Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 563 | Jase Discusses Joe Biden, the Unforgivable Sin & What Is a Deathwork?

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Jase discusses the greatest politician ever and how the religious leaders at the time did their very best to prevent the solutions to their profitable problems. Zach explains why the unforgivable sin is unforgivable and how to completely avoid it! Al talks about the havoc and destruction that Satan invokes and what the purpose of walking in the Holy Spirit really is. And Zach talks about the hidden mystery of Christ, deathworks, and why men should not worship their own bellies. Watch the Unashamed overtime show, only on BlazeTV: https://BlazeTV.com/Unashamed - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we're back on Unashame and Shocker of Shockers. Zach is back with us. Zach's been out for the last four podcasts. I thought we were going to have to send an SOS out. I didn't know exactly what was going on. Zach, welcome back to Unashame.

We've been missing you. Zach, go ahead, Zach. Say hey, because we've been missing you. Yeah, I want to say hello. I was asked not to be on the podcast by our sound engineers. So it was not, it was, I was absent by request because I had microphone issues and I didn't know how to quite fix it. Well, let me just go ahead. We're, we're, I like transparency, but I want to just tell you the conversation because you just mentioned sound engineers.

So I showed up here. Of course, you're in North Carolina. Al's in, where you had, Al? Alabama. Phil and I in Louisiana. And so I came here and I said, well, Zach's going to be here. And one of your sound engineers said 100% he's not going to be here. And I said, well, I am 100% sure from the source, Zach, that he will be here.

And he said, nope. Someone told him 100% that you will not be here. And so then all of a sudden, one minute before we're supposed to start, Zach appears here. And I thought to myself, 100% doesn't mean what it used to mean. And my favor, I turned out to be right. But someone said, he will not be here. And it was all over your mic.

So how much did that mic cost? This is an upgrade right here. This was $124. $124. So you've been delayed for weeks, and y'all have had your production meetings and all that over $124, which I realize is a lot of money. But $124, these boys, I think they're tight. We're running a tight ship, Jay.

I was going to try to make it work, and I just finally gave up. I said, I'm just going to take it, return the mic, return the mic. Same mic. It's not actually an upgrade. I think it's the same mic, but it was $24 more now than it was when I bought it the first time, which was in June. So inflation, boys, it's real. I think y'all need a lesson on giving and value and money. You can't stop the train over $124 is all I'm saying.

Too shay. I'm sitting here at 76, and I'm watching you young books. roll and disappear, reappear, he's not here, yay, he'll come back later. And I'm looking at all that and I said, here I am watching this whole thing. And I looked around one day and I said, when do you retire? You know, when do you study that? You know, you put the wood on the fire and relax. But I looked in the future horizon.

And I said, I don't see any. I don't see any, you know, rest from the labor of your works. No, there's no retiring here. Oh, it's it. We didn't, I didn't slow down. We've speeded it up. Dad, that's what heaven is for. In heaven, you're going to get all the rest you want.

You go a nice, long little anesthesia sleep and you wake up. You're going to be ready to go for eternity. But it sounds like to me, retirement would be a big, boar. If I just said, well, I'm trying to do the work of the Lord here, 76 years old, and at least tell people, look, try Jesus. I know there's a lot going on out there. Won't you try him?

Because I haven't found anything else that seems to be working. Medicinal, you know, concoctions. Doesn't seem to bring them out of it. Yeah. One of the greatest sermons ever preached in the last, in the last 40 years was a, a sermon. It's a famous sermon by John Piper. I think he gave it at a passion conference like 20 years ago. So you got John Piper. I don't know how old he was at the time, but it's, the audience is all like 18 to 22 year olds. And it's all young people. And he gave a sermon that's now known as the

seashell sermon. If you Google it, it is powerful. And it's, it's been credited as spurring on a generation of kingdom workers. And basically, the point of the sermon, was don't go out the final days of your life retired picking up seashells like you go out with you go out doing kingdom work to the day you died that there's there is no retirement it's it's kingdom work to the day you died there's agree with that it matters I agree with you know 100% well and that's the thing dad I mean you you don't you wouldn't I mean if you were retired you your life wouldn't look much different than it is now except for us doing this. I mean, you don't go anywhere anyway. I mean, except on your hunting property. So in a sense,

I told somebody one time about, so what do you do for a living? I said, well, I mean, we do podcasts, we travel, we speak. I was like, I'm either my life is a constant vacation or I work all the time. You pick. You decide what that is. Because I'm gone a lot. But we're all doing kingdom work, which is great. So I want to do a little bit of a recap, Zach, since you were out working on microphone issues with the sound engineers, because we're up to chapter four, but chapter three was really interesting. I wanted to see if you had any takes on it.

We kind of started what I call a new cycle for Jesus. Every one of these chapters, we get into another round where he's going out, and the crowds keep getting bigger as the word is spreading. that if you go to, if you run up on this cat, you can be healed. So they're starting to stream in from everywhere. And then Jesus does something really interesting. We get to 13 of chapter 3. He kind of builds the first group to go out.

Everything to this point has been coming to him. Now he's got his group and he's getting them ready to go out. And we talked a lot about the idea that we've been going out ever since. You know, and of course he does it again post-resurrection with this same group. And then we get to chapter, I mean, verse 20 of chapter three, and it's really interesting because it's almost like it's a couple of different angles of how they couldn't really explain what he was doing. First one was his own family. They couldn't explain it. So they said he was crazy.

He's out of his mind. We don't know who he is anymore. And then the other group was the religious leaders, the teachers of the law. And they said their explanation was, well, he must have a. demon. In other words, the only way he can cast out demons is if he has one. And so in that context, Jesus says, you know, gives them a little how does Satan, you know, cast out himself, you know, how would he work against himself? And he said something really interesting. I want to hear your take on it. Verse 28, he said, I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of man will be forgiven

them. But whoever blasphemies against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of an eternal sin or an unforgivable, some version, say. So he puts that in there in that context, and we kind of expounded on what we thought that meant, because there's been a lot written and talked about that. What's your take on that concept? The first thing I think about is every time I've ever read that verse, particularly as a young Christian, I was like, have I done that? I hope I haven't done that.

Whatever that is, the blasphemy and the Holy Spirit, if it's unforgivable, Oh, I hope that's not me. Kind of the same feeling I get when I read Hebrews chapter six, you know, about it's impossible to be brought back to repentance. And I think these two verses are interlinked. What I would say is, is you think about blasphuing the Spirit. It's probably good to understand what is the role of the Holy Spirit, or at least his primary role. I grew up in, we grew up in church tradition that taught that the Spirit only speaks to the written word, which I don't think is biblical. In fact, when I went to the college that I attended, they were advertising a seminar on the Holy Spirit.

And the sign said, what does it do? You know, how does it work? And every time it referenced the Holy Spirit, it would reference him as an it as if, you know, he wasn't personal. But if you turn to the most exhaustive text in the scripture on the role of the Holy Spirit is when what Jesus said about him, starting in John. John 14 all the way through John 17. And it's pretty clear through that text when Jesus says, I have to go. And trust me, you want me to go because if I don't go, then he's not going to come. The counselor.

The spirit, he calls him the spirit of truth with a capital T. He says, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. And so I think there's this idea of revelation and that we think, okay, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? So the father, he planned the whole thing, the salvation of everything of our souls and all that. The father planned it. The son accomplishes it at the cross. Jesus accomplished our salvation. And then the spirit applies that to us.

The spirit illuminates our heart. The spirit reveals to us the truth about who God is, about reality itself. And I think what's happening here with these Pharisees is that Jesus is doing a work of the Holy Spirit, clearly the Spirit of God is on him and he is performing miracles in the name of God of God, the Father. And when he does that, he's doing it to testify that, hey, I am who I say I am. Like I'm the God man. I'm the son of man. The son of God is particularly in Mark that Jason has been talking about a lot.

He said, I am the son of God. And they're like, okay, prove it. They said, okay. And he starts performing miracles. The miracles, as we said on occasion, are to give confirmation to the claims of Jesus. And so it's what's happening with these Pharisees, it's the ultimate ultimately, I mean, to blasting the Holy Spirit is to reject truth in its purest form. Even in the face of the miracles, they would just stick their fingers in their ear and say, might must have been the devil. And the point

of that is, it doesn't matter what Jesus would say or what Jesus would do. They were, their God was themselves and they were not going to bow down before the living God. They were ultimately rejecting truth and the spirit is the only way that you're going to receive a revelation of truth. So what to blasting the Holy Spirit is, it's to reject the only means by which you would receive the knowledge of how to become righteous with God. That's what it means. That's what's an unforgivable sentence. It's not a one-time event. It's a spirit of a person who would ultimately reject God's revelation for them and say, I don't want that. I'm not going to come up with some reason why. I would give two texts that reaffirmed what you just said.

And John, you mentioned him in 12 through 14 there. He's in 1 John when he wrote it. He said, you have an anointing from the Holy One and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it. And because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? it is the man who denies which and you read the book of mark the question was is he the son of god it is the man the liar is who denies that jesus is the christ and here's what's interesting and he does this twice

such a man is the antichrist he desires he denies the father and he desires and he desires the father the son, no one who denies the son has the father, whoever acknowledges the son, has the father also. They're saying, you're not who you're claiming you are. So he says, see to it that you have heard, what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, if it does not, also will remain in the son and in the father. and this is what he promised us, even eternal life. Take that, and when you get over, and that's in chapter two of 1st John talking about verse 20.

He brings it up again in 1 John chapter 4, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God. That's what all the static was just that right there. test the spirits to see whether they are from God. When God was performing all these miracles and showing them the power of the Holy Spirit, and they were saying, you have a demon, you don't have the Spirit of God in it. Many false prophets have gone out into the world. Jesus was dealing with them in the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God, because they were saying, you're doing what you're doing by the power of the devil, And Jesus said, I tell you what, blasphemy of the Spirit of God, that you are having eternal sin because you don't believe I'm who I say I am. So this is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. That was the problem. They looked at him and they said, is that the one that come out of that little girl down there, you know, her and her man messing around? she was but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God it's an eternal sin

when you reject Jesus when he's doing the work the power of the spirit this is the spirit of the Christ which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world well he was there when Mark was writing down his information, you, dear children, are from God, and look how he ends us up, and you have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who's in the world. They're from the world, and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.

But we're from God, John and all the rest of the apostles, including us, the saints, and whoever knows God, listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. And that was the whole crux of the problem. This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. It's the one, it's Jesus, and you badmouthed him and say, he's not the one, he's not God, he's no way God could be in flesh and all that trouble he was having, it carries on into what John was saying here, and I would offer the point that he's still here. Hang on, let's take a break.

Yeah, absolutely. I would, too. I think that's the thing that we grew up. The Spirit speaks through the written word, and he certainly does speak through the Bible. But the Spirit is also the agent of the Trinity. It's the person of the triune Godhead that convicts my heart in terms of my sin. There's a passage in John. He's the power of the gospel, by the way.

He's the power of the gospel. Yeah, and there's this idea that you mentioned, like, I love that juxtaposition between spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. Yep. Because so many of us, the way we approach our sanctification, which is like we're saved, you know, we were justified before, holy God, I'm not guilty anymore, but I'm still, there's sin still as a power over me, even as a believer. And the way a lot of us Christians have walked and tried to beat sin is we've tried to

tried to will send away, right? And so we get in a position, and lust is a great example because our culture is so sexualized and that's something we probably all can identify with. When you're in a position where you're tempted to lust after someone that's not your spouse, your go-to is that you think the Holy Spirit's telling you, hey, don't do that. It's not really what he's saying to you in that moment. He's not telling you that he's not speaking so much about right and wrong because the way that sounds is, is almost that God's got this list of rules that you're, you got to follow.

And if you follow these rules, then you'll prove your loyalty to me and I'll let you in. That's not what the gospel is. What he's telling you in that moment is not that it's right or wrong. What he's telling you is whether it's true or false. So I love that, that verse you read at the end, the spirit of truth versus the spirit of falsehood. Yep. Because it's not true that that will fulfill you.

And in fact, if you do that, if you eat the apple, that's what he told Adam and Eve. Like, don't eat, you can have any fruit in the entire garden, any tree you can eat it, except for one. Why? Because if you eat that one, you're going to die. It's a mighty, it's a mighty throng of them because he said, and they're the ones who say that Jesus is not who he said he was. That's the spirit of the Antichrist, the Antichrist. Twice he says that. You're anti- Jesus, if you don't believe in the power. of the spirit working through him and in him. You just missed it.

There's a, there's a really good book. I have it on my desk. Shamedless plug. I didn't write it. But if you can see that, it's called the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Truman. And it is one of the best books.

It's a difficult read, but it's one of the best books I've read in, in the last 20 years. I mean, it's in my top five now. And for this cultural moment. And one of the things that he talks about in that book is he says that what you see with the spirit of falsehood, he says you see what he calls an

anti-culture. So you see a destruction of culture, whatever the culture is. And he says they do it by what he calls a death work. So one of the things that you know about the Holy Spirit is that whatever he's leading you into, it's going to be a culture builder. And it's going to be a life work, not a death work. And it's going to lead you into an abundant life. and the opposite of that is true, that to reject the Holy Spirit and to reject his revelation

and the illumination that he brings to us through Jesus, to reject that is ultimately to move into a death work. So you can look at the final product. That's Romans chapter 1, because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. He gave them over to a depraved mind. So culturally speaking, oh, it's a downside. to it beyond

comprehension. I mean, that's what we're watching today in America. Yeah, but you think about the culture here, I think most people think, I mean, look, Jesus was healing all these diseases and they're coming to him by the hundreds. I mean, he can't even, everywhere he goes, the crowd is just pressing around.

It's undeniable. He's casting out demons, even when you see in chapter 5 that we'll get to, he's dealing with, you know, here's a homeless guy who has a demon and and you have that situation. Then he raises a dead girl from the ground.

I mean, this culture at that time, they should be like the, I mean, what kind of awards would you give them? There, nobody has any diseases. He's curing all diseases. He's getting rid of all demons. He's raising dead people. He's addressing the homeless situation. He's ending the hunger situation. He's feeding 5,000 out there.

I mean, so the Galilean world at that time should be the greatest flourishing place. So you would think that would take care of all the problems. Yeah. But it didn't. But it didn't. They're attacking. Their religious leaders are then attacking the vehicle at which Jesus is using to show this power and saying it's, actually demonic and evil.

Yes, it's the ultimate, it's kind of like the ultimate finger in the ear. Like it's a belligerent and willful. I mean, these people are intentionally bent on rejecting any truth because they want to preserve their own power structure. And I think that's what this blasphemy. Look what they've said. Look what they've said, Zach. You have your truth.

I have mine. What's the if? That's their explanation, 2,000 years later. You have your truth. I have my truth. It hasn't changed. That's the thing about it is that the variations and the colorations,

you know, may change of this, but the actual core of humanism. That's right. Dallas Willard said, said, the problem, he said, I've identified the problem. The problem is the worship of self. I mean, that's the crux of renovation of the heart.

The problem is the worship of self, and therefore the solution is, to die to self, Matthew chapter 16. But I think what Jesus is bringing here, though, I love what Jay said, because, man, like, what's he doing? Everywhere he's going is it's overflow, it's abundance, it's life, it's healing. He's not doing anything bad. But they're like, they're looking at what he's doing.

I think about it, he's healing people. And they're like, they're offended by that. They're mad about that. Well, I just thought about, you thought about the last president election. I mean, you know, Biden's case was basically, you know, we're going to, we're going to cure the coronavirus. And that was his platform. Yeah. And, of course, you know, I'm not trying to get in a political situation, but in this, in Jesus' day, you have a political group, the Herodians and a religious group, the Pharisees, they're wanting to kill Jesus.

Well, when you look at the results of what Jesus is doing, he's basically functioning. as the greatest politician ever. He is feeding the hunger. He is healing diseases. He's helping the mentally challenged. Any situation that comes up, he's fixing all the problems of society. And they're not happy. You just have more people coming and all the leaders say, we got to kill him.

And to me, that shows you. Pass forward 2,000 years and some of that, some guy at the gate out there, he's threatened he wants to kill you, Phil. I said, what? I said, he wants to care you. I said, well, we'll try to convert him, but don't let us try to convert him before y'all kill him. We told the law that. The law said, what are we going to do with him? I mean, I said, give us a little time to convert him before you kill him.

And by the way, in that case, he would come down how to kill me. In that case, he obeyed the gospel and went on his way. But so, I don't know. I'm just saying death threats are still alive and well. I know that. I know that. Yeah. Hang on.

Let's take a break on that one. I was thinking about that, Zach, you made that point, which is so strong. And Jesus makes it too, because he's the one that shows that Satan, you can't separate Satan from evil from himself because he came here wide, John 10, to kill, steal, and destroy. That's his purpose. That's what he does. And so that's, and so he can't, he's not going to work against himself. And Jesus is, and I'm not working against the Holy Spirit. So you can't separate them, which is kind of his point.

But you made a great point about how death and destruction, how quickly, you know, it can come to that. I was talking about this recent hurricane. I read somewhere where there were 40 years ago, there were only 600,000 people in this area. And then 40 years later, there's 10 million. And then a storm comes through. And it was a bad one. It's powerful. and just wreaks havoc.

And 40 years of building up and community and these beautiful little places on the waterfront and all this, just were left in piles of ruin. And I thought about that in the sense of that's what Satan does. Like people can build and have something beautiful. And then he can come in and one day can just wreak havoc and destruction, just like that storm did along that coast. And so that's what he does. And that's why Jesus makes the point, when you, when you're saying that I have an evil spirit, and even his family bought in,

Jay's made the point, Zach from C.S. Lewis's quote, that really comes from this chapter because you got Lord, lunatic, or liar. And that was the three choices that you see here.

And the only ones at this moment that says he's the Lord or the 12th. You know, they're willing to follow him and willing to go do. So I just thought it was really interesting that he shows that clear distinction we've been talking about

on this podcast about what Satan's purpose is versus what Jesus is. Well, that's good. Yeah, because in the face of what Jesus was doing, the three options that you have, you would think in that, like in the face of what he's actually doing and the miracles he's performing, that you would say,

I know you're not a liar because I'm seeing you heal people. And you're obviously not a lunatic because I'm watching you heal lunatics. You must be the Lord. But they didn't do that. They just put their fingers in their ears. And they said, it doesn't matter what you do or what you say. There is no level where you're going to convince us. And I think that's the big thing that like what separates, like ultimately what separates the people who walk in the spirit and those who don't is those who walk in the spirit are those who are seeking the truth.

And what the spirit does is the Holy Spirit. This is what he does. I said this in my sermon on Sunday that he makes our current site like our hindsight. hindsight is 20-20. You can look back and think, oh, yeah, I wish I'd had thought about that then, right? It's all makes sense now looking at it from the, you know, looking at it in the past. What the spirit wants to do is he wants to make your current site like that, like your hindsight. He wants you to look.

He's revealing to you the future. He said, this is the future. This is the road to fulfillment. This is the road to the abundant life. This is the, right here in 1st, Corinthians chapter 2, he says, we do speak a wisdom among those who are mature. a wisdom, however, not of this age or the rulers of this age who are passing away. But we speak God's wisdom, a mystery. It's a hidden mystery.

And here's what it is. The things which no eye has seen and no ear has heard and which is not into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. For to us, God revealed them through the spirit. What did he reveal through the spirit? All the things that he prepared for those who love him. So God is revealing to us the road to an abundant life. And if we just pragmatically look at our lives and those listening on the podcast, same thing.

Just look at your life and ask yourself this question. When I have served myself, when I have served my own appetite, when my God has been my belly, and that's the way I've lived my life, I just ask yourself the question. How has that worked out for you? And not a person on the planet can say, man, now that was awesome. But if you ask yourself this question, when you've given yourself to somebody else, when you've poured yourself out, when you've embodied the attitude of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing taking on the nature of a servant, a human, and all that. Like, when you live that life, how's that worked out for you? And that's when you've experienced what Phil calls the rarest of commodities, which is what, peace of mind. That's what the spirit's offering. And the other side of that is death and destruction. And the reason why we go down at the Al's point is because it's easy. I've said this before.

I've watched my 10-year-old son demolish a Lego city that my other son built, and it took him eight hours to build it. I've watched him to demolish it for his own pleasure in about 15 seconds. It's easier to destroy than to build, but to build is way more fulfilling. Yeah. But I think that's why First John says, whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. And for years, I missed that because I thought, well, I can't. walk like Jesus did. I mean, he, he was perfect. I said the same thing. Well, I missed it. And it's, it's the same difference between Jesus's followers and Jesus' opposition. You notice when he called

the apostles in chapter three, which I said, I think this was a pivotal moment for humanity, because it showed you that God, in his wisdom and in his grace, was going to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things to the power of the Holy Spirit. And the prerequisite he put there in verse 14 was that they might be with him. And just to give an illustration of that, it's like, you know, when you think about what causes fights in your marriage, and I'll give you a typical illustration, you know, your wife, she goes out and does what she does during the day,

and then, you know, the husband goes out and does what he does during the day, and then they come back, well, neither one of them walked in their steps. And let's say they're both tired. And so then you have an argument about, because you're, you know, you're tired. You've had a long day. But the other person is not, they're only thinking of themselves in that moment because they know what they did. They know what they experienced. But they didn't walk in your steps.

So you can say, look, today, Amy, it was really, you can try to explain it all you want, but you're never going to convince them, especially in the heat of an argument. And, you know, I'm probably in the last 30 years of marriage. I've had that argument many times. And it's like there's no way to really explain that in that moment because you weren't with them each step of the way. So like if you took, if I took my wife out, you know, getting ready for the duck season and spent all day brushing the blinds and all. Well, when we got back, she would say, okay, I understand now. That was brutal.

That was physically exactly. So my point is, I mean, that's a silly illustration. My point is all these opposition, they were looking at it from a distance. They were just looking at the symptoms of what Jesus was doing. And they were like, nope, nope, nope, nope, because it wasn't in their mind something that they could wrap their head around. They had this idea that Jesus was going to, the Messiah was going to come and send lightning boats against Rome. give them all this great wealth and power. And when he's coming around healing, you know, he's healing diseases.

He's being friends with tax collectors. That didn't fit what they wanted the kingdom of God to be like whatsoever. Even though it was great for the culture and for all human beings, it was awesome. And they just weren't doing it. So there was a process, even with the disciples, that I love this next parable he's going to tell in chapter four. And we're going to get to it. I'd never really noticed it before in the New Testament. But when he says in verse chapter four, just to give you a preview in 26, he said, this is what the kingdom of God is like.

A man scatter seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. all by itself the soil produces grain first the stalk then the head then the full kernel in the head and my point is it's like when you look at the kingdom of god all these little things that were going on here as time goes by this thing develops and it becomes a monstrosity you know the sport the spirit is poured out people are now getting the holy spirit and for the last two thousand years the kingdom of God has operated on the earth in powerful ways. Thousands and thousands of people have come to the Lord.

They're part of this forever family, and it's happened. But it's hard to see it in the moment. The little thing, even like you may do some little act even today. You know, you may give a thousand dollars to some woman in Africa, you know, in the name of Jesus. And you forget all about it, but you look 100 years down the road and that woman who brought, of people to the Lord and the kingdom flourished in a powerful way. And that's why he uses these illustrations, I think, with seeds and planting. And it's not something you can really see, just like even planting a corn in the ground.

Because you're not going to, it grows so slow that you're not going to stand there and watch it grow. So you don't even see it. You just look up one day and it's like, wow, this is amazing. This is awesome. But it all comes back to that surrendering to Jesus, getting the Holy Spirit, and even though everybody's not watching everything you do every day, after a while you look around and there's a lot of people doing that and you're like, this thing is the greatest power on earth. Let's take a break. One thing I've wrestled with some, but I'm beginning after the study of Mark and what Jesus said, that he said this because they said that, you know,

you know, he was speaking with it. He had an evil spirit. In Roman chapter one. Well, I think they were just trying to explain how he was actually doing supernatal. Well, they couldn't deny what they were saying. Yeah, they couldn't deny it. So I've always wrestled a little bit with, after he gives a long list of what happens to individuals when they have a depraved mind, God.

gives them over to do what not to be done. That final phase of that little text in Roman chapter one about verse 32, although they know, now the people Jesus was dealing with, Mark's writing about it, although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things, all this wickedness, it starts out with, whether they're full of murder, envy, strife, malice, deceit, wickedness. depravity, they're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit. Although they know that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but they approve of those

who practice them. So it's like this wall that humanity comes up with, and they say, oh, that guy, and they look at Jesus, who is the epitome of love, and he's healing the sick, and he's, he's the blind sea and he's doing all these things you know and one miracle after the other and they said that guy has an evil spirit well yeah they know that that they know better than that i think you're right i think you're on to something it's because you're looking at it from a distance and you're not trying to walk you know right beside jesus in that in that light which is why he gets to when he gets to chapter four he starts talking about the parable the soar which we've always used that as how people respond to Jesus.

Well, three of them, three of the four, are unfavorable. Even though they hear it. So he gets into this idea of why he speaks in parables and how people hear because it's a problem. I mean, that you would think, oh, well, everyone, once they saw Jesus, and once he's taken care of all these problems in our culture and our society, they're going to line up as far. as you can see.

Then we'll believe in him. And it didn't happen. No. And so you say, well, we got to figure out why. Why didn't more people respond? I mean, look. I think this sets the context days of just what you're talking about. And Mark does a brilliant job of now he's going to show because Jesus has done all these things.

There's been three approaches that we said up to this point. Some have said, I'm all in, not many. Some have said, your Lord. some have said you're crazy, some have said you're a liar, that you know, you're a dean of demon. So now,

now the next phase, all these people are the people themselves, everybody else, because we've got three groups. Now we've got the large mass. And instead of just the healing and all that, he's about to say, okay,

we're fixing to find out who's ready to hear and understand and then do something about it and then become a follower, or a true follower, now we're fixing to decide. And so I think that's why he pivots contextually into chapter four, and he starts teaching. And he does it with parables.

Go ahead. I think that's one thing. I agree 100%. I think also, you remember when he first called them in chapter one, he said, come follow me, and I'll make you fissures of men.

And so now he has chosen them and he's going to send them out. I also think he's, sharing with them that, all right, let's talk about how this is going to go. There's only a few that are actually going to respond to this. Because I would think as a fisher of men, I mean, I thought about just because we were all fishermen. I mean, that's how you made a living. And I understand that. So I thought about our revenue was coming from the fish.

Well, I thought about like if somebody pulled up. on the bank and you said, how many you got? And you said, well, I only got a few. Well, us as fishermen, we would try to process, well, why do you only have a few? Of course, our number one thing would be to say, well, you don't know what you're doing. You know, you should have asked me because I'm just, I'm being transparent. That's usually what we would do. Or we would say, you know, if we, you know, I thought about.

the reasons why you only catch a few. And the overall one is some fish, or I guess all fish, I mean, it's in their nature not to want to get caught by a hook or to be trapped in a net and to be cast out of the water. So there's a, and I think humans by nature, they don't want to surrender to anything. Plus we learned not to be crushed. when the days, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, when the, we, we, we, we just added more nets and more hooks and spent more time at it. You said, well, if fish could talk, Phil, the, I think the, the first thing they'd say is, we don't want to be on a wall or in anyone's belly. That's.

That's, it's. It's a good. Hey, fish could talk. Let's take our last break. Yeah, I was thinking of this, uh, your point earlier, though, Jay. that is such a good point of these people, you know, rejecting this Jesus who's doing incredible things.

And I thought, you know, it's not that just they rejected him. Paul says that in 1st, Corinthians chapter 1, that the Jewish people that demanded sign. They wanted to see signs from God. They wanted to see these signs perform. The Greeks wanted the intellectual argument and the reasoning. And Paul said, look, when I came, I didn't, I didn't bring the signs, and I didn't bring any, any superior, you know, earthly

wisdom. I came and preached Christ and Him crucified, but, I mean, these people were demanding signs, and then when they were provided to them, they, they still rejected it. And which brought me to this idea in Romans chapter one, I think Phil was hitting on, or maybe it's two, actually, the two types of people are this, to those, verse seven in chapter two, to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. That's one side.

One group is those who are dying to self and seeking truth, seeking God. Here's the other side. This is the side you don't want to be on. But to those who are selfishly ambitious, which is inward, a worship of self. and listen to the correlation of the truth. And do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, which by the very definition would be obeying the non-truth, obeying a lie, wrath and indignation.

That's the two types of people. My version says wrath and anger. Rath and anger. Wrath and anger. I don't want to be on that side because one side is saying, if you're seeking immortality and honor and glory, which is not your own glory, but the glory of God, you're seeking to participate in that, then what he's doing is he's inviting you into a participatory relationship where God is, you're getting to bask in the overflow of his love and glory.

The other side of that, when you seek yourself and in your own isolation, you kind of get what you want in the end. That's another thing C.S. Lewis said. He said that there are two types of people. in the world. Those who say to God, thy will be done. Those are truth seekers. And then those to whom God says, thy will be done. Those are those who worship themselves. If you worship yourself and you want a life without God, eventually God is going to give you what you desire. He's going to give you a life all by yourself. Zach, you may, you soft about the will. And that's how Jesus,

remember the last thing he says in chapter three when he's, when he's saying, they said, you know, your family's here. And he said, well, this is my family. Then he says, whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother. So it's exactly the point you were making. What he said was, if you want to do what's right, you'll be concerned about the will of God, not the will of yourself or some group or somebody else, which really then sets up, I think, in chapter four. I want to read this first, the parable of source so we can talk about a little bit in overtime.

in chapter 4 verse 1, Jesus began to teach by the lake. So we started another cycle. He's back out again. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat. Remember Jason? We said before in chapter 3, he said, you better get a boat ready because these crowds are getting so big. He said, and then he set it out on the lake while all the people around the shore at the water's edge. Because now there's so many, they can't even hear him unless he gets out there in the water.

and sound, you know, providing some amplification for him. He taught them many things by parables. We're going to talk quite a bit about that in the next podcast. And in his teaching, he said this, listen, a farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.

Other seeds fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants so that they did not bear grain. Still, other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew, and produced a crop multiplying 30, 60, or even a hundred times. And then here's the key to the parable, really. Then Jesus said, he who has ears let him hear. and he's going to go on to say a little bit more, but that's the far as I want to go for overtime, because they obviously all had ears.

I mean, there probably wouldn't many earless people in the crowd. So physically they had ears, but are they hearing what he said? Or maybe listening. I mean, I think it's really about how you listen and how you hear, because he's going to go on to say, I mean, it's a pretty complex.

complex section in that, because it's just long. He tells this simple story in illustration, because great teachers, they have that ability to make things simple, which is what Jesus did. So he tells this simple story. But you also must have an explanation of it, because if you don't, well, it's just a story that, I mean, he tells the four different hearts,

But then he explains it in the next section, and he makes one statement that I wanted to zero in on, because he told his disciples, he said, the secret of the kingdom in verse 11 of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything is said in parables. And so then he tells what the parable meant. He's like, here's the explanation, which is very exciting for those. who have the heart that God's going to use to produce a crop. And it's a number, it's a multiplication that they can't even conceive as far as a farmer. I mean, it's a hundred, a hundred times what was sung.

So I think it's pretty fascinating. Well, and I think when you talk about the mystery, I mean, you know, Paul particularly uses that language a lot about the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the gospel. I think one of the biggest parts of the mystery is the inclusion of the Gentiles into salvation. And a lot of that's coming to that conclusion in all the Gospels, and particularly in the Book of Romans, too. I mean, the whole Book of Romans has got this big parentheses around it, which is Paul basically, here's the parentheses on the first paragraph and the last paragraph in the book of Romans. Paul says, I came to bring about from the Gentiles to the abuse. of faith, which goes back to this whole thing.

And when you said, you had said something about the kingdom, verse 11, the kingdom of God, those who are outside. The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those on the outside, everything is said. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you were talking about the multiplication of the crop, the scattered seed and all that. How it was like a hundredfold? Like, I think about the promise that God made. Abraham, the promise God made Abraham. Abraham's vision of that was very limited. Although it may have been very large in his mind, he could not comprehend the increase because he was only thinking

about DNA. He had no clue that there be four guys on a podcast in 2022 that were his grandkids, spiritual great. We are, we are airs of Abraham. We are part of the Abrahamic covenant. We are are sitting here. He would have never, never fathomed the level of what God was going to deliver that we're participating in that right now. That's why I brought up that parable of the, you know, the seed that at night you don't see it grow. Because that is the kingdom, you know. All right, we're headed to overtime. Headed at overtime. Good stuff. We'll see you over there. If you want to come follow us, it's blazhtiv.com slash unashamed. Not only do you get our overtime segments, but everything that Blaze has to offer as well. So subscribe.

and follow us over to overtime. 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 BlazeTV at blazedtv.com

slash Unashamed.