that God uses flawed people to make known the glories of what we have in Jesus. Yep. Because there's no other way to say that. No one's perfect, but God loves us anyway. He indwells us with His Holy Spirit. Well, then we become ambassadors everywhere we go, despite us being.

flaws. That's why the number one thing you do when you try to help somebody, the number one thing you encounter is they say, well, who are you? To tell me, you're, you have sins or you're a hypocrite, which is true. Yep. But still, it's not about me. It's about how powerful God has worked in my life through Jesus. And you tell them that. And hopefully they can see Jesus in you. I mean, that's the only way to answer that question. I had a guy the other day getting touch with me about a couple of weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, and I wanted to turn his life around. I think he's from Ohio, Ohio, as we say.

So I read the letter. Ms. Kay said, you might ought to read this one. A lot of letters never get to me, but some of them do. But that was one I read. I said, Dan, I hauled it Dan. I said, get a hold of this dude. And I said, tell him to come on down. So they're coming Friday.

He and his little entourage. family members and all that. But he wants to be born again, start all over again. And he, up into this point, it's the same story with everybody else. We struggle with. We can't get her on our feet, you know. So, but he called out of the wilderness. So we're going to, I'm on a meeting Friday morning with he and his family structure. And we're going down on the river, have us a gospel presentation and a baptism right there. So a lot of them, you say, well, you'd have to stop what you're doing and reach out to your neighbor, take some new meaning out when you see them drive up from far away. They've come a long way and you meet.

And they have about an hour meeting, but then I move on to somebody else. You see what I'm saying? Well, we've, you know, we're just, you know, three people in one place. You can't possibly, you know, reach to everybody. But the beauty of this thing is we do. have a body of believers spread out around the world. And in every area where there are people, there are people that are willing to share Jesus. And that's what you have to have to impact the world. Well, I think. Because Jay, the back half of that verse you said, except one another, just as Christ accepted

you, in order to bring praise to God. So to your point, that's what it's all about. I mean, this is all about God getting prayer. How many times have you heard somebody say, only God could save that guy, as if there was some other way he could be saved other than God. Exactly. I mean, God's the only way to save any of us. Well, I love the way this Romans 15 ties everything together.

Because if you read the next verse, which was my original point, he says, I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, which is what we started this whole conversation about trying to figure out what the truth is. And we had the truth on our side. God's promises, which he refers to. here. Once you start pursuing Jesus, and I remember that process as a teenager, I was actually surprised and impressed at how much this made sense. Once I started looking at my options in the world, I mean, just life in general. How did we get here? What's our purpose? You know, what is our

plan B for life after? What is something I could do that, you know, a reason to be good? or to try to do what was right. And I'm looking at this awesome story that God did through Jesus. I'm like, this, it's making, it's making sense. And I was looking at it from kind of a skeptic view, because deep down, I'm like everybody else. My impulses are wanting to do one thing, but I'm looking at this thinking, well, this makes too much sense. I mean, well, what if there is a guy? What if he is real?

What if he did come down to earth? And this seems plausible. It seems historical. but it also seems practical just on how you live your life. I mean, and so we do have the truth on our side. I think you got to remember in that conversation with Pilot that Jesus, he was said that everybody on the side of truth listens to me.

Well, pilot, here he is in a big position. He's thinking, well, what is truth? Because he was like, let me hear your version of the truth. and I think Jesus's point was the same one he was making to Thomas. You know, Pilate just wasn't seeing that at the time that he was like, yeah, there's truth and you're looking at him. It's in a human form because I came from God, which I know takes a lot to wrap your head around. But when you do wrap your head around it, there's something inspiring about that,

that this was God's way of relating to humanity was actually to become a human. human. And instead of him doing something wrong like we did, it actually makes him more appealing that he did everything right because he is all right. And then he died for the ones who are wrong, which is everybody else. Yeah, that little statement he made about, hang on, hang on, dad. Let's take a break. That little statement about everything in the past was written to teach us. It's interesting. I mentioned this yesterday that there's been no, nothing added to or taken away from this book sitting on this table here. Nothing's been added to it or taken away from it for the last 2,000 years.

And so when was Revelation written about 90 in the 90s, someone said? Yeah, toward the end of the first. Yeah, it's in 70 to 90 or, you know what I mean, 65. It depends on what your view of that actually. In lieu of me, when the time had fully come, God sent Jesus his son. This is about 40, 50, 35, 40, 50 years later when the Book of Revelation. And look, the last words, I Jesus have sent my angel to give you the testimony of the churches. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star.

And right before he said that, he said, behold. the last revelation 22 right there then behold I'm coming soon my reward is with me I will give to everyone according to what he's done I am the alpha that's beginning and omega the end the first and the last the beginning and the end well well you read that and you say that's why nothing else has been added to this or nothing taken away from it. He said, I've given you the beginning and I've presented the end to you. And he said, by the way, to your point, Jace, then he says, so you'll know, I am the beginning and the end. Well, right. So the last thing he says is, he who testify these things says, yes, I'm coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus, be with God's people. Amen. That's the last writings we got. But it is interesting that he's talking about the beginning and the end.

I think that was written in the late 60s because I think there's a lot of references to the impending destruction of Jerusalem, the temple in AD 70. That was fixed to happen. But look, there's a lot of different views on that. But what I was going to say is that goes along with what we read in Romans 15, where he said on behalf of God's truth, you know, he confirmed the promise. is made because he's saying you know Christ Jesus became a servant of the Jews but then he includes us the Gentiles in verse 9 because he says so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy as it is written and I think this is an interesting phrase which he quoted I think this is Psalms 18 therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles I will sing hymns to your name

and to go to the question that I'll reference, I just think there's something really awesome about a group of people from every walk of life, whether you're from Israel or, you know, everybody here in America that we meet with on a Sunday morning or whatever are usually Gentiles, but we're different sects of Gentiles based on where you're from or what color you are

or what you do for a living, all these differences. And we come together and seem to be. praises to God. And in that moment, I think that's what trickles down from God's spirit, which he says at the end of chapter 15, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with the hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, that's what brings us all together. And when we're singing praises to God, I mean, it's an interesting thing to bring up here in the middle of all this. Hey, we're trying to win the world. All people except one another. whether they're weak or strong,

and you endeavor to persevere and you encourage one another because this is tough. And then all of a sudden he gives this picture of us all singing together in this moment. To me, that just, it's hard for me to wrap my head around that. But that's the mindset you got to have towards other people. You can't be sitting there not singing, pointing a finger saying, well, I just don't like them. I can't be here. Because that's what we tend to be like, and he's looking at it like. No, we all come together for the glory of God, despite our weaknesses, despite our sins.

And I think that's the power of being a part of what we have in Jesus. Yeah, and, you know, Dad referenced Revelation earlier. You know, you see so many pictures of that, Jay, that great worship of people together, you know, in that setting of Revelation. One of the things I was going to mention, you know, Jason, you read that back in 15, eight and nine, one things I love about Paul's writings is in those two verses, he basically went back and reiterated what the whole book of Romans has been about. Remember Romans one? We're at 16, 17, we're at first, the gospel of salvation, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. He repeats that in those two verses because he said that truth, confirmed the promises

made to the patriarchs, and why is that so that the Gentiles may glorify God? So he reiterates not only the thesis of the book, but he also just talked about why that 9 through 11 are totally that the Jews missed it in his culture, that their purpose was to bring the Messiah to the world so that the whole world can be saved. So in those two verses, he goes back to this whole study we've done from the very beginning and says, let me just remind you the whole purpose of the patriarchs of all the Old Testament, all the prophets, all that purpose. was to get Jesus here so that the whole world would have an opportunity for salvation.

I mean, that, in essence, becomes the point of Romans. Remember he told Abraham you'll be the father of all the nations, all of them. All nations. All nations will be blessed through you. But I'll just like, don't you like Al how he uses a picture of us singing praises together? When you look at it practically, that was one of the most difficult things for me to do when I came to Jesus at a young age was sing. because I number one,

it felt a little embarrassing. I couldn't say the words. Well, that's what I mean. I stared at the songbook and would listen to them, but my mouth, I went,

I, you know, Jesus loves me, I said, I can't say, I just stared at it. That shows you, though, our pride,

our pride. And it's so much easier to sit, there with your mouth shut and make fun of other people or look down on them or look at them as silly. And I think that's the, that's really what we're up to good. I couldn't even mild the words for several months. And I slowly began. And so, dad, do you, do you think, let's take our last break, do you think, dad, that was because you didn't feel worthy to the saying? I mean, was that part of yours? Because you had just gone on. I was the same way. I mean, I had a hard time.

I've been living a hellish lifestyle, and I was seeing this saying, you know, these words of these songs, and I just, I just couldn't say them. But Phil, what I'm saying is I didn't, I mean, I was, had a lot of mistakes, but the degree of sins, I didn't do what you did. But I still had a hard time because I think you have to make yourself vulnerable to God and appeal to his grace. and when you sing, you're showing that. It was embarrassing to mild the words because I was one of these macho-comacho types, and it just, for me, it was embarrassing for me to... Well, it's humbling, that's what I'm saying.

Oh. But now... It took me months to finally mild the words of speech. It took me about 20 years to just weed out all distractions. I'm just saying... We're worshipping, and I'm like, you know what? I need this refreshment with God, and I need to show my humility. And it's all about him, none about me.

And I'm here with all my other struggling brothers and sisters. Because I'm trying to get back to that point. I'm trying to accept one another as Christ accepted me. Yeah, I was to the point where the understanding of brotherly agape love for human beings for each other, that had escaped. I never had that until I repented and turned to Jesus. And then that began to apply, including standing there and singing. I just, I wasn't there yet.

Because I think in those moments. You make an interesting point, though, Dad, because we talked about Romans 12, 1 and 2, where we've obviously established worship is more than just singing songs together because it's become so many aspects of our life. But there is something unique and special about when the people of God come together. And from the first century, Acts 2, Acts 3, Acts 4 to today, there's something about when we get together and you hear a praise report or someone's prayer or communion message or worshiping God and song that does something to help other people. I've been to so many, you know, assemblies together.

And I'll see somebody and I'll watch them and we're singing and I notice they're just crying through the. whole thing. End of our service, they'll come forward and they've had some sort of thing in their life. Maybe it was a tragedy or someone passed away. But what happened is the group, the body, worshiping God, brought comfort to them in that moment. And they couldn't sing. They couldn't participate. Yeah, the first hug I received from a male, a brother. First time I got hugged, I got out in the parking line. I told him as chaos, did he have to watch this bunch. They're a little too lovey-dovey for me. I didn't feel comfortable

about a grown man giving me a bear hug. I'm like, easy, easy. I didn't either. I stiffen up a little bit like, whoa, easy now, easy. I still don't. This case, they love you, Phil. I said, what? She said, they love you. Well, I didn't know what. Love

your neighbor. What? Yeah, well, that's why I think it's, that's a point I was trying to make. What I'm saying, I've come a long way. Is in Romans 12, he gives you a view of worship that's not what we think of worship. He said, it's your whole life to offer your bodies of living sacrifice. Then he gets to Romans 15 talking about loving people and bearing with each other despite our sins.

Well, then all of a sudden, he's bringing in this idea of worship. And that's why I think at the end, you think about what you do with singing along with people from every culture, every background imaginable. When he sums that up, he's like, what is happening in that moment? I'm going to tell you what's happening. You're experiencing joy, peace, and trust in God, which is, I'm just quoting Matthew 15, 13. And you're overflowing with hope.

Matthew 15. No, Romans 15, 13. You're overflowing with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit with other people. Don't underestimate that. Because it's giving you a foundation that the spirit is what's bringing us together, which will then lead you outside the walls or outside the, I mean, you can sing together anywhere. But some of the more powerful moments I've ever had is where somebody just broke out in a song at a mall or like we're on a mission trip. And then everybody stops what they're doing.

And here are these little Christians, you know, all banded together and singing. in a place that normally that singing doesn't occur. Well, it's powerful to people. Or it makes them nervous. But either way, I think there's something awesome about this. It keeps you humble, which is what you have to be to be in Jesus and to help other people. Great point. Well, and that's why you remember Paul Jace.

I think it was in 1st Corinthians too, where he's talking about how the spirit brings wisdom into a person's life, but also into the church. And then he goes on later to describe the divisions that the Corinthians are going through. And that was the problem. They were coming together. But instead of having an overflow of worship and encouragement and allowing the spirit to be in that moment, you know, they were fighting about this and people were drinking too much. And they were like withholding the supper from some other parts of the group.

And, you know, he said your meeting together is actually doing more hard than good. And the reason why is because if you become focused, on anything outside of who Christ is in those moments, the spirit can't work. So I've always said, spirit-filled people that come together and worship, whatever they're doing to worship, then there's a spirit of the place there. I mean, that's even more powerful than just an individual. And I think that's why we are encouraged to meet together. I think it brings a lot of that out.

Whether it be 10 or 100,000. That's right. Well, especially in our, I mean, we started talking about whether this story. is true because it's on the internet. But we have to realize that the cell phone has become one of the major issues of our civilization, especially towards young people. They're getting fed in a wrong light, unfortunately, with all these things. And so I was asked about that at the last event I was at.

Like, what are we going to do about it? I was like, well, I think a good suggestion is if you're spending more time in the word, in the Bible than you are on the cell phone, you're probably going to be okay. Good point. I mean, it was just something practical and a way to guard your heart and something to look at and say,

okay, which is going to trickle down to when we meet together. What I'm saying is if we all get meet together and we're going to sing and have this in common, and well, if you're sitting there on your cell phone, looking at your status on social media, you're missing. what we're what we're doing here you know so that's why i think you got to have yourself a checklist to make sure what you're pouring inside of you is not influencing you to be puffed up

which would make you difficult have difficulties being vulnerable to god and singing to god and realizing this is all for the glory of god most people have a point when they say feel i have to have my cell phone at my job i have to have one and I always say, well, I don't. But I have the luxury. I'm 75 years old. I'm supposed to be retired anyway. Well, you can actually read your Bible on your cell phone.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's fine. Yeah. Spend more time in the word than your cell phone, and I guarantee you it won't be a problem. I like your advice. I mean, that's it. That's it.

Your advice is better than my advice, which I just say sailor to cross the parking lot. Stomp it. Throw it in the river. But do you spend more time? in the word than you do on your cell phone. Since I don't have a cell phone, yeah. But you can read the phone.

But what I'm going to tell you is I have a cell phone. I spend more time reading the word than I do my cell phone. I just think it's a good, it's a good view to say, okay, so I don't spend a lot of time on the cell phone, right? I do, but I just make sure I spend more in the word. Is it a question of just priorities? I would think. I think you've got to come up with ways to make sure you're not being influenced in a

selfish way that you're surrendered to God here. I mean, the cell phone tends to make you more self-absorbed. Because I've seen people who are so far down the cell phone train that they can't even have a conversation with you without checking their phone three times during the conversation. They don't even realize they're doing it. They're looking down. That's what I saw when I decided. I don't want that.

That's too much. Exactly. I just said it's too much. So I just backed out of the whole thing. Yeah. Well, I'm bringing this up because he used something as simple as singing. Because in that moment, as a son or daughter of God coming together, in that moment, you're not doing anything wrong. When you're actually singing and participating, you're not on your cell phone.

It actually was a God. idea of bringing people together in a moment where you can realize the big picture of what you're doing here on the earth. Which comes back to your original question of purpose. I'm part of something that's greater than anything imaginable on the planet. We're getting off here alive. We're forgiven. God is using us. I'm fired up about it. Yeah, I am too. All right, we're out of time. See you next time. Shame 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

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