Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 391 | Why Phil Takes His Duck Dogs Very Seriously & Why You Are a Cornerstone

Episode Date: December 5, 2021

Jase gives a duck report, and Phil has an intriguing request for the audience. Phil and Zach discuss their disdain for watching the news. Jase and Zach explore the parable of the landowner and the meaning behind the passage. Phil makes an important realization about all the people who don't believe in Jesus. Jase and Zach dive deeper into “many are called, but few are chosen.” And Jase explains why we are cornerstones in Jesus. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? This is podcast three without Al. He must be on a beat somewhere. You know, a man needs his arm and all. He needs his arm, or I'm just my problem with it. Some kind of song. He's a traveling man.

Yeah, he is a traveling man. He's the type of person that he'll say, I'm in. and then his next question will be, now where were we going? He's just ready to go. Yep. So, but, you know, I've always said every family has an odd duck. And, I mean, you look at Al, he wears khakis and vests and bays regularly.

He's usually clean-shaven. He likes to go to beaches. I mean, he's just an odd fella. Yeah, odd duck. So, Zach, the duck report, I didn't want to go where we went today. And, of course, at no time other than Jay Stone, did I hear anybody say you were right? But we tried dog number two in the field's quest for a new dog. Yeah, by the way, if that's, I just thought about something.

Way out there in computer land, there ought to be some guy somewhere. that raises great, and I didn't say good, great Labrador Retrievers. Well, that's the problem, Phil. The bar is so high. So if anybody's out there and you have a Labrador retriever that's good to go, and he can bring ducks back and place them in my hand, if you can do that, without any, yeah, yeah, yeah, he just got it. The dogs got it.

We just had blue. He was a whiner, but a griner. great, great. But he's the only great lab I've ever had. So if any of you got a great lab, get in touch with me. My dog is pretty good, Biggin, but the problem is if I bring him, I have other responsibilities in the blind, and it's just hard to work the dog and do everything else. That's the main problem.

Biggin's not spectacular, but he's pretty good. But these first two dogs that we took made Biggin look. He looked like a whole star. He really did. So I usually take him a few times just when it's a small. He looked like a call up against blue, but then from then on, it's been, old Biggins getting bigger all the time. But it's just like anything in life.

What causes quarrels and fights among you, unmet expectations? When the bar is high, that's what causes all this chaos. and griping. So I'm just saying we need to lower. What did you say? Unmet expectations. Do you remember what our good friend, Maco, and he used to say, I'd never forget this, the expectations are premeditated resentments.

I thought that was pretty good. Expectations are premeditated resentments. Well, I'm sure someone's listening to this, and they're saying, where are you getting that? So I'll read it. This is James 4. one what causes fights and quarrels among you don't they come from your desires that battle within you yes here it is you want something but don't get it that was just another way of saying your expectations are one thing and you the reality is another and it causes bickering fights

disappointment. Yeah, I gave a sermon Sunday morning on Colossian 3. Think about things above, not on the earth, put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly, nature, sexually, immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways in the life you once live. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these. Rid yourselves of these things. Anger, rage,

malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. I've never heard a text that is so succinct and so simply put. Do not lie to each other

since you've taken off your old self with its practices, which meant you did a lot of mind, you've put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. There's no Greek, there's no Jew, no circumcise them, sir, all that junk, barbarian. This is a good idea. These were the rules of social media since you're not on social media. I just hear about it.

Just think about this. If the rules of engagement on the Internet and social media. We're getting rid of these things. That's my point. That'd be good. It would be great. Yeah. But look, the human race takes this so lightly,

but it causes so much difficulty in rage and mayhem and just, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't even watch the pundits on the talk show. So I can't do it. Zach, I haven't. Since the election, I've not turned on to one of them. They seem angry. They are angry.

Well, it's a culture of negation. It's like that's all we're doing is we're negating the opposite side, but nobody's coming forth with a vision of what could be or what should be. It's just what's wrong with everybody else. Yeah, I turn it off too, Phil. I don't think it's healthy. I just can't. I can't do it. I can't watch it.

Yeah. I wish I could, but I can't do it. Yeah. well what did you study matthew 21 in preparation i studied matthew 21 and uh you are my son and uh Zach is my nephew my sister that's where he burst forth well it's Matthew 21 and 22 Matthew 21 and and Zach i was telling jace while ago do you know what i've concluded what's that it's over my head I said, are you ready to talk about Matthew 22?

It literally is over my head. I said, I think that's over my head. You're not going to be married in heaven. We're going to be like the angels. Yeah. And if you go to a wedding, you better be dressed properly. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, they all didn't want to go to the wedding. But then he said, well, just the king said, go out and just get anybody off the street.

and bad, just bring them in here. Well, then some dude standing over there, and he's not all decked out. But, you know, they're trying to find some people that go to the man's wedding, the king's wedding. Yeah. Well, here's this dude, and he's not dressed properly. Well, you got these texts like in James, you know, don't favor the fine dress person. And I just looked at it.

And Jesus is doing the talking, and I said, I just have to admit it's over my head. Well, let's start with the one in the end of 21. Let's take them one at a time. In verse 33, mine says the parable of the tenants. Is that what yours? The captions above the readings are not inspired. Just people put that there. Yeah, mine says the parable of the landowner.

All right. Well, I like that title better because it's really about the landowner, which would you say the landowner represents the almighty? All right. Absolutely. Listen to another parable. And before I read this, you got to remember, we just had this about Jesus's authority being questioned. And I think the last podcast I pointed out about seven or eight times where that authority had come up in the previous chapters up until this point.

Who do you think you are? Which they were questioned his authority. and I do think we never answered the question considering his authority when the chief reason the elders came to him and said by what authority this is 21 23 are you doing these things and then he comes up with this illustration about well answer this john's baptism where did it come from was it from heaven or man and they were caught with an unanswerable question so because they were scared of the people but if it was from heaven why hadn't they done it so they just said we don't know which is almost a miracle for teachers of the law and religious

academia and it was on the borderline of being a lie yeah and then jesus said well i'm not going to tell you about what authority i'm doing these things but you know what the actual answer was it in question his authority was that Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth. He represents God and man. That's why when he said did it come from heaven or man, well, here's a man asking that, who did both. Yeah. He came from heaven and man. I think that was the underlying answer, which is something that, because it then comes up again, I think once you think about that, when you get to something like the parable of the tenants. I had not thought about that.

I think that's the underlying theme in all of these parables. That's why I thought it was over my head. I don't think it is. It may not be over your head. I think it's all about authority, and it's all about him being the bridge between God and man. I think I'm going to have a powerful point by the time we get to the end. Go ahead, Zach.

Yeah, I mean, and it's not just about. his authority, I think he's also making a sub-point, which maybe not even be a sub-point, but he's also telling them that they're not under the authority of the one that they think they're under the authority of. They, they, because they keep in mind, he's talking to the Israelites Jewish people, teachers of the law, Pharisees. So if you are to ask them, whose authority are you under? They're clearly going to say, well, I'm under God's authority. And so he's, he's making this case here. All of this is making this case that,

you're not actually under his authority, even back up to the parable of the two sons. After he had just talked about John the Baptist, he says in verse 32, for John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. The tax collectors and the prostitutes did believe him. And after seeing this,

did not even feel, you did not even feel remorse afterwards so as to believe him. So I think he's, get to this point, what he's trying to say is, like, everything that you guys think you have a monopoly on, you don't. God is doing something bigger. God has done something different, and he's, he's bringing in all these other people that you never thought were going to be a part of this because they weren't Jewish. He's opening this thing up to everybody. Well, I agree. Which was his plan

from the beginning. My point is, my point is in Matthew 4, right at, or in Matthew 3, when Jesus was baptized. God the father declared him as his son and the Holy Spirit ascended on him. Now come later in Matthew 17 after they're questioning who he is. We've already had this moment. There's no doubt he's the son of God. He's he's God in a human form. Well then Matthew 17, he's then transfigured from his disciples with two one dead guy and one who's died of or left the earth under suspicious circumstances. They radiate light and then the same voice says the same thing but adds one caveat. Listen to him.

They're not listening because they don't think he has the authority for them to give their ears to. They haven't. They haven't constructed him in their mind yet as being a human, but is actually God in flesh. Son of God in flesh, right. And I know that's true because when we get to the last paragraph in chapter 22, he then comes up, which we'll just hit it lightly here, when he says the Pharisees were gathered together and Jesus asked him, what do you think about the Christ, whose son is he? Now, he's speaking of himself.

Yeah. The son of David, they replied. He said to him, which is technically right, right? But then he said, well, how is it then that David, speaking by the spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how can he be a son? Hold on. Let's take a quick break before you finish that thought. What he did was he introduced the Trinity, because they know there's only one God.

That was one of the commandments. There's one God. Don't put other gods before me. Well, now all of a sudden, he's like, this God has some personalities because I'm a son of God. Now he was the son of David, but he didn't stop and explain that. He just said, well, how come he said that? Because he's son of David and the son of God, which goes back to my point on by what authority

are you doing this? Well, tell me about John's baptism. Was it from heaven or men? Because he's both. Yeah. And so this seems to have the same thread running through it. And you notice it said he was speaking by the Spirit. So he actually introduced the idea that there is one God with three distinct, however you want to say that, three personalities.

Three distinct persons. As Bill Smith used to say, three centers of consciousness. But if you look back at Jesus' baptism, you also see a picture of the triune God. No doubt. You see the father, you see the son being baptized, so you see the spirit of God descending on him like a dove. So even in the, I mean, that really is a perfect picture of this triune God, which a lot of people think, well, okay, the Trinity, it's complicated.

It's hard for us to get our mind around. I don't think God ask us to fully grasp his nature because we are in, where we're finite beings, we can't fully grasp the infinite being, but we can begin to ponder on the nature of who God is, and he is triune. And I would argue that it's essential for us to understand the gospel, to understand God's triune, because we see in his very nature that God is love. You know, there was a question that I heard a theologian ask one time, he said, to make the point about God being triune, he said, who was God pouring out his wrath

on before he creates anything. There's no angels, there's no humans, there's no creation. Who or what was God pouring his wrath out on when all that existed was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? And the answer is pretty obvious. He wasn't pouring his wrath out on anybody because there wasn't any sin. Well, the next question is, he asked, well, who was he lavishing mercy on before he creates anything? There's no humans, no angels, just Father, Son, Holy Spirit. who is God giving mercy to? And again, the answer is no one because all that exists is the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There's no sin to have mercy on.

Who or what was God being sovereign over? Sovereignty is another attribute of God that doesn't come into play until God creates. But that's this next question, he said, he said, who or what was God loving before he creates? And the answer is himself, because the Father was eternal. loving his son, and the son was eternally loving his father, and the spirit is the love between. And that's why 1 John 4 is so important when we talk about the nature of God. When we say God's triune, what we mean is that God is love. That's what it means.

That's what that means. And if you remove that, you really destroy the entire gospel. You destroy everything if God's not that kind of God. You know what I mean? That makes sense? Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, I think 1 John 4 backs you up when it says, because a lot of people have asked me through the years. What exactly does that mean? When it first John four, seven says,

let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love doesn't know God because God is love. So then he says, well, this is how God showed his love. He sent his one and only son into the the world that we might live through. And this is the controversial or the more difficult to understand. This is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Because people read that and they're like, but I do love God. It's like, but he showed you that love that love originated with him. and then he showed it and expressed it. Now, it transformed you into the capacity of loving because it was defined by him and then it was shown by him. Yeah, because it originates with him and it ends with him. So when you ask the question, and this is a big question I ask is, why in the world did God make us?

Like, why did God create us? And I don't think the answer is that he needed us to worship him because Acts 17 is pretty clear that God doesn't need our praise. God doesn't need us. So why did he create us? I think he created us because we were an overflow of his love. God is a God of overflow. Even the concept of a son that's coming out of the Father eternally, God's always pushing out and pouring out. And going back to Matthew, what I think Jesus is argument he's making here is the Pharisees or the nation of Israel, vineyard in the parable of the landowner, they were wanting to consume everything for themselves, and they wanted that monopoly on salvation, on the patriarchs, on the law.

They really thought it was something in them that gave them the status. And really what is going on here in these parables is Jesus is pretty much busting that whole mentality up. And what he's showing is is that he came to die for the sins of the world and that he is offering salvation to everybody, even outside of Israel. I'm opening this thing up. You're right. Well, let me read it because, and just to make the point, the reason I like the name of it, the parable of the landowner better than the parable of the tenants is based on what I just read in 1st John 4. love this is love for God not that we love God it's not about the tenants as much as it is about the landowner in this case the landowner's God he is the originator of love so watch what it says

listen to another parable there was a landowner who planted a vineyard put a wall around it dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower and you saw why do we have all these details because I think the underlying point of that is that God has done everything. This is what we talked about last podcast. That is possible, that is possible to save mankind. It's possible to what? He's done everything possible to save mankind and bring them into a relationship with him. Because he owns the vineyard, or let's say it's the earth.

and look at all these things that he has. And so then it says, then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. So you have everything you need to have good fruit here and to produce a crop. And what happened? When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect the fruit, which there's hundreds of passages about good fruit. go back to the parable the soar. This is the sign that the results of your life have been transformed into God supplying

the power in your relationship with him. So the tenants seized the service. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. I mean, we can't even determine if there's any fruit or not, because we can't get it. We set foot on the land and they kill you just for being there. Then he's... Well, back up, hold on a second. I want to clarify two things in this.

When he talks about the vineyard, that's a reference to Isaiah 5. Exactly. That is clearly talking about the nation of Israel. And these slaves that were, the one was beaten and one was stoned, these are the prophets. These are the prophets that came before Jesus that Israel rejected. So this is not just a parable. This is an indictment to say, God sent the prophets and then the son, obviously,

you can continue that. Exactly. Well, I have that written down too. And the only difference in Isaiah 5 and Matthew 21 is at the end of Matthew 5, the vineyard is destroyed. And at the end of Matthew 21, it's given to another people, made available to another people, which we deduct that it was the Gentiles, which in my mind, my feeble mind, I think, well, in Isaiah, you have, I mean, the result of the law is basically sin and death. And you got to remember these are, what do you call them, allegories, I guess, Yes, these are illustrations that he's just, you don't want to get hung up on the details so much in that you missed the overall point.

Because I think that's right. We're getting to the end because some people did put their faith and trust in God from Israel. And so you're not, and even some teachers of the law, and I'm sure some Pharisees and throughout history. But he's just saying there's a general principle here. So then in verse 36, it says then he sent other service to them more than the first time and the tenants treated them same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. They'll respect my son, he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, this is the heir.

Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance. So they took him, threw him out in the vineyard, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes what will he do with those tenants he will bring those wretches to a wretched inn which i think you got to remember this is there's not very a long period of time before 80 70 happens and this destruction of jerusalem and the temple's torn down and all so i do think there is a little bit of that in the prediction, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time. Jesus said to him, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God. Let's, uh, hold on, let's take a quick break. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom in verse 43 of 21 will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. When the chief priests and Pharisees heard Jesus parables, they knew he was talking about them.

They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. so to me it's basically a story about how they missed the signs and the prophets and the prophecies that led should have led them to Jesus being in front of them as the son of God the king eternal but along the way for various reasons they missed it and so he's like but you got to remember, God's ultimate plan was that all Jew and Gentile would be saved. And it's still about God's grace, patience, love, mercy, and acceptance. Yeah, I think that goes a lot of light when you get into the Book of Romans,

you know, because there's some very controversial passages in the Book of Romans that I would rather not give my take on today because I would want to spend more time on it. But I will say that when you get like the Romans 8, 9, 10, 11, and a lot of these passages that are highly contested and debated, I think that we, that understanding this grand narrative of redemption, particularly that God is opening up salvation to all men, is important. And how we interpret the entire New Testament. I think it speaks to the character of God when we think about a God who does want to save people. and it's offering salvation up to all people. So I get to this whole thing about this vineyard.

I mean, it's almost like these parables in Matthew that what Jesus is doing. It's almost like he's kind of repeating the same argument over and over and over again, just in a different way with a different spin because when it gets to the whole, the wedding feast, he's like, I invited you people. And guess what?

You didn't want to come. So what did I do? I went out and found other people. And each story is about one group of people who rejected God. They rejected the Messiah. They rejected Christ. And God says, okay, then I'm going to go find another people. And it reminds me of that C.S. Lewis quote, where he said something to the effect of there's two kind of people in the world.

Those who say to God, are those who God said, or let's you say to God by will be done. and then those to whom God says, all right, thy will be done. So God gives you what you want, but God wants the people that want to be with him. He wants the people that want to be in relationship with him. And it doesn't mean that God is bad. You know, a lot of people read verse 44, and they're like, well, that seems harsh, because it says, he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.

But just think about it. If you just take something outside of what we're talking about, about, I mean, take gravity. The law of gravity is a positive thing. If we didn't have it on the earth, well, we'd just, we'd be floating around always trying, we'd have to try to grab hold something. We couldn't function is what I'm saying. And it's here, whether you like it or acknowledge it or not, you know, and say,

boy, it's a great thing. And I'm comparing that to God's love. God's love is. It's just, it is, it's here. But let's say you just say, well, you know what, I'm not going to acknowledge gravity and you just go walk off a mountain. Well, you're fixed to get crushed. I step off a tall bend. Yeah.

If you don't acknowledge that as a real thing, you're going to get crushed. And it's not that gravity was bad. You just didn't respect it. And I think that's the way to look at the. way God's plan was woven. He wants everyone to be in. So that's why I said in generality, there was always a remnant of believers in each civilization. I mean, it was just one little remnant in Noah's day, but there's always been people who believe. There's a, and there's a remnant here too. I mean, Romans 9 says that pretty clear that there's a remnant. There is a group of

of Israel that stayed faithful and that are part of the new Israel. And so I would say that when like this, when he gives the kingdom over to another people, and he said, I'm taking it from one and giving to another here. I don't think that that's all people. I think it's offered to all people, but I think he's talking about in verse 43, I think he's talking about taking the kingdom away from Israel and handing it to the church. we are the kingdom now. We talk about this all the time. So the kingdom may be offered to you, but you may not receive it. And only those who receive the kingdom are in the kingdom and

possess the kingdom. So I think he's talking about the establishment here of his church that's going to happen in Acts chapter two. But receiving in light of that he made it available is kind of going to. It's kind of like going back to the love thing. It's not that we love him. It's that he loved us. Because I think he gets to that next point in the wedding. And I guess we can just read it.

But I was like, Phil, when I first read this, I was like, what does this mean? But I focused on 14 and then worked my way backwards. You know, 2214 says many are invited, but fewer are chosen. So I thought, well, that's his point. So now let's back up and see how he made that point. And so he says, the kingdom of heaven, verse two, is like... And it rides on the truism that he, at the least, you better respect him. Well, right.

You better have respect for him. Kind of with my large, gravity illustration. Who he is, what he's done, what he's now doing. the mediating work from heaven, and what he will do to come back and raise the dead. Yeah, if you choose not to respect him and love him, don't blame him. That's right. I mean, that's why we went through the precedent of, from fulfilled prophecy, from having the Bible here today for anybody to read in any language, I think that there is,

from having creation itself and the detail, all the evidences there pointing to what he did and who he is, and how that ties in with scripture and prophecy and things. If you looked at the rehabs being full, the prisons being full, and all of this, the self-induced lies and concoctions,

on what human beings do, and it's all you can go back. They do not believe Jesus is who he said he was. Yeah, I agree. Well, I think you just see in life there's a sense of good and evil. They're thinking he's not there. But there's a sense of good and evil. And people who don't acknowledge that there is a God who's 100% good and that there is evil that is separated from God.

Well, I just see that in everyday life. I've come to give you life and immortality. So. Why is it like that, though? Why is, why do we see that in every avenue of human behavior? It's trickles down into our movies and everything's based on good and evil. Yep. And you have a Bible and you read it and you're like, well, how do these 41 guys put all this stuff together over thousands?

of years and it seems to be there's a God reaching out to humanity through history with a lot of evidence and a lot of things about creation that is really too incredible just to come from nowhere. Yeah. Let's take a quick break before you get into the parable of the marriage feast. All right. So in verse two, they prepared a wedding banquet. for his son. He sent his servants to those who have been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. So then he sent some more servants and said,

well, tell those who have been invited that I have prepared by dinner. And so then he went on the menu. Oxon and fat and cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the windman banquet, but they paid no attention and went off. One to his field, another's to his business. So it wasn't like these were negative things. They were just busy and comfortable.

It made me think of modern day life. I mean, really people get more just distracted doing their own thing than just being a thug. But then he addresses the thugs next. The rest seized the servants, mistreated them, and killed them. I mean, all they were doing was inviting them to a wedding banquet. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

So that turned out to be a bad move for them. Then he said to his servants, the wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners, invite to the banquet anyone you find. So the servants went out into the street and gathered all people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guest, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. Friend, he asked, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?

The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be weeping in the nash of teeth. for many are invited but few are chosen so in my feeble of mine i put it down into three categories i put you have the busy those in the routine and the comfortable who didn't acknowledge the wedding as something spectacular they they had no interest then you got the thugs but then you had the people who actually came which was a positive but then you had you had impostors or an imposter from within who actually showed up.

And whether he didn't have any clothes on, which to me would have made more sense. I mean, that would have been, oh, wait a minute here. Or he didn't have the right clothes on. You know, I think about that Galatians 3 when those of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ. It's like gives you an image of you putting on the clothes in marriage. to Christ. That's my take. What say you? I agree. I think that's what's going on here. And, you know, I think that when you get to that last verse, for many are called, but if you were chosen,

it can be confusing because when you get to Romans 8, you know, it talks about those who he called, he justified. And then you have picture here of people that were called, but may not necessarily have been chosen. And I think. the point, again, though, that he's making is more of this meta thing to Israel to say, you rejected me. You rejected the prophets. You rejected John the Baptist. You rejected the son, who became the stone that you stumbled over, which is the quote out of Isaiah that we've been bringing up the stone which the builders rejected. What he's saying is that I love this, that the stone that you rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

And this came from the Lord. So the very thing that you rejected is the thing that the whole thing is being built on, which is not a thing at all. It's a person whose name is Jesus Christ, who is the second member of the Trinity, is the son of God. And he's opening up. He's calling people into this. I think, again, it goes to show God's character.

God wants his people, and he's going to relentlessly go after us. I think to your point, Jase, what we got to remember above all, though, is that all of it initiated, was initiated by the king. So the people didn't say, hey, I want to come to the wedding. No, the king invites them. The king calls them. The king initiates. And then those who receive that, that's just a response. So we don't have any claim to anything when we're finding ourselves at the wedding feast.

All we can really do is just say, I was invited, I put the clothes on, I accepted the invitation, and I'm just grateful to be here. Well, it kind of goes back where he laid the groundwork for this is Matthew Chapter 7 when we went over that, asking it will be given to you. That's in 7-7. Seek, and you will find that they weren't interested in that by not showing up at the wedding. Knocking the door will be open to you. They said, no, I got other things to do.

for everyone who asks receives and i got something on my mind other than the king and what he's given given right here got good grub everything's laid out to him who knocks the door will be open so he talks a little bit in everything it's amazing that this goes down in there do to others what you would have them do to you which is being fulfilled with the wedding God being gracious, offering you a free trip and plenty of good grub, enter through the narrow gate, and then he begins to go about what happens in the wedding. In the wedding, many are invited, but few are chosen because enter the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and that's where they were headed.

They weren't chosen. and they weren't into this, and many entered through it. But small is the gate narrow, the road that leads to life. And only if you find it, he did say, watch out for false profits. They come to you in sheep's coming. Better make sure the king is who he says he is. It's amazing. I always start to tie together.

Yeah. Well. I'm understanding it better listening to you, young bucks. I think we got to remember, like, what's like, because I keep thinking about what's it, what does this mean for us? And I think it means a lot of things. But one thing I think it means is that I don't want to be on the side of the Pharisee. I don't want to be one of the ones that think that I'm arbitrarily chosen by God.

And I think I'm in some kind of exclusive monopoly thing. Like I want to be I want to be one of the ones that gets invited. I don't want to be one of the ones that's claiming it when I don't deserve it. I deserve to be here. I'm this, I'm that. Here's my credentials. I don't want to be that guy. I want to be the guy that gets invited to the wedding and says, I'm coming.

I'm in. No, I agree. I remember talking to this guy, you know, who was trying to help people who were being traffic. You know, they were human trafficking and they would go to different countries and risk their life. But I remember him saying a couple of points. And one of them is because they had. had hemmed up a guy, you know, the caught a guy who was one of the higher-ups in doing this. Hey, Jay, before you finish that story, let's take our last break.

And what he told the, you know, the believer, the brother in Christ who was trying to help these, in this case, it was these women that they were trafficking. I wrote this quote down when he said it because he was saying, this is so big what we're doing out here. you're trying to stop this. But he said, you're just some guy standing on a rock in the middle of a sea. And when he was telling me that story, I thought, you know, it sounds like what we as Christians are doing. You know, when he said he was the chief cornerstone, because the world seems so angry and so bad. And it just seems like we're nothing and we're a small group and what can we do? But when you talk about the rock that you're standing on and Jesus using that illustration in Matthew and now using this picture of a wedding, well, what was you talking about?

I agree with Zach, when he introduced the church, when Peter said in Matthew 16, you're the Christ, the son of living God. And then he's like, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom. And he introduces then the church. he uses the kingdom and church synonymously there. Well, when I think of the wedding, I immediately go to Ephesians, where he had this illustration about the famous passage where wives and husbands go to try to repair their marriage or see what God wants from them.

But he gets to the end of chapter 5, and he said, this is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ in the church. You know, as members of the church, We're the bride of Christ. And when you back up in Ephesians, and I wanted to read this, because I think the powerful part of being married to Jesus comes from what he said in Ephesians 219,

where it says you're no longer foreigners and aliens. It doesn't matter what country you're from. In these illustrations, he's talking about, yes, God came to Israel first, but we're going to go find some other people because in general, that was rejected. But he comes all the way fast forward to being married to Jesus and being part of the church. He's like, you're no longer foreigners or aliens, but you're fellow citizens with God's people and members of his household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, which he just used as an illustration that you didn't listen to, that you killed one right

after another, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Holy Spirit. And to go back to why I brought that up about the illustration. Yeah, the world may treat us like we're just some guy standing on a rock in the middle of a sea. But when you read that, you think, oh, there's a lot of us standing on the rock being built together in the presence of God

with his spirit, which makes us way more powerful than whatever's going on out here, you know. But another thing he told me about in that trafficking situation was that a lot of people that they would go in and rescue, some of them were so scared, have been abused so bad and was so terrified, they wouldn't, they didn't even, believe that they were being rescued.

It's like they didn't want to go. And, you know, psychologically, because of fear and abuse that had happened to them, he said, it was telling to me, because you would think they're sitting here like San Sabin, but some of them, they just weren't even acknowledging our presence. And he used it as an illustration to say, of people here's god's love here's god's way of hope what he did in jesus but some people for whatever reason because the circumstances it's right there as a way to start over and to be saved and to get out of this situation and they just don't they don't on our next podcast we'll read

where the pharisees said we got some more cards to play and they play the old political card because if you are who you say you are, you're claiming to be greater and more powerful than Caesar. And they goes over, tell us, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? So now they're going to- That's a good teaser. That's a good teaser for our next. Next, next time we'll discuss that. Yeah, make sure you guys come back for that. I will say one last thing before we close out, too, the irony of the whole parable of the landowner is that the motivation that the tenants had was what they said, let's kill the son so that we can get his inheritance.

Yeah. The irony is, is that if they would submit to the son, guess what they would get his inheritance? We inherit what Christ has because we are his brother. And what does he have? Oh, what is he? He's got the, he brings us into the presence of. God the Father. He dwells with God. And that's what he offers us is we get to do that for eternity.

So it's not just, it's not just eternal life. It's eternal life with God. But yeah, I just want to remind everybody to make sure that you go check out our substack and that it can be found online at Phil Robertson.substack.com. It's Phil Robertson.substack.com. And what we're going to do there is we have our weekly blogs and Phil Rice. We also are releasing a couple chapters for free of his upcoming book, Uncanceled. You guys definitely want to get in on that. It's totally free for you. Go on sign up on the email. You'll get a reminder every week when we post something. And it's just really for our community of people that want to get behind what Bill's doing, want to know what he's working on. It's sort of more for our intimate audience. So you guys go check it out.

That's Bill Robertson.substack.com. 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 blazed TV at blazedtv.com slash unashamed.