Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 417 | When Phil Saw the Ocean for the First Time & Zach's Faith Crisis

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Phil lays his eyes on the ocean horizon and is struck by its vast boundaries. Zach opens up about his early skepticism of faith, and Jase asks a thought-provoking question. Phil talks about the “dirt-floor” believers in Jesus Christ. And Zach quotes Blaise Pascal to describe God from a mathematician's perspective. Watch the Unashamed overtime show, only on BlazeTV: https://BlazeTV.com/Unashamed https://PhilRobertson.Substack.com — Read two FREE chapters of Uncanceled by Phil Robertson - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? It takes 21 days. Yeah, but when I've gotten off of the phone, I feel better. Like, if I go on a vacation, I've done this before. Oh, yeah, that's true. I've been off of it besides phone calls and stocks and LSU football. I've been off of it three or four years.

That's a lot of that, man. You had a lot of exceptions. Not really. Well, I mean, except for social media. No social media. I'm saying for me, I'm off completely except for phone call, social media, emails, and web browsing. I don't get down it for any other. I don't web browse.

I don't social media. Well, ESPN. You're looking up. I mean, once ever two or three days, I'll look some scores up. Casual score. Yeah, it's not. It's about one minute, about three minutes a week. I'm fine on that.

Yeah, I'm not browsing there. I felt like I could live without my phone, though. Oh, I know. I only use it for stocks, text. I mean, I wish I didn't. I haven't. Well, because I've called you more times than I can remember. And I think you're the hardest Robertson besides Phil to get a hold of.

But at least Phil, he's got a landline that I know I'm going to catch him at some point. You're difficult to get. Well, number one is I never answer the phone of any number I don't recognize, ever. Well. So one of you gets my number out there and you call me. Don't ever going to, you're going to have to text me and tell me who you are because I'm never going to answer you. Don't say never.

I wasn't either until I got hooked up, you know, filming this deal. Now I'll get random numbers. Then they send me a text, which is fine. That's what I'm saying. Once you let me know who you are, it's not that I don't mind talking to people. I'm saying I'm never just going to take a shot. Well, here's what's funny. This guy said, hey, this is whatever.

And we were filming. He had a descriptive message. And I said, what was your nickname? Because whatever the answer to that was, That tells you, do I really know you. Do? Yeah. And so he told me.

I was like, yes, that's him. Did you notice that I don't, you can't leave a message either? And so I kept having people tell me and said, we haven't set your message up. I said, yeah, no. They're like, well, you need to do that. I said, no. Why? Because I can leave a message for you.

I said, yeah, but then I'd have to return it. No. I mean, it's either real time or nothing for me. Oh, I've had the same argument. Yeah. I mean, I had people in the business. profession say oh just a heads up you don't have your voicemail set up i said i know and they said oh you know what is there a problem i was like yeah she said what's a problem i said i don't want people to leave a message

that's exactly well why i said because then i would have to read it i see a number i never seen before and every once in a moment of weakness i said yeah how are you doing today i'm still alive Oh, see, I don't answer that. They were probably just interested in how you were doing. No, he said, though,

they answer them. I was like, Phil, don't do it. I say it's an unnamed number. Phil. And then he's like, yeah,

I'm still alive. I was like, I told you, I told you not to do it, but he does it every time. Because I think you reach a certain age if the phone rings. You must answer it.

That's all. I've never seen that unnamed caller or, like, the spam. And I've answered. answered it and it not been spam. Right. They're 100% correct.

If it says spam risk and you answer it. Why is this still a thing in our country? Nobody's listening to this. Are there actual people that are falling for them? One's like that, but that have a cell phone, I guess. They're still listening. They're slick about it. I got one other day the lady calls and said that my Amazon, there's a purchase on Amazon.

And so then I'm like, and I was like, I don't know if that's true or not, but it was a fraudulent purchase. So I hit the button, you know, then the guy's like, you give us your name and all the, I'm like, but I can see how someone was wrong. Your Social Security number. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I had one called, a dinner, they sent me a text and said I had a relative that had lost 10 million, that had left me $10 million.

You do that one, Jerry. Well, I just deleted it. And I thought, well, that was a big move. If true. Or the ones that the common one now, and this comes more from email, is that somebody, it'll be somebody you know. Yeah. But mostly somebody you hadn't heard from in a long time. And it's like, hey, we're in London.

We came over for vacation. And I meant to get my daughter, blah, blah, blah. And can you just do a visa card for me? If you'll give me the information, then I'll do the card. You know, something like that. And there's like, well, really? like I hadn't talked to you about two years you're going to be hitting me I mean I knew then the first time I ever got first sight light was like well it came legitimately from this person's email that I know yeah but then I realize some some you know yeah that's what they do they take a person on your roller decks give you a seemingly right but I just think you got as Phil would say all your Christmas lights must not be flickering if if it's gone to this process I wouldn't consider of that a few. Well, but one thing you do know because of just capitalism is that if they're doing it,

then somebody's giving them money. They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't getting a few hits. They're making money. Yeah. So some people are following. Well, I mean, Missy's a grandma before she died, she had had two or three in Kent where she sent a bunch of money off somewhere. It was all scams. That's what's sad. Not all there, you know, you're thinking it's legitimate and they're just taking advantage of people. Right. We need to do something. I would call that under the headings of inventing ways of evil.

Oh, yeah. No doubt. Swindler. First Corinthians six, Swindlers. Swindlers. A lot of swindling going on. A lot of it going on. Yeah, I've been accused of being a swindler.

I'll play cards. I just realized we were doing the podcast. We've been rolling. This is a real life. Welcome. Welcome to. Zach hadn't been here a lot in person. He doesn't know.

A lot of times we just turn it on. and then see what happened. When are we going to start? We started six minutes ago. Welcome. Oh, we're going. I'm glad you didn't say anything bad. I know.

Could have been ugly. No, but I, look, dad has said it before. Everybody he asks, you know, what's the benefit of, would you, would you like to not have a cell phone? Almost everybody says, yes, because so much is tied up into it. And we're all sounding like we're making efforts to not be tied up, but some people are just engross. Would you say, Jay, this is like a body part?

an appendage. An appendage. On the phone? Yeah. I've concluded, people would rather die of a car wreck than miss a certain message. Yeah. Because I pass them every day. Yeah, so the way this discussion started for the audience is that me and Jace were discussing

which company is more essential, Amazon or Apple. The stock market is tanking. This is the biggest decline in the stock market in a month. It's what month is it? January? January? It's January of what year is this? 2020. We're at the end of January. At the end of January, because I'm not sure what they're running this.

And now everybody is fleeing the exits of the stock market. Mass, panic, chaos, the algorithms, robots are slain. Kramer said don't panic. Kramer said, do not panic. Well, panic is not a strategy. So you were asking me, and I was like, well, you have to pick, if you're out of cash, you have to pick your highest conviction companies and just pour it in there and say, here we go. This is an opportunity.

This is it. Don't be, you know, telling your wife that you've lost all your money and all this because she's not going to understand that. You can't say it's coming back. Yeah, that's most of the time when people say that, that means they're fixed to go broke. But in this case, which is when I said that Amazon is more essential to the economy than Apple. And you brought up the point that people are so dependent on their cell phones that... I do believe that.

I mean, I believe... I listed three or four companies that we are basically dependent on. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple. I don't know if I listed anymore. But those were off the top of my head. I don't think I said Facebook, but... I think it's called... I think older people, maybe?

There's an acronym. It's Facebook, Amazon, Fing. Fing, Netflix, Google. Which next. Netflix just took it on the chin. Yeah, Google. I mean, these are all, this is what people invest in. They, they're weighted heavily on the stocks.

I mean, because they're just, I think Apple's actually. But you know, look, three, they just hit a $3 trillion market cap. Three trillion with it. But let me tell you who's a lot of zeros. Let me tell you who's not dependent on any of those companies. Oh, Phil over here. Oh, Phil. Phil.

He said, You are me. He looked over his tone. Are they talking about me? I could, as we were having this discussion, I could Phil, Phil's presence, leave the room. He was like, I don't want a part of this. He faded away like I missed. Well, we were having a discussion because we were saying it's not a bad investment in Amazon because if they go out of business, probably the world has ended at this stage.

And so I would say that. And then I made a case for the phones. I was like, because people cannot function without their phone. You see it on the road. You know what's interesting that I saw maybe five years ago where Bezos had told his top people, he was like, we got about 20 years to make the best of what we're doing right now. And after that, somebody knew is going to come up

and we're going to be, we're out of here. It'll be some new thing like us. Yeah. And I thought when he said it, because they were so big, I thought, man, this guy has a pretty good, which it shows why it's so big. He's got a pretty good idea that the next thing will knock us out. There'll be something new come along. It's hard to imagine that 20 years ago, Amazon, I mean, 1999, I was in college.

Right. And we were talking about Amazon, the next big thing. I'm like, I've bought that. I was talking about $4. Oh, my goodness. But what my point is. I actually predicted that it would. I said that's the dumbest idea.

People are not going to shop online. That's one way. It was one way. to make a lot of money, you earn it. That's true. Or you invest. Look. I'm that old member of that.

Oh, yeah, the old guy. What was that for? That was. Somebody said that I'm getting a bunch of emails, you know, asking about stock advice. Because look, all these people, I say all, most of them talking on TV, don't listen to those people. They're all in cahoots with somebody else. They're wanting you to sell a certain stock so they can buy it.

I mean, that's what they do. Are they, I mean, it's the way the game is. way. But it is, I think it's good to invest because over 150 years, the stock market has gone up over wars, depressions, whatever you want to come up with. It's going back up. They're not going to let it fall. It's a playpen for people with a lot of money. So if you pick great companies right now as an opportunity of at least a decade, because it's the worst month since 2008. So you have an opportunity, pick the best companies, put you a little money in there. money you don't need, forget about it, check back with me in 10 years. Then you can give me some kind of fantasy text, not an actual one, says thank you, Jay. The last time you told me that I bought Amazon, and today I'm down 19% from that day. I should have clarified, when you buy, don't go all in at once. You buy in small quantities.

It's always the little things. Well, that's, I figured you just, a guy of here. When I'm trying to, I'm trying to get you to give a disclaimer on here. I'll do it. When you buy these stocks, do it in small quantities. Therefore, if it goes down, because these stocks are companies that you know our world revolves around. So they're good investments. They're at much cheaper prices right now.

So you buy in small quantities, you say, oh, no, it's going down. Buy some more. Don't spend all your money on day one. You just slowly. I'm going to take your approach, land, real estate, hard assets. That's no problem. I'm just saying people overthank the stock market because of fear, greed, and panic. They overthink it.

It's money that you do not need. If you have some, you can invest when everybody's panicking right now. Because you're like, well, what if it just goes all the way to zero? The world has ended. You don't need it. There's zombies running the streets. They were back to trade. That it was Sir John Gilgood, British actor.

Sir John Gilgood. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was for EF Hutton. He said, they make money the old-fashioned way. They earned it. You don't have that British accent. He had to really stress that they earned. I'm not talking about trading and call options and puts. I'm saying, pick a company that you say,

that's a company. You can look at the fundamentals. I'm not a smart person, but I can look at a balance sheet and say, ooh, not very much debt. Ooh, they're making a lot of money. And it's, their brand is pretty much global. I mean, you mentioned Amazon? Yes. Right now is a good day to buy some Amazon. Just about one chair because it's expensive. So dig a little deeper, Zach. Yeah. Let's take a break. I don't want to lead this topic without saying we talked about answering phone calls. sometimes they're cheats and frauds, but sometimes they're just annoying. There's the Seinfeld,

I don't know if you remember it, Jason Seinfeld bit, Seinfeld gets a call, and it was from one of these deals. Of course, he's still, you know, back in the 90s, he's still got a landline. And he says, oh, well, just give me your number and I'll call you back, you know, because I'm busy right up,

but I'll call you back at home. And then, of course, you're not listed the other person. He says, oh, you don't want to give me your number so I can call you during dinner and interrupt you? And now you know how I feel, and I thought that's it in a nutshell. It's like, you know, you don't want to be bothered all the time by these calls.

So anyway, reference. That is annoying. It is annoying. Yeah, and you don't want to be led around by your phone either. No. Or sitting at a roundabout at a full stop because you can't get out the phone. I see it at least every two days because we have a lot of roundabouts on our new highway. And you just come up there and here's a fellow.

Well, young lady, who have. They've just stopped. It's stopped. Life is stopped. Right here in the middle of the roundabout. People are on the phone. On the phone. They're just on the phone.

It's like, and roundabouts are not for stopping. No, no, no. That was a new addition since I moved from here. Did you notice how it's fixed the traffic? Oh my gosh, yeah. I'll say one thing. The Europeans missed it on a lot of stuff.

That's why we came over and started our own country. But they have it down on the roundabout. That's the way to go. They fixed Arkansas Road. There's no more waiting unless you get a person stuck on their side. I like it because you're like the red lights, I feel like I'm being controlled and the roundabouts, you still have your own autonomy in the whole process.

I think you're having some surrender issues. I don't like the red lights, but I'm not feeling like being controlled by the man. I get it. I get it. We're just trying to. One thing I'll have a few surrender issues. One thing I'll say, we were in, remember when we were in Paris and that big one that's right there around the, Chondalay or whatever they call it, Chondelet.

So there's no lanes in theirs. That's crazy. I mean, they're 20 deep with no lanes. That's every man. That's every man for himself. That is coming to a redneck community near you, and I like it. I look, they weren't wrecking. I mean, they were staying on.

They made it work, didn't it? They made it work. Because you know who was in control, the people. That's right. Let's get in there. Life, liberty and fraternity, as they would say. Life liberty in the pursuit of roundabouts. I like the idea that I can get someone,

loose and go around them and it's all legal. That's right. It was pretty, well, we had a whole, just remember, you never stop at a roundabout. Don't stop. You got to keep it going.

We, we filmed a scene right there in that place. You remember that, Phil? We filmed a scene right there. That was the backdrop. The dams. Yeah, we were talking about the French Revolution and what was the philosopher?

Uh-oh. Jayce, well, who was that place? It was the philosopher. The French. the French German philosopher that's Leblanc. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Oh, yeah. Leblanc.

It's the only French. Yeah, Mott and LeBlanc. No, there's a guy. He's a French guy that lives about a mile from his Leblanc. That's the only French guy I know. Hey, you live in Louisiana. It's like when Phil used to say, let me get back and check the Greek on that. I'll get back to you when somebody had asked him a Bible question.

Yeah. Well, he had a friend that went to our church who was from Greece. And so he meant, I'm going to go ask the woman from Greece. Her name is Kula. Yeah. What this meant in the Greek? I thought that was hilarious. People thought it was.

You tell me, I'm like, I got it. Most everything. Oh, he's like a Greek scholar. According to the Greek, I got it. Yeah. They're like, well, you come in these languages, I'm like, no, I mean the Greek. There is a Greek here. Yeah.

She's from Greek. She has a Greek Bible. She's reading the Greek Bible. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So when you're, I used to be nervous when I was preaching because I was like, I better check with Kula. I'll make sure I'm nailing this down.

I have noticed they do those Greek, when they'll say, you know, there's the definition in Greek and they'll give it to you. But a lot of times, it's like you go read some other Greek dictionary, and it's like a version of that definition. It's like you have options, but they'll just pick one that fits.

And the reason why is because the Greek language the way it works, they'll have a root word, but then there's a bunch of different variations of that word. There's still an interpretation. involved in it, which is always funny. But it's like the Trump card, right? It's like, well, the Greek. And then, okay, well, he knows the Greek.

He said Greek. Yeah. I was just saying that so people listen, don't be scared of that. I mean, I am not a smart person. And I am. Everyone who knows me well, knows that. But guess what? I know Jesus.

God is my father and I have the Holy Spirit. And that makes me one of the smartest people on the planet. Amen. But I, I chose the foolish to shame the wise. I figured out how to go see a Greek Bible and look at the English translation and get the gist. I mean, I could do that. But don't be intimidated by it. But also, to me, it helps you look at the big picture, which has been my point at Corinth.

They had missed the relational aspect that there is a living being who's all knowing and all loving and just. and he's supplying the power. I mean, they have missed it. And so when it comes down later when we read that, when knowledge puffs up, but love builds up, because it is relational. You know, he just didn't give us a course like we do in our college education system and say, oh, you pass.

You're now an architect. You're now, no, it's not something to study. It's you study to lead to a person that you know and walk with. and experience and that's who you're with. I think there's a place for a study like that, though, because I think that a lot of these scholars have preserved, you know, the scriptures and kind of the integrity of it. So I think it's a place for it.

But most people, I mean, I've taken Hebrew, and it was very difficult to. Oh, I struggled. No, I said Greek you can do. Hebrew, I struggled. They have no vowels. Yeah. And everything's right to left instead of.

Just think. And there's different sounds that we don't have in the English language. But just think about, I thought about that. What's the show, you know, Van der White? Will of Fortune. Yeah, well, look, do you realize there? I like to buy a vow. We don't do that.

Yeah. You lost your turn. We don't have them. It's hard for me to understand. What if that show is done in Hebrew, you'd never get to buy a vow. You never get to. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, that's why it didn't Will of Fortune.

Although I have to say, most of the time will watch Will of Fortune, the buying of the vows is kind of wasted money, in my opinion. That is true. Once you get one in, like, we don't have to buy all five. And they know it. I mean, you know what it is. My overall point was it's hard to have a word without a vowel. Well, and there's only 8,000 words in the Hebrew language, at least the biblical Hebrew.

And, you know, you think about how limiting that is to the English language as we're trying to translate. I mean, we have, I don't know how many words we get, a lot more than 8,000, though. By the way, so when I was in D.C., we did a tour, but this time a guided tour of the Museum of the Bible. Yeah. Which, by the way, I highly recommend anybody of our listeners, if you go to D.C., go to the Bible Museum. And our friend, the Greens, from Hobby Lobby are the ones that basically made it possible for that to be there. Yeah. But what was interesting was this guy who was one of the curators of the museum, he really, he did a great job because there's so much stuff there.

It's easy to get lost into it. But he took us down to basically the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Aramaic, how all three of those biblical languages became the English language by what we get now. And they've got actual artifacts from that. But it's very, it was very encouraging to me. Because a lot of people said, well, how do we know the Bible is real? Go through the Bible Museum. Exactly.

That's where I was going with this, because it's like you saw these problems in the Corinth. They were following whoever. And they were spiritual men. but Peter, I think, gave a great clarification in 2 Peter 116. Because a lot of people say that they're like, how do we know this is God's word? How do we know? But these are people asking these questions that I'm like,

but you haven't experienced a relationship with the author. That's how you know. That's right. Because it's just like me. When I surrendered to the Lord, I was skeptical about, I had those same questions. I remember asking myself, I'm, well, how do we know?

You're writing a bunch of letters over a thousand years. Somebody slapped them together and said, yeah, this is it. But once I started reading, I quickly realized, oh, wait a minute, this is pointing to a being that it's hard for me to dismiss. With the weight of all the prophecy and how everything's fitting together, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I went the other way. I was like, this is real. But it was something I had to experience from a surrendered spirit and having God's spirit, which is where I was going with this. When Peter said that, 2nd Peter 116 said, we did not follow cleverly and bended stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus. We were our witnesses.

He received honor, glory from God, the father, when he heard the voice. Remember when he was on the moment. mountain where he said this is my son whom I love with with him I am well pleased or maybe that was at his baptism you know that he said that twice baptism and the transfiguration I think of the transfiguration he added listen to him which was an important point that goes with what I'm saying hang on jazz and so then he goes on to say we heard this voice that came from heaven yeah when we were with him on the sacred mountain and he added that listen to him so My point is, why do you listen to this?

Well, I think the next two verses explains that. It says, we have the word of the prophets made more certain. You'll do well to pay attention to it like a light shining in a dark place, which is really what happens in all of our lives when we come to a knowledge and relationship with God. Until the day dawns and rises in our hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the Prophet's own interpretation. for prophecy never had its origin in the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, which is how we got the Bible.

But my point is, it's not too different from how we operate now. I'm not a smart person. I don't understand everything in here, and I'm sure I get a lot of things wrong. But when I'm having a conversation with someone, I have the Holy Spirit of God, And I know I'm trying to lead this person to their creator. And I have all this firepower supplied by God that points people to a relationship with Jesus as their Lord, a return to God as their father, and a power source that gives them wisdom and fruit that makes the world a better place and gives their life perfect. Well, we know you don't have to have, you know, superintelligence or superhuman wisdom to understand this.

we studied that one at the first part of First Corinthians, right? And someone has said, dad that told us, that the Bible was written at about a fifth to sixth grade level in terms of understanding the basics. A lot of people don't believe that. But it's true. I mean, they say it, but they're like, no. But that's just because people have made it more complicated.

When you think about it, anything, but that's about the age when you kind of come to a realization of faith. You may not understand everything, but I'm saying you've got the basic tenets. Well, you're saying people don't believe that. There's a lot of people. Their floors are dirt, dirt floors. They're in the middle of places in South America. That's right.

Missionaries go through there. Africa. And they sit there and they listen to a story. And the story is about Jesus. And it's enough for them to say, Amen. I'm in. They have no education.

That's right. Like school, none, zero. Right. But they can get it. It's written on the fifth, sixth grade levels. You know, not many of you were a noble. birth he started out with that to the Corinthians right not many of you were wise by human standards that's what he meant i've listened to preachers dad that in person in african other places guys that are not

educated except for in the word of god powerful yeah i mean they're presenting the truth at a powerful level that impacts me you know sitting there it doesn't matter i mean that that makes them wise you know i mean people say when they're first converted they're like oh i would share my faith with others but i just don't know the verses yeah and i'm like well just introduce Jesus to them. Yeah, tell them what happened with you. I mean, I love what you said, though, about the how do we know it's true? Because I'm also, I came up very skeptical about, because, you know, particularly when I was working for this company out of San Francisco that was one of the biggest biotech companies in the world. San Francisco. San Francisco. Just asking you.

I didn't live there, but I did go out there quite a bit. And, you know, you're around these guys that are, you know, a PhD and different types of applied sciences and biology and all this different stuff, and they're creating incredible stuff. But a lot of atheists, a lot of, like, you get into that world, and you start thinking, man, am I the idiot? Because I believe this. And so I was very skeptical. And when I was about 27, I had a crisis of faith.

It was at White's Ferry, Riders, living here. I was kind of up-and-coming leader. You guys were let me teach Bible class. I mean, I was married to, you just got married to Jill. I had two kids and a decent job. I woke up in the middle of the night one time about 27, 26 years old, and I mean, I was like in despair. That's why, while you're there, I've looked at the ages when they're highly intelligent

usually make their turn. It's from 27 to about 32, over and over. It's a good point. The only thing I can figure is, after 25 or 30 years, you can. get in there. You look at your life and you say, well, I'm not going in a clear direction right now. That's for sure. Well, I was 14, so I was either really dumb or really smart. Well, I was a, believer. You're a lot smart and you look. He makes a point. I was 28. Well, but I would say this, I was a believer in 27, but I was a believer, there's a guy named Blaze Pascal that said,

he was a mathematician slash scholar and slash philosopher. And he said if it's even possible that God exists and you do not put your faith hitting, you're idiot because there's eternal reward and punishment to gain. Like poker like pot odds. He was a statistician. So he's like, you've got to play the pot odds here. If it's possible that he exists, then you have to go all in. And that was kind of how I lived my faith in Christ.

I was like, eh, you know, but at the back of my mind, I'm thinking, man, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know this is true. Let's see. The relationship would say, but what if he's got it? You're looking at this old boy. Do what? Then the statistics doesn't matter.

Like when you gave a poker reference and I'm like, sometimes the odds are telling you something. And if you just went by the stats, you would just say, well, I have to. But then you look at this guy and you're like, he. Yeah, but. I've seen him, Zach, that they come long distances, all parts of the United States. And when I look at him, I'm thinking to myself, yep, I judge him to be about 30 right around it.

I said, he's ready to turn. He's ready to turn because I said, how old are you? And they'll say, how old am? I said, how old are you? He's 29. I said, 29. I said, most people turn when they're about 26, 27, about 32, right along in there. I said, and the reason why is, what is your story?

What's your story? You ask them for their story. There's nothing good about it. What they say is drugs, alcohol, sex, yeah, yeah. I said, so that's where you are. I said, well, here's my story. Listen to this. I gave her my story.

Then I asked them. I said, well, we heard your story, and we heard what highlights it. I said, well, you just heard the biblical story. Which one, who has the best story? And they all say, to the person, you got the best story. Life and immortality was riding on your story. And their story is I'm not getting drunk chasing horse. It's, well, at 27 for a man, that's when his testosterone peaks.

So maybe it's... There you go. You kind of get... I don't get into the testosterone. I don't know about the numbers. I think he's right in the sense... Let's take a book. I think he's right in the sense that a lot of them, you mentioned, I would add one more caveat

that most of those were raised in some sort of church environment. So you're talking about somewhere around... You got lost along the way. So it's around 10 years of doing it my way. That's right. For most people. And you get to the end of it and you're like, there's nothing here. They're doing this.

They're doing this right here. That's the point I love what Jase was saying. Not getting anywhere. Not getting anywhere. Sanatra. I did it know. And how'd that work out for you? But for me, like I tried to dive into how do you know this is true through

apologetics, which I think is helpful. And I would look at the evidence as the extra biblical evidence. is that would, because I didn't want to, what I didn't want to do is, is to say, how do you know the Bible's true? And then so on and so well, because the Bible says, all scripture is God breathed. Well, you know, how do you know that that's true? Well, because you're reasoning reasoning in a circle. I believe in the Bible. I do this because the Bible says so, why do you believe the Bible? Because all scripture is, how do you know God breathe? Because it in the scripture. And you're reasoning in a circle, and I was like, man, that this seemed like

insanity to me. And so I searched for extra biblical things that, like, to fulfill prophecies, all the stuff about the 25,000 manuscripts that were copied. And there is a lot of evidence that supports the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean, it's just like you start looking into it. It's like it is incredible, the preservation of this document. But I will tell you where I landed after. And I dove deep, deep, deep into apologetics. In that side of it is called evidential apologetics, where you're looking at evidences,

where we can defend this with evidence. evidence based on science and based on history and based on all these things. But, ma'am, it's crazy that my view of this morphed over the years, primarily when I started reading a guy named Francis Schaefer, and I kind of ended up where you were at. So how do you know this is true? And I really, the truth is because I've tasted the goodness of the Lord as presented in this scripture. That's right.

I mean, me and you, we think a lot of light, and we've talked about that before, and we got there from two totally different places, you know. I mean, I mainly just read the Bible. I mean, but you've read everything there is to read about the Bible. And I just don't do that. But I would illustrate that, Zach, with the same way you have a relationship with the father and the son and the spirit. It's like you and I are business partners.

So you'll call and say, all right, I've got this thing. I'm thinking about it. You're bouncing off of me. And some of it, I'm like, okay, I begin to look like dad when we're talking about a stock market. Then I'm like, he said, what do you think? I said, well, do you like it? He said, I think it's a good deal. Then let's do it.

But do you understand the deal? No, but I know you. Yeah. And I know you understand the deal. And so it's relationship oriented. Yeah, that was my point. Like when you had the poker analogy. Right.

It's like you can, because a lot of people that I play with, they just try to have a formula based on all math and stats. Yeah. Look, I know all the math. I know all the stats. I know all the odds. But every once in a while, I look over and I'm like, this guy ain't bluffing? He ain't bluffed in his life.

Old. Forget the odds. It's just because there's a faith. I mean, I was getting to Hebrews 11. One faith is being sure what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And I'm like, everything in the world is saying, call. And I'm looking and saying, I am certain. I do not see.

Old. Well, there was an article that came out a few weeks ago about Tim Keller, who is one of the greatest, you know, preachers in America. I think he's got pancreatic cancer and he's knocking on death store. And this article was written in the Atlantic and it was about, you know, his facing his own mortality. It's really, really provocative and good. And, like, I mean, it's like, it was kind of a very raw read. And in it, he says this because, I mean, Tim Keller's not. a lightweight intellectually.

I mean, he is a... I've read a ton of his books. I mean, he's a stud. Well, I've never heard of him, so tell me about it. So, it's about him. He mentions Thomas Aquinas, who I mentioned in the last episode, who wrote, arguably one of the most intellectual Christian works ever, and Summa Theologia, and he wrote in there that when he was writing this,

incredible work, he stopped writing it, and his friend, Jerome, this is in, like, the 1600s, he was like, why did you quit? write in this like great piece of of Christian literature that's going to change the world. This is your manifesto. I mean, this is the thing you've been, your whole career. Everything has been, you know, leading up to this point, why did you quit writing it? And Aquinas said, I love this. I mean, this like sums up what we're trying to say here.

He said, I had a beautific experience with God that makes all of my writings seem like straw. And I think that that's where I'm. And when I, I mean, when you're dealing with people and, like, Phil, you're, you know this. All these guys have come in there. People are hurting. They're broken. There's no meaning. That book you get right there.

You know, about bringing meaning and context. They don't have any of that. But if they can have an encounter with the living God and to see how beautiful he is, I don't need to. I mean, that's, that is it. That's how we know. That's why it's a disturbing thing when people say, well, why you keep sharing the same message And, you know, when Paul said, I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why would you make a statement like that?

I mean, why not bring all these deep things, you know? They'll come to you and say, but why do you keep telling the same story? Yeah. We know that. I said, but the people seated next to you, they don't. They just got here. They want to know. Yeah, I'd probably say, but do you know him?

One thing to know the story is another thing to know. the person the story is about. There's a difference. And, and, and, and he's, he's, he's infinitely glorious and good. So I'm never going to fully exhaust knowing the infinitely glorious God. And so that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, what was that quote again, he said, he said, he said, had a beautiful. He said, had a beautiful. He said, I had a beautific experience with God. I thought you mispronounced a word. That's actually a word.

In 1600, it was. Is that a version of beauty? He's saying I saw. You would say it beautiful. He's just saying I saw the beauty of God. I had a vision of the word beautific. I had never heard up until this moment in my life. By the 52 years, I just figured I'd run across it.

And his writings were what? Straw. He said his writings were the greatest, arguably the greatest Christian work in history. I mean, it's up there with like August. city of God. I mean, it's, I mean, whether you agree with the quinidson, I mean, this guy was a heavyweight. And he's like, I did all that. And not to take away from it, but

he's saying, when I, when I encountered the beauty of God, it was like rubbish. It's like straw. I thought about that, Zach. Let's take a break. First Grand The is 312, which we've already looked at. If any man builds on the foundation of Christ, using

gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw. So I thought, about when you said that quote from him. His work will be shown for what it is because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. He corners, his buddy, the intellectual buddy, he read that. That's why he said it.

That's why he said it. I love that, though, the idea that if it's strong. He had built up this thing, you know, if we got to thinking probably, boy, our guy, I'm, I mean, look, the first good fire I face is going to burn it up. I went through about five years of my life where, you know, I'm not throwing any groups under the bus, you know, because there's a lot of people that love the Lord, various groups across the globe.

But the people that would knock on my door back when I used to answer it, and they would like want to have a Bible study with me. And I was like, great, come on in. And so I would, no matter what they said, I would just ask them what they thought of the cross, of the Lord Jesus and the resurrection. No matter what. Every time there was a pause, I'd say,

what about the cross of Jesus and the resurrection that he showed to mankind? And they would go off on another talk. And then I would say, and I think the record, maybe it was two hours. I never left it. And finally, I thought

I could be the first person that actually made this group of people leave. They said, we got to go. We got to get out. He's not. And look, they weren't saying I was wrong. They weren't saying that at all. But I think my point was,

and I wasn't being trying to be a butt about it. I was just thinking, if there's something more than what this does in my life, I'll hear it. And whatever else was said, I thought, nope, that adds nothing. Yeah. So this is what I believe. And I just did it over and over and over and over.

And so, and a couple of them came back and brought somebody else a lot smarter. And you said, what was your philosophy? The exact same. Well, it's the simplicity of it. I do think that's what Paul's point is. If you go back to, I wasn't hearing you guys talked about this, but at the beginning when he says, you mentioned earlier, I didn't come to you with eloquence or superior wisdom.

I proclaimed to you the testimony I resolved of God, have resolved to know nothing when I was with you. And he just goes on and on about this. Like he's like, it sounds like he's diminishing wisdom. He's not diminishing wisdom. He's diminishing human wisdom and replacing it with godly wisdom. But if you move down here to, I think he's saying the same thing Aquinas said in verse 6. He says,

we do however speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but it's just not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are nothing to come, verse 7, 1st Corinthians 1. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. However, it is written, no eye has seen and no evil. ear has heard, no mind has conceived, listen to this, what God has prepared for those who love him,

but God has revealed it. What is it? It is what he just said. What no ear has, I see no ear has heard. What God is prepared for those who love him. He's revealed it to us by his spirit. And so I think what Paul is getting at at the very beginning as he's setting up this Corinthian argument, is chastising a church that's just, I mean, wrecked with the

What he's basically saying is, like, you're missing out. God has prepared something so amazing for you that not only is it so amazing, it's so amazing that no eye has ever seen it and no ear has ever heard it. And not only that, no mind has ever even conceived it. I think I've preached this before and I tell this story of when Phil, me and Phil went to, I'll never forget this, Phil, you may not remember this, but we were in South Carolina at a political event. And I said, Phil, I said, you want to, he'd never seen the ocean.

I said, you want to see the ocean? He's like, no. So I was like, we're here in South Carolina on the beach. You got to see the ocean. And he's like, nah, I have no desire. And I said, well, do you want to get something to eat? He said, now that's a good idea. And I knew there was a restaurant on top of the sand dune.

So I said, he's going to see the ocean. And I remember as we're walking and we hit that thing. And as soon as we hit that peak and you see the ocean for the first time, and we feel like you stopped in your tracks. And I just looked at, I looked up, Phil just stopped, and he's looking at the sea for the first time. And the wind's coming off. And he's like, and this is what you said, you went, whoa.

And I think it's like, it's like we don't have a framework for something that God's prepared for us because it's so much bigger than we can comprehend until we see it. And that's the beautific experience, the Aquinas experience. He saw God and saw, man, this is good. And if we're going to beat sin in our life, if we're going to beat sexual morality, you tell some dude that's been hung up in it for 20 years

to quit doing it, good luck with that. He's got to find something better to fixate his desire on. And I think that's what God offers. And that's what I think Paul is saying here is there is more. And you're settling, as CS Lewis said, for mud pies in the slum

because you can't fathom a holiday by the sea. You can't comprehend it because you never seen it. Once you see it, and then you see it. Which is really interesting. You know, I love the ocean, too, but I had not seen it either until I was a teenager because we never went anywhere. And I remember the first time I saw it, I had a similar experience.

And not long after that, we started vacation down there. And I remember being there when I was in preaching school, and I had to write a paper on the 23rd Psalm. You know, that's probably the most, you know, everybody knows the 23rd Psalm, right? So what are you going to do unique? But I was just sitting outside of this condo that we were. We were in that John and Chris owned, and I was looking at the ocean. And so I totally saw it through that prism. And I wrote my whole paper on the depth of God and the inlessness of God and the power of God

because I was watching those waves come in. So, you know, I told the 23rd Psalm through the narrative of being at the edge of the ocean. And it was really interesting because it was a great metaphor for who God is because you see so many of those qualities, which, by the way, I mean, the earth is three quarters water. Yeah. You know, and we're land, you know, driven. So it shows you there's so much more than we can possibly know or even discover, you know, from what's underneath. It's endless depth. I was going to say, speaking of this secret wisdom, you know, he said in 1st Corinthians 4 when he said,

men ought to regard us as servants of Christ, which is back to my point about their servants, but their servants of Christ. and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. And a lot of times Paul referred to things as a mystery. Remember in Colossians when he said, the mystery of godliness is that Christ is in you? Right. I mean, what a statement.

You remember when he said in 1st, Corinthians 15, which we'll get to, he said, I declare it to you, listen, I tell you a mystery. This is 1551. will not all sleep or die, but we will all be changed in a flash and the twinkling of the last trumpet will sound and then this transformation will happen, perishable to imperishable. Death will be swallowed up in victory. You know, and he gets to the end to thank you to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And my point is, I think we're trying a lot of times in all our study and trying to figure out all the minor details of the Bible. And Paul is saying, I'm telling you the mystery. I'm solving the mystery. And it's the Lord Jesus Christ coming back. It's that the Lord is living in you. It's all these simple things that he's calling a mystery

because people can't wrap their head around. They're like, well, wait a minute now. You know, how do I know all this Bible's true? And how do I know all this? And my point is a better conversation is when someone's asking you all these complex issues, do you know that the Lord Jesus can live inside of you? I mean, now that's a thought-provoking question.

Do you know that your body, though dead, can be raised, imperishable? You actually get a transformed, imperishable body. I just think that... Or the book of Ephesians, when he said the mystery is that Jew and Gentile. would come together. So a question to say, do you realize that all races of people, all colors can be truly unified completely?

It's a mystery. It's a mystery. And a great point. And according to Paul, according to Apostle Paul here, this is a, that the problem is is that these things can only be understood by the spirit.

Exactly. And that's, I'll say this, I know we got to run out of time here, but we were at church, after church on Sunday, one of my friends had a white hair growing out of his fore.

head. I mean, just one, this one white hair. No, you didn't. I didn't pluck it. Oh, no. But we were all like, like, somebody pointed it out. And he's like, yeah, I always had this because it drives my wife nuts. I won't let her pluck it. And I was like, then, I've known you for three years now.

I've never noticed it. I said, but what's funny is now it's all I can notice. It's like, I can't unsee this. I can't have a. conversation with you as long as that hair. I have a feeling that somebody who's got a punch. I think that's what it's like when you see God. It's not obviously that's a crude example,

but I mean, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah. Well, that's what I was saying by these mysteries and all these people trying to find the secret to understand the Bible,

the secret to their life. And it's actually when you reveals the mysteries. I taught a lesson one time called, you know, that memory had that show Unsolved Mysteries. And I did a lesson, solved mysteries. Pretty good. And I had these verses.

And it's like all of life's mysteries were solved in a pretty simple form. But everybody's looking for something deeper than that. So you're illustrating why we need overtime, which we're about to go to, Unashamed Overtime. We've been mentioning this on the podcast. You can go to blazedtv.com slash unashamed. Use the code by February 7th, more unashamed. And you're going to get $15 off of a one-year subscription. So we're about to shift into overtime mode.

We'd love if you guys came along. Those of you that are already subscribed, maybe Jason remember that lesson. We'll kick it off of that. So we'll see. We'll see you in overtime. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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