Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 648 | Jase Confesses the Hilarious Pranks He & His Buddies Used to Pull & the Danger of Prophecy

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Phil, Jase, and the guys can’t even pronounce the big words Zach is dropping on them! Are these complex concepts missing the point of Jesus? Jase and Zach have a lot of opinions on the matter. The guys explore the concept of prophecy in the church and how quickly it can go wrong. Plus, the sheer existence of the Bible as a book reveals that it’s divinely inspired.  In this episode: 2 Peter 2; 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17; Matthew 11, verse 21; 1 John 3, verse 7; 1 John 4, verses 1-4 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, so welcome back to Unashame. We, in our last overtime, which you know, we say this all the time, just to remind us to our audience, because for you guys, it's a couple of days, but for us, we just did it. So we just finished our last overtime because we record a couple when we record. And we had quite the breakdown in our overtime because Zach dropped one of his. that's a new word he's been practicing it i would say probably three or four months because he kind of owned the pronunciation of it when he did it really quickly it was about a four or five syllable word that's what got me about the fourth one i was like

after the fourth syllable yeah yeah that's what i thought dropped one of his classic big word and so it turned into i think it's actually six syllables oh six it turned into a reenactment of gomer and Goober, I think I was Goober. No, I was Goober, he was Goomer. And he was going, Judy, Judy, Judy, do it again, do it again. So, uh, Z.

Yeah, I was like, but I was, but I was passionately making a point that, I mean, as soon as I said the word and it was just like, I mean, it, it just went off the rails. Well, it did. All three of you guys said. It led to the. What I'm saying is that particular word. is not in the Bible.

No. Do you want to say it again for those who weren't listening? Say it again for our non-overtax. Well, hold on, hold on. Do it again. I feel like, I feel like, it's like, yeah, like, I'm going to say it. And then you guys are going to, again, you're going to, yeah. Wednesday, you brought it up.

You brought it up. You set yourself up. Well, I'm, okay. The word, the word I used was epistemology, which I thought I'd use before, but. No. Epistemology. Which is what? Yeah.

Now, the last time I asked you for a definition, it was a seven-minute meandering of fragments and prepositional phrases that had no meaning. So what is it in a, what is the point of the word in a bumper sticker? I feel like I'm doing a yes or no question. It's, it's how do we know what we know? How do we know what we know? How do we know? There was a guy who was famous for that. I think he was the Secretary of Defense for years.

One Donald Rumsfeld who said, I'm not sure what we know is knowable if we could know. Yeah. Anything. Yeah, that's what I would call. That's called an epistemological crisis that he's in. So he think about our culture. So he actually used it in a sentence.

It's good work, Zach. Now you're teaching us. Now you're teaching us. Yeah, but it's relevant because here's why. Because we live in a culture that says there is no truth. You can't really know anything other than what your own experience is. So, I mean, it is kind of the center of what I think is kind of our cultural moment is this idea of how do we know what truth is? How do we know what we know?

Well, let me ask you this. Because it's revealed. Let me use this as an illustration. So Jesus came upon some, he was preaching in a city in Matthew 11. This is verse like 20. And I realize I'm taking this a little bit out of context, which would be poor hermeneutic, which is how we study the Bible. But just for illustrative purposes, I will do this.

Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent. And so he said, woe to you, Corzun, woe to you, Besseda. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Saddam, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. So I make this statement based on that verse. It seems to imply that Jesus knew what would have happened if something that didn't happen would have happened. Yeah. Do you know what that's called? It's called that there's a level that God knows what's going to happen. He knows what has happened.

And he knows what would happen if something that didn't happen would happen, which is. Yeah, it's God's middle. It's called God's middle knowledge. When you marry ology with ism, you marry those two, and you have the heart of false teaching that false prophets bring forth. marry ology to ism, and that you've got it. Ology toism. That's what he said when he said that. Episcopalymology.

You marry those two together, oligianism, and that's what you get. Okay. Which is nonsense. That's why epistemology, where is it in the Bible? What verse was that? It's in the Romans? No, no. It ain't in the Bible, but I'm just saying that's what it,

I'm like, it's not in the Bible. Well, I don't believe I just refrain from using that. I feel like, but we have words. We have words that we use that aren't in the Bible. Jesus is the word. It's not in the Bible. That's true. Ultimately, ultimately Jesus is the word of God.

He's the communication of God and the word became flesh. But I will remind you as I have many times, my loving cousin. that when Paul said Christ didn't send me to baptize 1st Corinthians 117

he sent me to preach the gospel not with words of human wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power boy that was a drop that was a mic drop

moment that's because I was trying to pull up the script but I wanted to read the rest of it because there is another part of that that he's not negating wisdom right he's negating human

wisdom He says, but we do preach a wisdom. I'm trying to pull it up here. From God. We do preach a wisdom from God. So it's not that we don't preach wisdom or that he didn't preach wisdom. It's just what kind of wisdom? Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. Human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. So I think some of the words that are terms that have been used in certain circles are, it's just a way of condensing a more, a bigger conversation into one word. So it just, I think it's more the reason why these terminology has come up is just for the sake of expediency, like the term theology. I mean, the study of God. I mean, we're obviously not against theology.

We're not against the study of God. Yeah. You know, but you would just condense that into one word and then use it because I think that, I think it's just, it's just a linguistic, a linguistic tool to communicate. communicate, but I do think that our culture does have an issue with how we arrive at knowledge. Because what we've been taught is that the way you can know something to be true is if it benefits you or if it validates your own experience, then it must be true. And that's a horrible, that's a horrible way to address knowledge. That's a horrible part of the term, again, epistemology.

The reason why we know something's true is because God reveals it to us. And so that was the point I think we were talking about in Scripture when we start with that these scriptures the inspired word of God and that it's the ultimate and final authority. What we're essentially establishing there is a framework for how we can arrive at truth. We would back everything up through what the scripture says. And if it if it's not, if we can't get there through the Bible, then we just don't go there. Now there may be differences of opinion on how we get there. And that's kind of where I think we should have some grace and leniency in here. Humility. Yeah, I always lean towards.

Zach, I would say, to turn a phrase, in our current culture, most people would say all prophecy has its origin in the will of man. And you couldn't even say in the will of man. You would say all prophecy has its will in the origin of he, she, they, whatever, because it's all about your experience. And you wouldn't even believe in prophecy. So you'd have to even go back further than that. So in other words, it's always about the experience. It's never about any sort of absolutism. Wouldn't you say that's a fair statement?

I mean, it's never about any kind of absolute truth or anything. Yeah, well, the only thing that's absolute, which is kind of the, that's the interesting about it. Yeah, there is an absolute truth, which is to them, which is that there are no absolutes, you know, which is an absolute, which is, that's the whole thing that you saw off the branch you sit on. But yeah, it's your experience, your lived experience, your perceived experience, your perceived experience.

And in our culture, it's primarily based on what is your status as someone who's disenfranchised or your minority status. So if you have different intersections of disenfranchisement, then you can essentially gain more power in determining what's true or what's not true. And it's just not, you start to look at that and we're scratching our heads and we're wondering, how do we get to a point where we're questioning things that are. obvious realities. Like, we can't even know things anymore, like gender and, you know, all these things that we're like, how do we get there? And the way we got there is we just removed the standard. We said there is no standard other than our own selves and our own perceptions and our

own preferences. So to me, it's a humility, again, of people. You have to fall in your face before the living God and say, you have to say this. I am a creature and I'm not the creator. Like you got to begin there. I mean, if you, I mean, and it's obvious if you really think about it that you're not the creator because you can't determine your own reality. You can't determine your own gender at the end of the day. We can play around like you can, but you really can't.

I mean, your DNA, you can't change these things because you're not creator. And I think that that that hostility that we all kind of feel is this, it's this pulled where, man, I don't like being in the position that I'm in. But I keep thinking about that quote from St. Augustine that said, What did he say? We were made for you and you alone, speaking to God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. And it's not until you rest in your position as a creature that you're ever going to be able to rest. If you're trying to be the creator, then you're basically banging your head up against the wall of your existence, the boundary of your existence. You're not getting out of it.

We are creatures. And if we're creatures, then the way we can know things is when the creator, reveals to us the creature what he wants us to know. And that takes a humility on our part. The harm way of looking at it, which is pretty fascinating. They claim there's been 118 billion people on the earth since it was created since it got here. They had you since the explosion. But for 40 people, right at 40, maybe one or two either way,

The information that they put forth in book form that's now available to anyone on planet Earth, the 7.2 billion, out of the 118 billion, 40 people put in book form the wildest story I've ever read. My question is... That is cohesive, is that actually... I mean, and it follows a pattern. from the time it was made is what this says. God made the cosmos and then God made us. Well, you start looking at that.

You say, how in the world could this kind of information covering all of good, bad, right, wrong, evil, lying, stealing, murder, rape, salvation, I mean, spirits of God, angelic being. 40 people sat down? over this period of time and their error would stop and 400 years would go by and from Malacahad of Matthew and God didn't say a word, but the information, that came out of 40 individuals. It's amazing.

And you know what the rebuttal to that would be, Phil? I don't know. It would be that's impossible. And then our rebuttal would be, we agree. That's why Peter says that no prophecy of scripture. is a matter of one's own interpretation. That is my point. No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will.

He would say, yeah, it's impossible. That did not come from a group of men. That's my point. But I had to have been orchestrated. Yeah, and you start looking at like, and this is another thing, too. We come into discussion as 20, as a, uh, uh, uh, Christians, we don't understand a lot of these prophecies in the Old Testament because we didn't really, we didn't grow up memorizing the Torah.

That's right. if you would have if you were, you would have been Jewish. We didn't memorize the Torah. Hey, a lot of Christians have never even read the Old Testament. But if you start to consider how many Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled in Christ, and you start to calculate the odds against that. I mean, it is a pretty profound apologetic, you know, defense of the scriptures to know that the, the Dead Sea Scrolls and just the 25,000 copies. of the New Testament that have been preserved,

and you start thinking about this book of antiquity that is unparalleled by any other book in terms of its preservation. That is my point. I mean, it really is mind-blowing. It is. What our friends, the Greens are doing at the Bible Museum in D.C. And, I mean, you start, I mean, you guys have been up there. I mean, once you start to kind of scratch the surface of that,

I mean, it's a little bit overwhelming to think, whoa, man, there is power not just in the Word of God, is the inspired scripture. There's power in the history of it and the preservation of it and all that surrounds it. I mean, I think the church needs to elevate the Word of God again. David Platt at Passion this year, Sadie told me that he got up there. And you know what his sermon was? This blows me away.

He read something out of the Old Testament, how they used to worship at the reading of the Word of God. and David Platt, his sermon was he quoted Romans chapter 1 through Romans chapter 8, just quoted the whole thing. He memorized it in front of however many thousand college students, and they just cheered at the reading of the Word of God. They worship at the reading of the Word of God. And one of the things that I see in the Christian church where you see life begin to evaporate out of a church is when you leave your love,

your allegiance to the Word of God, I can promise you, you're going to see the life being sucked out of your church. If you want to see a church that's full of life, I'm telling you, it'll be a church that believes in the scriptures, that worships the God of the scriptures and that holds the scriptures in a very, very, very high, high view. It was obviously Peter's point to, because he laid out without saying specifically, how you view the Lord and how you view God affects how you live. And that's the way he started. I mean, he said your divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

And so then he moves on to say that he had given us these precious promises. And four, well, how do we know about the promises? Well, they were written down. Yep. All these promises from Genesis three on, they were written down. Yep. Listen. We have them.

While you're there. And Jesus did many other things as well. At the end of John, the last thing John says, if every one of them, Zach, were written down, what Jesus did, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the book. that would be written. I mean, what a statement. You said, you just saw a glimpse of it. You should hear the rest of it.

You wouldn't believe how the whole world would say. Which makes you wonder, well, why didn't they write them down? And I would propose that it's because he could have written more. But this was revealed to us so that we would have the image of the invisible God. Jesus. And this is enough. We got what we need to. You got what you need. That's why when we get to chapter two, you know, the number one thing you got to watch out for, or really two things that

we're going to see. Speaking of like, God has given us everything we need for life. When someone is trying to add something more than who Jesus is or what he says, through prophecy or, you know, modern day prophecy, or they're giving. you a prophecy, but meanwhile, their personal life is living in a sinful way contrary to obvious biblical truths. There should be some red flags go up. If you're bringing up something more than Jesus or something that Jesus didn't address, and meanwhile, your life is living in direct contrast to the obvious nature of God, let me just tell you,

I'm not going to listen to anything you're saying. And that's where he's going with it. Oh, somebody, somebody gave me a prophetic word a few weeks ago out of a thing Jill and I spoke at and I debated on whether to share this. I'm going to share it because I think it's important. I was standing in the back of the room, you know, a couple hundred people. And, you know, I mean, it was, so they were like given, I guess, prophecies or whatever. And the guy goes, he gets up there and he says, is there a David here?

I'm thinking, what is what is going on? And there's no David there. So they, and I just met this guy like five minutes earlier. And so I guess this is for Zach and Jill. And he said, there is. Well, you know, they thought about naming you, Dave. I'm like, he said, you have the, you have David's anointing was his prophecy, but I was facing, he said, you're facing a major trial in your marriage. I mean, he's in front of all these people.

And I'm like, whoa, it's kind of tick me off, you know, and I'm like, so he's telling, he's like saying this in front of everybody. And I'm like, and he's like, but you're going to make it through it. And, you know, you're going to come out the other side of this. And I was so mad because I'm like, like, don't speak that over my marriage, you know. But he came up to me afterwards. He said, hey, man, I just want to check in. Well, yeah, how did you receive that, that prophecy? And I was like, oh, yeah, that wasn't from God.

He's like, well, I said, that was not from God. I don't know where that came from. Like, I mean, I said, I mean, I'm going to tell you. Like, like, I don't know what you're talking about. But it was like he just conjured this up. And I think it is an issue in the church that we say we, we say we, get these words from God. And I'm like, man, if I'm going to say I got a word from God, I can tell you one thing.

It's going to be backed up by the scripture. I'm 100 every time. I'm not telling you I got a word from God because I carry no authority outside of what's in this book that I hold right here. You know, that's the authority. Not me. I didn't get it. I didn't receive this, this thing from God to give to you other than what's been revealed in the scriptures here. Now, I do think the Holy Spirit speaks to me personally about my own sin.

You know what I mean? Things I'm dealing with. but he doesn't tell me, hey, I think there's something going on over, you know, like, I don't, I, I, I didn't know where that came from. And it kind of shocked me because I hadn't been in that kind of setting before. And, um, but it just made me think about, like, how often we claim to, to, that we get word from God. Well, people have asked me, people have asked me about it before, Zach. And I always say, look, when you're hearing voices, um, there are multiple options, you know, I mean, like, it could, you know, you know, you have your own voice in your head, you know, you speak, you know, you have your voice like you're thinking and to yourself and yourself answers. You have Satan's voice or evil. That's a voice that sometimes we see speaks in scripture. And we have examples of that. There is the Holy Spirit. It's nudging, as you mentioned,

Zach, that will nudge us in directions. But I tend to agree with you. That tends to be towards our own conscience. And, you know, there are some examples where, you know, God has spoken to people in the Bible directly. But there's a lot of options on voices. So when someone tells me they know this, that, or the other, I said, well, you better weigh those options than make sure because, you know, I want to make sure and know before I'm definitive when I'm given someone. Because you don't want to go in there like a, like I know, yeah. The old, it just felt like the fortune teller thing. You know what I mean?

Like, is there a Bill in the room? Yeah, I got a, I had a third cousin named Bill. Yeah. I'm seeing pizza. We have pizza together. We were kids. And it kind of felt like that kind of deal. And I don't want to say how God works and how God doesn't work.

I mean, I'm not closed off to any of these things. But if you, if you're going to give a prophecy, then I think you should be able to bear the responsibility of the rebuke that could come your way if the prophecy does not happen or if it's not accurate, then we need to say, hey, that was not from God. You know what I mean? We need to have that thing. But in this second Peter passage, I think it's interesting that he establishes the authority of the word of God at the end of chapter one. I mean, he goes in this whole thing about the authority of the word of God. And then he immediately goes to but the word but and then false prophets also arose among the people.

So it's almost like the authority of scripture is here. And then, oh, and in addition, but on the other side, false teachers. So these two things can't go together. False prophets and the authority of scripture can, they don't, they don't work together. Because one holds the, cancels the other. He makes a big point all through there saying, we did not follow cleverly invented stories. We have heard the voice.

We have the word of the prophets. In other words, he made a clear distinction. Peter did that there's a we and there's a them before he ever gets to the false prophets. But he also, you know, I started off saying, you know, he's giving us everything and lead for life and guidance to his power. But they're based on promises. The promises have obviously been written down, which he gets to. But then he gets into your life.

And that verse 8 is a key verse to 2nd Peter because he's trying to. he's trying to get them to be effective and productive for Jesus because we know him. This God of the universe is knowable through Jesus Christ. And so then he validates what he's into, one, by reminding them the brevity of life where all he was at his life's in, but we also have this, you know, our faith and trust and hope in an eternal God. And that's why we made the big deal about the, you know, the thought I had about him, viewing that departure as an exodus, which is a liberation from our bondage to decay,

which the evil one, that voice inside of us, he uses that to control people by their fear of death. And that's just a reality. And so then he validates all that by saying, we didn't just come up with this. I was at the mountain. I saw the son of the living God talking with dead people who had done. been what? Something. They were, they were living again. They had arrived. By the way, Zach, all prophecy, because Elijah was there on the mountain and Moses was there, all law and prophecy had been fulfilled in Christ Jesus. So what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. So, I mean,

there's something to be said about that. That was why he used the Mount of Transfiguration to show that everything was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. There doesn't leave a lot of room for us going forward. Yeah, he's showing the supremacy and the centrality of Jesus, the sovereignty of God. And so then when you move into this verse chapter two, and he talks about the false prophets, he says the, he gives the opposite of that approach. He says, but the false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce, which is always the nature, by the way, of this,

right? It's a secret introduction, destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. So one of the hallmarks of false teachers is, ultimately what it is, it is a denial of the master, of the denial of the lordship of Christ, a denial of his sovereignty. It could be a denial of a bodily resurrection of a second coming, of a virgin birth, or whatever. I mean, there's all kind of ways that you can deny the kingship of Jesus. I heard one scholar said, or one Bible teacher said recently, he said, no, nobody has a problem with Jesus.

Everybody loves Jesus. Everybody loves Jesus until you tell them who he really is. Then that's where the rub comes. You know, when you understand that Jesus is the sovereign king, that he is the Lord of lords and the host of host, the Alpha of Omega, beginning and end, heals all authority that he is, he is the king. Like, that's the dividing thing. Yeah.

So one of my friends recently who's not a believer was like, man, I want to believe. I mean, I want to believe. It's just the whole Jesus thing is the, that's just that part. And you know what I said to her? I said, exactly. You've hit up against the deal. Yeah. Jesus is the dividing line.

The master. So I think when you think about the centrality of Jesus being the fulfillment, all the prophets and all the law on the Mount of Transfiguration, and that being our context here, that he is central. He inspired the scriptures. All the scriptures were inspired through him. That's on God's side of the economy. On man's side, it's a man-centric religion that leads to sensuality and abuse because it's saying, I'm in charge. him. He's not the master. I'm the master. I think that's the hallmark of heresy at the end of the day. That's what's all about, right? Because like we've said before, people embrace the idea of Jesus being a savior. But when he's depicted as Lord, there's where the problem is. Because that means you have to surrender. So that's why he used this phrase, I think, where he said, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord. Who, bought them. Well, that's a lordship thing. If the Lord bought us, that means he owns us. We're

surrendered to him. We're slaves of him. So you brought up the one hallmark about not acknowledging Jesus' Lord, the sovereign Lord, but the other two that he uses are found in verse 10, and I'm skipping all the way down there because he just says it in a nice bumper sticker statement. said this is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature, which is a throwback to chapter one and verse four about the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. In the flesh. Yeah, and the second thing is and despise authority. Yeah.

Tell me what to do. I mean, those are those are the three hallmarks right there. Just think, you deny the sovereign Lord, you are indulgent in the sinful nature, and you despise authority. But they don't just despise authority. They don't despise their own authority. They despise the authority of the one who bought them. I would say of any, of anybody besides themselves is really what's the act of. That's it. It's the centrality of, it's humanism. It really is humanism at the very beginning. That's why he went to such lengths, by the way, in the first part of the book, to describe what the character and qualities look like in a person where Jesus is Lord. He spent a lot of time describing what that look like, because he's fixing to spend a lot of time describing what looks like when you lose control of that, what that looks like.

And trust of me, it's nothing like what we described in the first chapter. I do want to, I do want to, everybody, go ahead, Zep. As I said, everybody wants to get away from boundaries. They want to get away from, from a limit. They want to get away from, you know, any boundary to my existence. I just want, now I want to get rid of anything that would hinder me and contain me. But I was thinking about this the other day when I was in a conversation with Jill about this culture in the world. I was like, man, what if we just did a little thought experiment about authority and about boundaries?

What if just collectively as the world got together, it was maybe started here on the Unashamed podcast, we announced today. in the whole world, everybody in the world followed suit. And we're going to do this for 30 days. And here's the rule. For 30 days, we're going to try this thought experiment about authority. And we're just going to limit it to our sexual expression. Everybody for 30 days, if you have a sexual urge, just go do it. Go fulfill it for 30 days.

What would happen to the world if there were no boundaries whatsoever in 30 days, just on sexuality? Then you could extrapolate that to the, to material. Materialism, whatever. If you want something material, go get it. I mean, there has to be limits around things. I mean, there has to be for things to function and for the world to progress and for there to be any kind of order in the world. And I think that's what is interesting about this is that when you look at a heresy, it typically is to say, let's remove the boundary. Let's remove the authority. and whatever the thing is over me, I want to remove that, and then I'm going to become my own

authority. But when I do that in my own life, it's the old Dr. Phil question. How's it working out for you? It's never worked out for me when I become my own authority. And I think that's the point that this is kind of getting to is he's building this case of it doesn't work very well when we leave the authority of God, the authority of scripture. Well, to your point, and I'll validate your point scripturally, So in 1st, Corinthians 6, when Paul made this argument about flea and sexual immorality in verse 18,

he then in 19 says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? And this is, you know, the context of uniting yourself with a prostitute. Now, he could have said, well, you may get a disease, which is true. Or you're having a breakdown of your family. or, you know, there's a lot of reasons that he could have said, but of all the ones that he wound up going with, he says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have received from God? You are not your own. And he uses the same phrase found in Sega Peter 2. You were bought at a price. Yeah. Therefore, honor God with your body. You're like, why does this keep coming up that we've been bought by the blood of Jesus?

because ultimately it goes back to what he said in 2. Peter, and the way you live your life, temptation's going to happen. Not once a week, not once a month. It's going to happen every day. You're going to have trials every day. Things are not going to go your way, every day. So all these qualities that he said that we need to be growing in are things that we can use as we get through the day to be effective for Jesus.

And people see that in our lives? They're like, oh, wow, there's something different about that. So I got an illustration. But I was just going to finish the thought by saying, but then he said, but when you're not doing that, you have forgotten that you've been cleansed from your sins, which goes back to the being bought. So I got an illustration that makes that point to see more fascinating because it's pre-Christ, and that's Joseph in Genesis 39.

whenever he is taken into captivity, he's in Potipher's house. And Potipher's wife wants to sleep with him. He's a young buck. He's only like 18, 20 years old. So he's her slave. And so she's trying to sleep with him. And he tells her, he says, Potipher, her husband, has put everything in this house under my charge. She's given her a speech.

It made me think about it when you said this. He said, everything here. I'm in control of, except one thing, you, because you're his wife. You'd think the next thing out of his mouth was, and therefore, to not violate what he's because you're his wife. But he didn't say that. He said, how could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? Yeah.

Which is fascinating. That's the difference. That's what people are not, the false prophets are not considering. Exactly. And here was, so here's a guy, teenager who says, I don't want to do such a wicked thing and sin against God. way back in the ancient days. That's faith.

I mean, that's, that's a great point. And I think that's why you see when you, when you separate, when you separate that and you have, and you're going to, we're going to remove the master as,

as the ultimate allegiance, you know, when we remove Jesus as the ultimate allegiance, and you put yourself in the position of the, of your own master, you're your own, the master of your own destiny. It is interesting to me, that verse two, that once you do that,

The two places that you go, listen to this, sensuality and greed. That's where you end up. You end up, like, I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to exploit sensuality and greed. I'm going to become, it's because what happens is you become your own God and you have to consume everything around you to keep that facade up. I mean, but it doesn't work. That's the thing.

It just doesn't work. Nobody on the planet has ever got enough money where they've said, man, now I'm finally got there. This is enough. I'm good. I mean, everybody, it's like there's a movie I watched about the fall. I think it was about the fall of Lehman Brothers. And one of the characters in the movie, they asked him what is, he was like the head of Lehman Brothers and Shia LaBuff's character. I think that's who was in it.

So what's your number? And the guy, I went my number. Yeah, what's your number when you hit this amount of money that you're good? and the guy I looked at even responded more. And I think that's the problem with when you follow the way of sensuality and the way of greed. You never get to the end of it. You just don't.

You never get enough sensuality where you're like, finally I'm fulfilled. By the way. Finally I've got there. By the way, where did, with verse 14, 214, 2.14, 2.14, 2.Peter, they'll be paid back with harm for the harm they've done. Their idea of pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, their blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you, eyes full of adultery.

This is some of the toughest language in the entire Bible. They never stopped sinning. They seduce the unstable. They're experts in greed and are cursed brood. I don't know who this next one's about. Maybe y'all do. They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam, son of Beoror, who loves. the wages of wickedness.

Where's that story? No, that's the one that was rebuked by the donkey. We were talked about that in the overtime. The talking dumping? Yeah, that's the talking. Well, because, and we can, we'll read that story. Yeah, when we get there, but he basically had a choice between money and saying what the king wanted him to say or doing what God wanted him to do.

That was the decision. I mean, it's a long story. and I think we should read it because it's fascinating. It is. And he couldn't get his donkey going because there was an angel in the road with a sword drawn that only the donkey could see. Well, the donkey wouldn't go. And so, well, Bailam kept whipping that donkey saying,

He beat the fire out of the poor donkey. The donkey was saving his lap here. And finally, a donkey turned around and said, hey, I ain't going. You know, I'm paraphrasing. The Spirit of God allowed the donkey to speak and said, hey, you're beating the wrong dude. Oh, and then guess what? See, now we get, I did this on the overtime of the last podcast. We find out the absurdity of the world at which we live in because guess what they're fascinated with in the movie making world?

Talking animals. Talking animals. It drives me crazy. And I know where they got it from. somebody once upon a time when they were just discovered the reels and how to make a movie somebody was reading their bible and said you know what they had a donkey talking it all comes back to this guess what we were here first we were here first and now you got animals talking all the time And then when I bring up Jesus, they're like, oh, well, I can't follow Jesus.

I'm like, why? Because in the Old Testament, you had a donkey talking. That's not possible. Well, it's not. There's a hundred thousand movies that has every cartoon version of an animal saying, beep, beep, watch this. Come here. You know, the Lion King, people are crying.

So, you know, I'm just saying there's a, not to say that they're being false prophets, because you got the scary thing about this is we're talking about these are people claiming to be religious yeah these are people that and look these heresies are destructive he called he didn't just say they're heresies they're destructive heresy they're being their lives are being destroyed and the people who are drawn to this for being a part of this therefore when someone says well how does that fit in, it fits him because it's a look at what we now are looking at. Well, we haven't said this yet, but the worst part about this, we've just been talking about these as people.

These are spiritual leaders. Yeah, they're exploiting people. They're exploiting people. Yeah, they're leaders and they're intentionally exploiting people for money and sensuality. That's exactly right. Does that sound familiar in the church? Oh, my goodness. I think we have to, we have to, I mean, that's, that's why when we, when we ended the last book of, of, of, second Peter in chapter five, when we talked about the importance of having, you know, elder-led churches where there's accountability and there's like, you know, and this whole idea of authority. I mean, like, we're trying to claim this authority as even pastors claim authority that I don't think is theirs. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm an elder at our church, but, I mean, you know, my authority stops at the, it begins and ends at the word of God. I mean,

You know, but you got to be really careful putting yourself under people's authority who are claiming to have authority that they don't actually have. And not allowing yourself to be taken captive by charismatic leaders who maybe have a man, they can, they can pull you and reel you in, you know. But, but man, I think this is a major issue. I think a lot of people that I know, and including myself, have been hurt by the church. You know, I mean, we got our church heard. I mean, you guys know our story. And, you know, I remember when I was in the sixth grade and my dad got fired from the church we were at. And I remember walking in that room.

It was, you know, 1,500 people in the auditorium when they were kind of having the meeting. And I'll never forget that. But, you know, that church was abusive. That whole, the whole thing was abusive. Basically, they publicly fired him in front of the whole group. Yeah, and it was really difficult for us that we went and met. And we actually, I grew up most of my fifth grade onward. We mostly met in house churches because my dad was like so against institutional religion.

Now, we came out of that. And I mean, he's now an elder at our church. And, you know, we've healed a lot. But we had to years to get over some of that church hurt and some of the abuse that we endured. And our story is as minuscule compared to some of the others of people that we met with and dealt with. you know, pastors sexually abusing children, very rampant. I mean, there's just so much of this that goes on. And I think that, like, we're right here in the, like, this part of Second Peter is addressing that very thing right here.

The pastors and leaders in the church, false teachers, intentionally exploiting people. And there is a warning at the end of this that it says their judgment from long ago, is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. I mean, that's some scary stuff there. You know, like dad said, I mean, this is some of the most harsh language in all of the Bible. Man, it is. And especially the New Testament. Peter doesn't pulling punches.

And as Jace mentioned in one of the past podcasts, I mean, this is definitely his sort of end-of-life manifesto. And he's not pulling punches. There's other passages that support this line of thought. You know, I think First John is a. a really good, especially if you're wanting to investigate this further. Because it kind of travels down the same vein as Peter. And just to give you a thumbnail of where it eventually gets to, you know, he says in 1st John 3.7, don't let anyone lead you astray.

And then he goes on to chapter 4, kind of what we were talking about, about testing the spirits. And, you know, when you brought up the point about hearing voices and determining who these voices are. He says, test the spirit. Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world. And look, he wrote this a couple thousand years ago, that there's no doubt, you see the same pattern over and over and over and over. Because you get why. The spiritual forces of evil and the evil one, if they make the church look bad to the world, that's the greatest thing they can do to keep people from coming to Jesus. I mean, and it's not hard to do because you're basically relying on those hallmarked things that we said,

the basic sensual evil human desires and our obsession with not being under any kind of authority. Look, that was the hardest thing I had to overcome about coming to Jesus. I didn't want anybody telling me what to do. There's a basic evil human desires. We want to be our own person and do whatever we want to do, and we think that that's freedom. But we realize what Peter's going to get to, everybody is a slave to whatever's mastered him.

I mean, that's the truth. So John goes on to say, and he says, just like Peter in verse 2 of chapter 4, 1 John, this is how you can recognize the Spirit of God, every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. It's amazing. It always starts there. And that's that heart of Nazism, Jesus.

That's exactly what it's right. It always starts back to who do you think Jesus is. And so look, every time, and y'all probably have figured this out by now, Zach and I both have been involved in many confrontations with potential heritage. along the way because we like to argue, you know. But a lot of times it is sad because we have people even in our own number that get off and are trying to form little coups and their own little groups here and there. But the number one thing that happens right off the bat is the focus is not on Jesus.

Because I always say that when I'm in these kind of these heated discussions with people that have gotten off. I'm like, where's Jesus in all this? And they're like, well, these, these aren't salvation issues. And I'm like, well, why are we talking about them? Why are you leaving? Why are you drawing other people away? I mean, how is this being, how is this going to make Jesus effective and productive in your life?

And it's just a question that they usually not, because they're not thinking about Jesus. They're thinking about their own self and having their feelings hurt or whatever it is, you know. Or, you know, they found some epiphany from God that, that has been hidden for thousands of years and now that's come to them. But it's like, well, so you're saying we need Jesus and whatever this epiphany you've had to be saved. And that's how these things generally go. And so he speaks more about this, but I want to bring up this verse four.

Because you've got to remember, you know, a lot of these people have the gift of gab, you know, from a false prophet, which is what people. Peter was bringing up. You know, they have, they wasn't just invented stories that they're cleverly. They're clever. And they come, they just make them up sometimes.

They're fabricated. But, and we thought, oh, I could see through that. Look, people are gullible. If you don't learn anything about life,

people are gullible. And these churches that are, you know, there's tens of thousands of different groups. And what's amazing to me is there's people in the parking lot at every one of them. I mean, it just shows you how gullible people are. And so he goes on to say in verse four, you dear children are from God and have overcome them.

And this is the bottom line which gives us confidence because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. And I, you know, I think there's some discernment there. That's pretty well the bottom line right there. Well, because I think we get intimidated and people are manipulative. You know, we used to do this for fun. I'll confess my sins before we go to overtime that we had to, a buddy who had the gift of gab and he would call these psychic hotlines and we would all gather up because we thought it was funny because he always because he was a believer he could always turn

it around and put them on the defensive it was hilarious we you know when you get a large group of people trying not to laugh because he would call them up and they would start trying to work him because all they are is hustlers they're really good at figuring out the basic nature of human beings and they give you an impression that they're they're predicting what's going to happen to you based on your personality but he was better he was a better hustler and he had the lord so he would turn it around and they would always hang up on him because he would get into their life he was like well you know my because he would turn his vision which is he was making up into something that would scare them because he would bring up their death I'm trying to conjure up in my mind I'm trying to

I'm not saying who it is because I'm not sure the statute of limitations has run out on that. But it was hilarious. We'll discuss that in between. Let me say this. Before we get it over time, let me say this. I know we're over. But if you want to know a litmus test for what you're sitting under, I think if the messages and the teaching that you're sitting under, if you walk away from it and you think, man, we are right. and that's probably not a good sign.

If you are sitting under a teacher and a preacher and you walk away and you think, man, God is good. God is big. Jesus is amazing. Like when you walk away from that teaching, you are to be thinking about Jesus not being right. You ought to be thinking about who he is. Exactly. And I think that's the hallmark what Jason is talking about. Where is Jesus and all this?

That was a better way to sum up what I was trying to. to describe. That should be the go in every meeting, every argument, every discussion. How great is he? All right. Follow us over in overtime. We'll talk a little bit more about that, and then we'll pick this up in 2 Peter 2 next time. Zach, I'm getting a word in my ear. It says you will be joining us in overtime. So I'm going to speak that word to you. But I hear other voices from our crew, too, so maybe that's what it is. So we'll see in overtime. That's, if you want to follow us over, blazedtv.com. slash unashamed.

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 Blaze TV at blazedtv.com slash unashamed.