Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 624 | Phil Defends His Sister at a Bar & Jase Once Upset an Entire Bible Class

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Phil’s sister Jan brought a preacher to a bar to try to save him before he was ready to listen – and it didn’t go well! Jase once made an ill-conceived illustration while teaching that left everyone in the room reeling! The guys delve deep into the word of God and posit that we must all be broken, like Phil was, before we can be remade as God sees us. Guest Larry Bowles ventures a guess as to why the Israelites were made to wander the desert for 40 years when the journey could actually have been much shorter. In this episode: In this episode: 1 Peter 1, verse 22 - 1 Peter 2, verse 3 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, so we're back. We've got Larry Bowles still with us in the house. It's always good to have you with us, Larry. Great to be here, guys. So we're just continuing our last discussion. We did a little bit more in overtime as well. And Larry, we had already done the podcast 3 through 12 because your sermon text was 13, which we talked about some of the last podcast. But I want to get your take on starting in verse 10, this idea about that it's, the salvation has been talked about, this has been looked at throughout all time.

That kind of hits your wheelhouse. Oh, my goodness, yes. I love the first three words concerning the salvation. Yeah, verse 10. Oh, my goodness. And this is what Peter's focus is. And we talked about how he's moved from a purely, or really, the Lord has moved him from a purely Jewish audience now into a jam.

centile thing. And so he is out of his comfort zone, out of his wheelhouse a little bit, but he understands that it is the exact same gospel. It's the exact same salvation. And he begins in much of the same way that he approaches a Jewish audience, and that is with prophecy. And as we deal with Muslims that are coming out of the Middle East, East, Northern Africa, most all of them accept as truth, the Old Testament, because they love the Psalms and they love, you know, the prophets and all of that. And so messianic prophecy is the thing, because my one thing is the deity of Christ. When they move from the idea that Jesus is a prophet, which they do hold these, a prophet, but it can't be God. When they get their mind around

the fact that this is God in the flesh, the Creator stepped into his own creation, that this is God, not God doing miracles through a man, but this is God in the flesh doing miracles. That's who this is. And going back now into all of the, you know, I love it on the road to Amas where Jesus says, beginning with Moses and all the prophets and, you know, everything, all the Psalms, he goes through every verse pertaining to him and all of this stuff is by him and for him and he just flips open the Bible and he's like all of this is about me what I love about this who spoke of the grace that was to come to you this was Jesus coming to earth was never God's fallback plan it was always and he makes that point at the end of that section of 13 through 21 that that that

this was always going to happen, that Christ is being revealed in that. And it is those that were bringing this message, these voices of these prophets, searched intently with the greatest care trying to find out what time, what circumstances were. Because God is speaking through them in this voice of prophecy, and they're not even hardly connecting the dots. Okay. But here's Jesus talking about, you know, Moses or whatever. And he said he was, he was, you know, he received it with joy, even though he didn't understand everything about it in his day.

He was chosen before the creation of the world. The foundations of the earth, you bet. Just think about that. You'd be like, man, what an idea. And so who is speaking in these prophets? Who is it? The Spirit of Christ. of Christ.

And what is he speaking about? Himself. The person of Christ. This is the pre-incarnate Christ speaking about the post-incarnate Christ. And all of these so-that moments. And so here's God himself will give you a sign so that, you know, this virgin is going to give birth to a son, so that all will believe and understand that is God doing this. He sees the end before the end. before the beginning.

And that's what messianic prophecy does. That's right. Down to 30 pieces of silver, down to the kiss on a cheek, down to a donkey that's never been written, you know, and this is Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53. It's just the level of detail is just insane. And so I just love that, that this is where Peter is going with that. He's doing the exact same thing that I do with the people that I'm. encountering in exactly the same region and just saying, look at that, look at these prophecies.

And we spent half a podcast, Larry, talking about that last little statement. We said, even angels long to look into these things because there they are in the other realm. Yeah. Not sure exactly what's happening, but watching all this unfold as well. And that Greek word, there is someone peering over the edge. Right. Like, they're looking at this humanity like, what is this? I've always loved that. I mean too. We have the ability to give God something that even the angels cannot, and that is faith and trust.

Because they can't use faith, they're trust, they're looking at him. They're seeing him. They're in his presence. And that's what they are, they don't even understand the capacity it takes for a human being to move from faith to trust in that, and this is what they're peering into, this idea that I would give up everything, this pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, this idea that, you know, I always use the analogy that in America, it costs me nothing to come to Christ, but these people coming out of Afghanistan and Iran that cost them absolutely everything.

Yeah. Every relationship, and it's just Matthew 10. Because they're kicked out of their family setting forever. They've got their own family trying to kill them and to restore on. in that family. Right. That's the culture that they live in. Well, I was going to say what made me think of the work you do with people in Iran and

Afghanistan in that same vein. You know, when Peter, when he got down to verse 22, when he said, now that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply. And it made me just think of how his attitude had changed towards people. and so I went over and you remember what happened in Acts 10 when Cornelius, you can read the whole thing in your own time, but, you know, had a vision and he's like, you need to talk to Peter. And so when Peter finally had this conversation with Cornelius in verse 26 of chapter 10, Peter made him get up because Cornelius fell at his feet in reverence. He said, stand up.

I'm only a man myself. and talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them, you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visiting. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. And so then he goes on to say in verse 34, Peter began to speak, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him. and do what is right.

But you got to remember this is the same, Peter, there was a big argument in Galatians. Where's that Al? Galatians 2, I think. Galatians 2, because they were wrestling with this. And what I was going to say is, really what the world is trying to do and bringing people together in various ways

from riots or, you know, just from movies and commercials. And, you know, if we all be on the same plane, really only happens in the new birth in Jesus. I mean, you find this sincere love for people just because they're people. And it made me think even before this, you remember in Acts 9 when the Lord told Anonis to go to Paul. And it's so, it's almost comical because Anonis is like arguing with the Lord. So in...

Are you sure, Lord? Oh, in Acts 9. I know this guy. Do you know how about this guy? Yeah, in 10, he says, the Lord called to him in a vision, Anonis. Yes, Lord, he said, the Lord said, go to the straight street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision, he has seen a man named Anonis, come and place his hands on him, restore his sight. And that's what I'm going to say that it's not about us to go back to your point on the last podcast.

You know, it's about what the Lord is doing in us. Anonai said, Lord, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. He's literally saying, Lord, you don't know what you're doing here. Right. This is not the guy. Yeah. We're trying to control the up. It's a bad umbra.

Yeah. And he's come here with authority from the chief priest to arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said, go. this is my chosen instrument. Now, to Anonis' credit, when he did go, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming, has sent me. So he did surrender.

But I just, I thought that was a necessary vein to talk about in that you see the transformation that happened in Peter's life. We all have, you know, favoritism, tendencies in life, and our culture only accelerates that. Right. And Jesus, you know, through this death on the cross, tore down those walls. But you actually just see how God works, that he, every single person is valuable. When you said that, he's always looking for the one.

Yeah. And it doesn't mean what country they're from. Right. It's the one. It's the one. Paul says something very similar. He says, I now no longer know anybody by the flesh, but only by the spirit. I just don't see people that way anymore.

And that's the point that Peter makes in 1, Peter, verse 17, he says, since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, he's not a respecter of persons. He doesn't see the way we see. And that's what I was saying, the idea that when he becomes our life, our eyes become his eyes. We see things the way he sees them. Yeah, we talk about everybody's always trying to get, you know, what they need to be delivered from and that sort of thing. And you try to stop it in your own strength and in your own power, whether it's addictions to this or that or whatever. And, you know, you resist it, whatever I do in the flesh, only strengthens the flesh. When I say, I'm not going to, I'm not going to.

When I fail, I don't go back doing that at the same degree. Man, I fall off the wagon and you don't see me for three months, you know. And so it's to the same level I try in my own strength, the same degree that I fall. What I need is, you know, for me to be delivered from something, it's not limiting my access to it. It's got to be to the point true deliverance happens when I don't want it anymore. When the desire of my heart is changed and my desire is now not consumed. And this is his whole point here in chapter one. this is what you inherited.

That was the desire of your heart. It's that last thing right here in chapter one. You've been transformed, and now the things that you used to want anymore don't, that's true deliverance. Yeah. I'm only truly delivered. I mean, I know it's wrong, and I know I'm not supposed to want it, but I'm only truly delivered when that's not my desire anymore. I just don't want that.

Yeah. And you even see that outside of Christianity and being a believer just in people as they naturally mature, right? I mean, you're younger and the things you think are so important. Two years later, don't matter at all. Right. What they once did. Why? Because you've changed. Because things changed. That's why I brought up these two examples. I mean, you never think a murder of followers of Jesus would ever be the speaker. of how to bring people to Jesus. Right. You would never think there was a racist on who was alienating groups of people from Father Jesus.

Now being the theologian on being a holy nation, you know, unity together, value, and having sincere love. I mean, he didn't just say have love, you're sincere. Sincere love. It's a special kind of love. The Lord's talking to Ananias, like you're talking about, to go through. see Saul. Yeah. And he's like, you go tell him that how much he's going to suffer for my name.

Because I'm about to become his life. Yeah. He is, he's going to die. Yeah. I'm going to take him through my death and he's going to become my instrument. Man, I was thinking about this the other day as I was studying this. I think I had this thought. You talk about Abraham.

You talk about Moses. You talk about David. You talk about Paul. you talk about Peter. Every one of these guys, Jesus had to wreck their life and break them into like a million little smithering pieces where there was absolutely no way they could ever fix themselves so that he could put them back together. It was he put them in an impossible situation. I'm telling you, David was the worst, man. But then he just told Paul going in, this is how it's going to be.

Which is really amazing. Let's take her first. Which is really amazing because we try to think we need to make Jesus and the gospel so attractive. Here's what you get. Almost like you're on a shopping club. We get all these benefits of what his message was, oh, you're going to suffer. You're going to suffer. This whole letter was about suffering.

No servants above his master. Here's my point. I don't even know how the prosperity gospel exists. in the light of all of these red letters. And here's what we do. We get Jesus, you know, through the gospel, we get him on the cross, we get him off the cross, we get him out of the grave, and he's ascended, and then we just blow right into, you know, Acts and Romans and 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and we build our theologies all in that

and never come back and balance any of that stuff against these red letters. Oh, I agree. That's it. Okay, and so we read Acts and it's like, wire now. Oh my goodness. So that's why I'm always preaching this whole red letter thing, and that's how I ended that, is like, these are red letters, folks. Which is why on our podcast, we tell this to our audience all the time, because we're like right now, we're studying First Peter, but we just studied Mark. We never go more than two or three books out before we go back.

So we never lose our synergy for where it starts. The red letters is the head of the church. You have all these letters to the church, but if you just only stayed there, you're dealing with the arms and the legs. Well, the head is the key part of the body for obvious reasons. We lose the head. We lose the total idea of losing our life. We're over here in the rest of the New Testament trying to save our life. What we're doing is we are constructing a new religion out of these texts. And if you look at all the Pauline writers, He spends the first half, I mean, every one of them, he spends the first half of the book telling you who you are now in Christ because you died. You've been crucified with Christ. You no longer live anymore. You forget. You're dead. You're doing CPR on a corpse when you're trying to fix yourself. Stop it. This is who you are in Christ. And then he tells you what to do. And the purpose of him telling you what to do is not to transform you into something. It is to reveal. the transformation that has already taken place in you.

The greatest secret in living the Christian life is simply accepting what you've always had in Christ from the very beginning. Well, Peter did the same thing. Look, the first 12 verses, there was no admonition for you to do anything. No. He was like, praise be to God. Yeah. He did what?

In his great mercy. He's giving us new birth. Yeah. You're like, well, wait a minute, I thought I did the new birth. No, he gave that to you too. Yeah. And he refines your faith. It's all these, the inheritance is.

kept in heaven for you. Right. He's keeping it. You didn't earn it. You didn't start up there. And guess what? It's not here yet. It's being kept in heaven for you and you're going to receive it when Christ is revealed. Yeah. That's his whole point in the first chapter of first Peter and the first chapter of second. Yeah. So when he gets to therefore. Yeah. You need to stop and see what is there for. Yeah. Exactly. So you mentioned a minute ago about Moses and you also mentioned that in your sermon, you preach, the I am. idea about Moses before that bush. And I thought that was so powerful because I've taught that so many times because Moses's

life is in those three sort of 40 year quadrants. And that first 40, as you mentioned, he's raised in Pharaoh's house where you are a god. Right. And he has all this military training. He knows the best of everything. So he steps into his moment. And of course, it's not there for him. Right.

So then he goes through 40 years of raising sheep. figuring out he's and I'm not. Nothing. Right. And then everything he tells God he's not. Right. God says, I am.

I am. Which is powerful. So then even that last 40 years is really amazing because I call him the glowing years because in those years, he spent enough time with the Almighty. He literally came out glowing. That's it. On several occasions. Glory in the veil.

I remember preaching that. He's like, he's keeping people up at night. You know, they've got to put a veil over his face. It's like people are terrified. Exactly. But it so much makes the point. And I wanted you to touch on this because you made it, you hit a thought I had never thought of before about the concept of the manna in relationship to Jesus, which I thought was really powerful about that daily manas. Talk a little bit about that because I thought that was a really powerful illustration.

I mean, and when Jesus says that he is, he said, I am the true manna that comes down from heaven. And anyone who eats this bread will live forever. and this bread is my flesh that is given for the life of the world. And so I made the point that I also did it in John 15 when he doesn't compare himself to a vine. He says, I'm not like a vine. I'm the vine. Anything that he says that he is, I am, he is the absolute fulfillment of everything that thing was ever supposed to preach or teach.

And so the idea that when he says, I am the true man. Now, what purpose did manna serve? So there's 40 years in the desert. I am the Lord God who brought you out of Israel. This is how he begins all of his commands. Even as we're talking about this, Levitical law, he's taking them back through all of that.

And he's saying, I'm the one who brought you out of 400 years of bondage. You can walk from Cairo to Canaan in 11 days if you never stopped and rest. You can make it in about six weeks taking your time and camping out. God led the way, and it took them 40 years. And we think that manna was given to teach or just to sustain people for 40 years while they're lost. They're never lost. They've got the presence of God in a pillar, in fire, and cloud, and he's with them. And there's this tent of meeting, and he's always with them.

He's tabernacle himself. in that moment, and he is causing manna to come in the morning. Quail comes in the evening. He's doing miraculous things like their clothes don't wear out. Why did it take him 40 years to get him through there for one purpose? And he's weeding out a generation of people who already know everything. They can't be taught. They're stiff-necked, and they'll never repent.

That's one purpose. The second purpose is to teach one principle. and that is that they have to go out every morning and gather that manna and eat it. Okay? What happened if they tried to save it? It became infested with worms and maggots, except on the Sabbath, and then he did something supernatural. So if I took my Tupperware out there and tried to gather enough because I wanted to sleep in the next morning, I opened it up, and guess what?

It's worms and maggots. everything that was ever meant to preach or teach, Jesus says, I am the fulfillment of. For 40 years, God made them go out, pick it up, bend over, gather it, put it in their mouth, chew it up, ingest it, and make it a part of themselves in order to teach one thing is utter dependence upon him. Well, if Jesus is the fulfillment of all of that teaching, I am the true manna, then the Jesus I had yesterday is worms and maggots today. And I've got to gather him again because relationships are moment by moment.

Abiding in Christ is moment by moment. I keep that door open to abiding. You know, Jesus uses this language, abide in that vine. I have an option of abiding in that vine or not abiding in that vine. And when I'm not abiding in that vine, I'm not going to be fruitful. I'm good for nothing. In Revelation 320, he says, I stand at the door and knock whoever would open that door. He's not opening the door.

He's knocking on the door. He's knocking on everybody's door. Will we get up and open the door? Whoever will open it, I'm coming in, and I'm going to abide with them and them with me. And this idea that I cannot, I want you to think about how we dis-abide in Christ. I've got to, if Jesus is, I open the door and I'm looking at Jesus. We're looking face to face and I'm going to go do my sin. What do I have to do with that door?

Close it. I got to slam that baby shut. You know, say, pardon me. I'm going to go do this. I cannot sin. I am holy because he's holy when I am looking at him face to face. When I take control of that doorknob and close it and then, you know, I'm going to go study my Bible. I'm going to go do this.

I'm going to live on the Jesus. had yesterday, it's worms and maggots. And I'm fooling myself and I'm killing myself. I thought that was a great illustration. And so true. Let's take another break. Because it really shows that, you know, we study Hebrews, that shadow. I never thought about man as being the shadow of the brand of life.

Jesus, but that was another really good show. All those I am statements. Go back and look. You're talking about the greatest nickname ever. Yeah. I am. Yeah. And that was the point that it was.

was making of Moses. Moses begins to make excuses. I'm not smart. Well, I am your wisdom. I'm not strong. You know, I'm your strength. And he's like, well, I'm not very good with words. And he's like, dude, I am the word. Yeah. You know, you tell him I am sent you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I made that point last podcast where when I see word, I think Jesus first because of the logos, you know, from John 1. Well, when he gets to First Peter, then I looked it up just to make sure. But when he says 23, for you have been born again, not a perishable sea, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word, logos of God.

Okay. And then we go back up to verse 10. And it's who's speaking through these prophets. Well, it's him. He is the word. Exactly. So, I mean, I think that'll keep us from becoming, as the religious word. is legalistic in this thinking by having to possess all, you know, scripture clearly and, you know,

and viewing all commands is something I have to do and I have to fulfill. It's, you're just setting yourself up for failure. Or as you, my point is, worms and maggots. Yeah, following Christ is not an analytical endeavor. No. It's a pursuit of a life and death relationship with Jesus. Yeah. And I made the You know, is that if I were to ask everybody, you know, what's the most important thing in life to you? You know, if I ask that audience, I'd get a bunch of different answers because we as humans tend to think a lot of things are really important when they're not that important. And I made the point that we shouldn't be afraid of failure. What we should really be afraid of is succeeding at things in life that don't really matter at all. Yeah. And if we were to ask Jesus, what's the most important thing to him? He would probably say the loss of your life and your pride and your righteousness and your little kingdom and your holiness and all that stuff you hold important so that you can gain my life and my righteousness.

One of the worst illustrations I ever did. I don't know what I was thinking. But I asked, I was teaching a class and it was packed. And I said, how many rules are we? under in the Christian faith. Yeah. Chaos ensued. There was every number from millions to 660 to 14 to 10 to 2 to 75. I thought. I did not realize we are this disjointed as a group of people on, of course, I was making the point that.

You slapped a horn at the house. Christ nailed that to the cross, you know. But, I mean, I'd give you two, just partial credit. You know, love the Lord of God and love your neighbors yourself. Sums up on the front. But all I did was make everybody mad because no one, you know, it's like I thought, man, we've gotten off here a little bit in our theology. This is more of a rule keeping system. You ought to say something like, you know, the Jesus you had yesterday is worms and maggis today.

You want to make people mad. I'm sure we'll get all kinds of letters. It really affected me, though, that we were this far apart. part in our gathering. I thought, hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so be careful what question you asked before a Bible class because I'm not sure

anyone ever recovered and got the meaning. Yeah. So let me read the rest of this, Chase, because you brought this up and I want to read down to two, three, because we hadn't read a lot with this text. I want to do that with Larry on the podcast. For you have been born again, not a perishable city, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring logos, word of God. And we know that's Jesus.

Then he says in verse 24, for all men are like grass. And this was a quote from Isaiah 40. All men are like grass. And all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. And Larry, you were pointing that out in this idea about the life has to come from what's inside, right? Right. But the word of the Lord stands forever.

And that's not logos, right? As you looked it up, that's. Well, it's a different word because it was them speaking the same word, but it was them speaking it to them. Right, right. The word now speaks this word. Yeah, it's now like, that's what we told you. Right.

So it's a different, the words we use about the word. And it came from the word because it was the spirit of Christ. But I think it's interesting because if you were writing this to a group of people who are fixed to suffer, this would be very encouraging. You've been born of imperishable. There's something imperishable inside. You're going to suffer. You're perhaps you're going to die.

And you're going to have some moments where you look like a flower, but it's going to, it's going to wither and it's going to fall. I mean, he was prepared them for what was fixed to happen. If I was sitting in an audience, I would think, well, the last thing I need to do is chunk Jesus because there's going to be suffering as a result of me falling. Right. I think was his goal here. Right.

And I mean, when you pick verse 23 apart, you have been born again, not of imperishable, and we've run right past this word seed. Not a perishable. Okay? And this word seed, if you go, if you take all of this back to Matthew, five, six, and seven, this is my point. All of that is on the hard drive. Yep.

And this is where Peter's drawing this from is that unless a seed dies and fall to the ground, it stays to itself. But if it dies and falls to the ground, man, it raises up and there's that Luke 8, 30, 60, even 100 times what was sewn. Because you have something that's life. Right, exactly. I mean, I made the point if you bury, it had buried a piece of gold or a piece of glass, these are all dead things.

You cover it, you, you dig it back up with nothing happened. Right. Except it deteriorated a little bit because I'm a treasure hunter. Right. I'm not deep, like if I dug something up that was alive, well, that would be a different kind of treasure I'm now, which is my point that when you're born again and this is something that produced life. Right. And this is Phil's entire message. There is one imperishable life, and that is the life of Christ in us. This is the core of the gospel. Yes. And then he makes this analogy about, you know, grass and the flowers in the field,

and you take that back to Matthew 5, 6, or 7, do not worry about what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear. Lean not to your own understanding, trust in me. Even Solomon, and all of his splendor was not arrayed like one of these. And it's the idea of moving from my understanding to trust, all of these things. And it is the word. All of this is based, when I'm talking about moving from faith to trust, it is the character, it is the person of Jesus Christ, it is the word that became flesh that endures forever. That's what's imperishable. And so he begins this idea with saying where all these

prophecies came from, we think that Jesus is quoting Isaiah, what Jesus is doing is quoting himself, quoting Isaiah, quoting himself. Do you understand what I'm saying? And then he's coming up at the end and the word of the Lord endures forever. And then this is what Peter says. saying, I'm a one-string banjo. He said, this is the word that I preach to you. I'm not preaching anything. And I said, all of this is on the hard drive, because if I'm using my own words, it'll never ring true to anybody. If I'm speaking these red letters into people's hearts, it's going to hit the hard drive. It's going to hits a good soil. I'm looking for the one. I'm looking for those that are looking for Jesus. And they're going to bear fruit, because Christ is going

to become it. Which is why he says we preach Jesus not with words of human wisdom or intellect. Where is that at? I think it's first Christian. That's Paul. Yeah. I proclaimed to know nothing when I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified lest I empty the cross of its power. Yeah. There's the power. Yeah. Let's take a break. No, I was saying when you said that about seed too, because Paul takes that whole concept, same concept. But then he frames it with Abraham. and faith. Right.

The seed of Abraham. Seed of Abraham. You know, you'd see it in what Romans 4. You see it in Galatians 3. And he goes back to that idea that his seed was as good as dead. He had no air. And yet by God's divine hand, that there would be a promise that would come if you believed in me.

Right. And so, and he opened that door up is that's the kind of seed that we're talking about with Christ. Right. And then it comes by faith. And so I love it. it's the same idea, but it's just told them a different way. But it's all over the Old Testament that it's there. And here's Abraham trying to fix it in the power of his flesh and his own seed.

And he's like, no, no, no, this is going to be an imperishable seed. That's right. And then he even said, okay, no, so you got the one seed, you know, the sun that I promise you, you know what I'm, so, so I want you to go kill it. But then you get into this. Yeah. I talk about faith to trust, right? When you get into royalty and a king and the seed that's passed down and the sun that would come up and how many thousands of movies all there about that, you know, preserving the seed line and, you know, royalty. And then you had under the Jewish system the priests and the regulations on who could be the priest. And you say, well, that just all seems complex when it talks about king and priest. But then you read, when you read Hebrews 7, 16, where it says that one has a who has become a priest,

not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry, but on the basis of the power. of an indestructible life. That's it. That's an enduring word, enduring seed. Now, that's Jesus. You say, well, why is he king and why is he pre? Why should I do it? He's indestructible.

Yeah. Do I have your attention now? The one we're following and putting our faith in and singing to and singing about and sharing with every person, he's indestructible. When that really gets a hold of you and you look around at, you know, your pitiful self, no matter how much you work out or whatever, you're like, You're like, well, wait a minute here. There's an indestructible being out there that's historically accurate.

We have a book you can read through history. You can go through his seed line. You can read other books. And his life is going to become my life. I mean, all of a sudden this. I no longer live than he lives in me. You're like, oh, that's what you're in on. Yeah, that's what we're in on.

Yeah. He's indestructible. Yeah. I get that because we make thousands. of movies about indestructible people who are not. They're not. But we love the idea of someone being indestructible. We want to fly through the planets.

We want to get run over and then up he's back again. Can't kill that guy. You better shoot him again. And here's Peter knowing, I mean, it's been revealed to him that he's going to die. And this is what he wants to, you know, I'm going to be killed. And I know how and when. And I'm in Rome right now. And this is where it's going down.

And he's, this is the. the message that he is leaving, it's the same idea that Paul says, you know, to live as Christ, to die as gain. You can't kill a Christian, you can only change their address. You know what I mean? Because it's, I'm not worried about how things turn out in this temporary world. And that's what Peter says here in chapter one. He says, as you're living as refugees, as foreigners, as aliens, in this permanent residence, you know. And the idea, man, it makes me realize how long we've been talking about moving from faith to trust, because I think I mentioned this 50 or 100 episodes ago or whatever it is.

But the idea that we don't have anything in our own capacity to do that, and the things that God, the situations God puts us in, and you mentioned Abraham, it's like, okay, so here's this long thing, and now you get Isaac, and you've got him, now go kill him. and I'm not sure what that journey was up to the mountain and the time frame. And I think we're in Hebrews 11. And then I talk about Noah, this thing went on for a hundred years. And everybody's mocking him every day he goes out there and he picks up that broadaxe

and they're just yacking at him, you know, for a hundred years. And you don't know, again, you know, it's like, Lord, I love you, just please don't make me prove it. But over and over in scripture, that's what he's doing. We're looking for evidence all the time of Christ in our life. Guess what he's looking for in us? Evidence. Are you following me? That's right.

Do you truly love me? Is it real? Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? The book of Revelation, man, church at Lay Odyssey. You've just fallen, man. Go back to your first love.

Oh, we're good. We got a lot of money. Yeah, we're wealthy. Oh, no. You're blind and pitiful and poor and wretched and naked. The very thing that Peter argued about, about Jesus dying in 2nd, Peter, chapter 1, I think it right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body because I know that I'll soon put it aside as the Lord Jesus has made clear to me.

They're going to take you down and kill you. I don't know whether the writer of the book had said he was crucified upside down to make it. Well, history. I mean, yeah, early church history says that. But, you know, we think that Peter wrote this in chapter five. It's a fellow by the name of Silas in verse 12. Silvius is actually his name. It's not necessarily Paul's Silas, but is the guy that they believe actually composed this.

Right. And so very much the way the book of Mark is the memoirs of Peter. Right. Yeah. So. Yeah, we talked about that when we studied. Let's take our last break. I want to read this last couple of verses here that lead us up to four, because he has another, Therefore, on this text we've been looking at.

He says, Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. And so it's kind of almost Pauline the way he kind of gives a little bit of a list here. But I'm interested to get your take on it. why he chose these certain things, because he started this by talking about love, you're love for one another. Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. Right.

My take on this is that it goes back to verse 14 where it says you had these evil desires that you have when you lived in ignorance. now that you've lost your life, now that you're new in Christ, you are like a newborn babe. And so this is the old behaviors. It really is kind of a microcosm of everything he's talking about in chapter one. And these are just, you know, it's the hit list. I mean, we could apply every one of those things to ourselves, the malice and deceit and hypocrisy. You know, man, we think murders the worst and all of that sort of thing.

And you talk about, go back to those red letters and you see Jesus, really what bothers him more than anything else is hypocrisy. Go to Matthew 24 and the seven woes. You hypocrites. Yeah. You big pile of snakes. You know, I created the world, and I don't know how you guys are going to escape the coming wrath. I just don't see how you're going to make it. You know, isn't that just amazing to have the creator of all things speaking into that level of hypocrisy?

It is still. It's still one of the most hated things. It is. You look at it in modern politics and what's going on even now with this thing with Biden and Trump and all that. People hate hypocrisy. You know, if you say something, you make a strong stand. And then a month later, you found that you're doing the very thing you said that you

were blaming somebody else to do. People hate that. I mean, like at our core of our being, it goes against it. And that's why, like you said, it's hardware in the DNA. God hates it first. He does. He does. And he chose the despise things of the world, the strong to, you know, shame the weak, the weak to shame the strong.

And, you know, anyway, what I'm saying in this is that the desire, he's making the point that the desire of your heart has changed because that your life has changed. You're no longer living. But Christ is living in you. These things are all inconsistent with the life of Christ. So don't run back to those old idols. Yeah, you're a new baby now. Exactly. And so you're craving pure spiritual milk.

You may not be able to eat meat yet, but guess what? You have received a new life source. And this is the thing that kills me. We talked about deliverance a while ago. I know this to be true in my own life. When the desire of my heart has been changed and transformed, where I have been set free from something I used to be drawn to. when I try to run back to that thing, he will not allow it to meet my need the way it used to meet my need.

He's a jealous God, and he just won't let it work. That's why you see somebody who's always run to drugs or alcohol, they have to go back and use three, four, five times the level. And it still never works for them the way that it did before they came to Christ. And so he will, he's just not going to allow the things that used to meet your need to work for you anymore. He said, I'm going to do this so that the only thing that's going to work for you is me. Right. It probably explains why people, when they return back to an old life, the destruction seems to go pretty quickly, right? It does. And you probably saw that a lot as an EMT. Yeah. I mean, you know, a person who was, you know, shouldn't have been as far advanced as they were.

Right. were just because of lifestyle. Exactly. Right? Because that's what it does. Yeah, you put chemicals like that in your body. It's going to kill you. Right.

You know, meth is horrible. So distr. The CR group, you know, in WFR, man, they see it all the time and they work with that. Right. And Robert and I were talking about that, you know, people that relapse and go back to using what they were and they'd been off it for a while, their body can't handle what they had built up that immunity to and it kills them. Right. And so, yeah. It's, in the same way, sin is toxic to us.

We're allergic to sin. We're not built and designed for sin. So all of these things are, you know, they go against the truth that's written in us. This is truth in life. Do you think it goes back later to the Genesis 1, was it 126? We're made in the image of God. Absolutely. And the idea that three and one that he made us like him so that every person,

that's born, like you, I like the way you say, it's hardwired. Every person has the capacity to connect to the creator because that's how we're made. And then seeing us in the way. But it also, it does that, but it also makes you realize what everyone else is born in the image of God. I mean, if you look at this list in Chapter 2, all those things listed you would only do towards someone else, malice, deceit. hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.

I think that's why he was making that point. It's, this is not about you. You know, once you, you give up, you know, you're crucified. You become a new person. You then become part of, because I think it's the lead end of what he's fixed to say, which is you've been, you're being built into a spiritual house. No matter where you're from, what you did, what you look like. You're all together coming with.

Jesus says, you know, the foundation, but you're offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable. You're a holy priesthood. I mean, then he goes on like in verse 9. You're a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of him. He called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. You were not a people, but now you're the people of God. I mean, I think there's, he recognized even in his own life, there was a time where he would put people into boxes. based on where they were from or what they thought.

He's definitely leading into community, which is where he's headed with the people of God. I just noticed. I mean, there are evil desires, and we're always putting on the new and putting off the old. I mean, that happens when we come to Christ. I think that's what he meant when he said, you purified yourselves.

I mean, Jesus did the purification, but it was, you know, in Jesus, you're now deemed pure because of what he did. Because he's pure. Yeah, yeah. But it's a different kind of motivation. Then you're looking at people and realizing, oh, there's a cure for this. You know, his name is Jesus.

I no longer regard people from a worldly point of view. Exactly. I think he's trying to get them to realize the condition of the people around them, even though they're going to be persecuted and they're going to suffer for declaring Jesus as Lord. We've all sinned and all fallen short of the glory of God. We're all right, unrighteous, but we're all created in his image back to that genesis. This is 126 is the point that Paul's making in Romans chapter one, all people know of God.

That's right. It's kind of like, it's written in them. It's been revealed. It's your point. It's like when Jesus looked at the crowds and they looked like they were sheep without a shepherd. Right. Well, we do the same thing, but we're like, but we know the shepherd. Yeah.

Let me. Yeah. Because you're looking, you're wanting to introduce, you know, the people to the shepherd, which is what we're doing. Yeah. And it's a hard thing to watch to see people. who have no idea the capacity they have for such a better way that they just hadn't found it yet. And it's hard because I was thinking about that.

We were talking about earlier with Anonis and Paul and Anonis' reaction. And I thought about with Dad's story and Bill Smith famously didn't want to go. Like Dad's sisters, you got to come go to this bar with me. And in Bill's defense, I would have reacted the same way. I thought, well, if you got to take me to the bar, It's forced it. I mean, he may not be ready. Like, if he's not, does he want me to come to the bar?

And so, like, he was very reluctant. But because of Jan's persistence, he went. Well, dad wasn't ready. And so he listened, but he didn't hear. And basically he ran him out. But that opened a door for when he was ready to search. And when he was, guess what? This is what I tell people.

You know, in Athens, it's a flow of people, you know, that come through. And you may get one touch. And so you're constantly, you're Luke 8, you're just slinging truth with both hands. But when that seed gets in there, it's a little bit like a framework in a building. You know, if it's made out of metal and water gets in there, it's going to start to corrode. And framework of false religion is like that. When you put truth in there, it'll corrode. It may not come down tomorrow or the next day, but it's eventually coming down.

And that's exactly what Bill did there. And he might have been a little bit like Anonais going, Lord, do you know this guy? You know what? I think he was. He drives to a bar. Who drives to a bar, you know, to share? That's a radical move where you're putting yourself in danger, especially with, I mean, no offense you were a maniac at that time in your life.

So that's what I'm getting at is that when we read the verse as Angels Long to look into these things, well, also on the other side of that, you read Ephesians 6. when you step out or you stand in Jesus' name, there's a group of angels in the dark world who do not like you being bold and courageous. And I really feel like a lot of the persecution that comes is coming from that count because they're looking into these things also. But in the case of that little dynamic duo,

there was a little sister that had a faith and a courage. That said, that led to trust and courage. that said, you know what, if we can get this, my brother, thousands will come to Christ. Some of the guys drinking beer attacked her. Yeah, really. Because she was handing out tracks while they were getting drunk. But you defended her, right?

I defended her. Even as a heather. She's my sister, leave her alone. But it's no different when the first time I shared Jesus with my buddies who were all drinking at the time, it was a hell of persecution. the response, nobody said, oh, I'm in. It was all year, you know, what are you?

But you planted some seeds that started some corrosion. As the years went by, they all started calling, you know, from prison and, you know. All right, we're out of time. Larry, it's always a pleasure having you on Unashamed. We're going to have you over for one more overtime, if you don't mind. Absolutely. We'll wrap this up. If you want to follow us over as we wrap up this discussion from 1 Peter 1 and the first few verses chapter 2, you can follow us over at Blaze TV.

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