Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 649 | Phil Just Realized That Al Looks OLD These Days & the 1-2 Preacher Punch

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Phil wasn’t ready for what he saw when he watched Al preach. Jase takes his show on the road, literally. Phil distills the Bible down to a few verses, which “ordinary and unschooled” Jase loves! The guys examine the way culture has always sought to make gods. Is being tormented by the way our society behaves a good thing? Plus, Zach had some choice words for his daughter’s first boyfriend! In this episode: 2 Peter 2; Acts 4, verse 12; Acts 2, verses 22-24; Acts 2, verses 37-38; 2 Peter 3, verse 9 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, so welcome back to Unashamed. Dan, you and I are just the two of us here in the unashamed layer. Do you feel? Yeah, I wouldn't say jumping up and down, excited. Yesterday. Hey, tired like it is. But yesterday, I warmed up the,

a group that had come from all over these United States. You and I were a one-two punch yesterday at W. I was looking at you up there, and you looked like an older gentleman up there. And I thought, has 40, 50 years come by that quickly? It's happened quickly, Dad. Oh, your whiskers are gray. I mean.

So Dad was the warm-up act. He did his class yesterday at WFR. The Unashamed Bible said, which, by the way, we had a ton of visitors from all across the fruited plain just. I met people from everywhere. I guess you did too. And they come to your class because dad does this Bible study every Sunday. And we invite people to come because he's just meeting people and sharing Jesus.

And then they come over to the main assembly. And then I happened to be up preaching yesterday. And so we kind of had our one-two punch yesterday. And so Jace is on the road. He's not here in his normal. chair. So Jason is very quiet in here on our set. But there, but there you are from an undisclosed location. It looks like you're in the bat cave, some kind of a lodge somewhere. I don't know. I wouldn't even venture a guess as to where you are. Very suspect. It looks very suspect.

It's very sketchy wherever he is. Can you speak, Jay? Can you hear me? We can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay. Well, I am actually in a log cabin. out in the middle of the woods and a weird, just devious act. It's like an Airbnb. It's really nice. But it's right next to- Are you out of the country or in the country? I'm in the United States of America.

But I'm right next to a historical park where this battle went, you know, happened. I don't even think whoever got us here knew that. And I'm like, there's a sign that we passed that said absolutely no metal detecting. And so I'm like, I think that absolutely absolutely is a key word there. So we're just staying here. And we filmed an episode last week. And I can't comment it, you know, because of legalities. But it was fantastic.

It was probably the greatest finds when it comes to treasure hunting that we've ever had. It was fantastic. So we've all been levitating around. So then we had to drive to here, which is near our next location. We're going to do another episode this week. And so the bar is high. So that, yeah, I don't know who picked this place. I love it.

It's literally out in the middle of nowhere. I'm shocked that you can hear me. So it's just to let the audience know anytime you've got this much technology and everything going on, we could very likely will lose Jace at some point. So we'll just hope that he can stay in for us for the whole podcast. So we'll see what happened. And then Zach, of course, we got Zach. And, of course, we know he's like a mist.

He can come and go at any moment. So Zach, we're so glad that the mist now is with us. You're like the fog. You've rolled in for the moments. We're glad to have you. I'm here. I'm fully engaged. Intentional.

I'm ready. I'm ready to get into the words. So at the beginning, Jay, of my sermon yesterday, which is funny because we're doing First and Second Peter at the church. But, you know, because we do way more podcasts than we do sermons, you know, we always lag behind at the church than we do. So I'm, so yesterday I preached on 1 Peter. 315, always be prepared, which was quite a ways back on our podcast series.

But you guys helped me on my preaching because, you know, we discuss a lot of really good stuff on this podcast. So I had some good material for always being prepared. But at the beginning of my sermon, I talked about Jace that we do a Jase's word of the week, which was kind of Alex, my youngest daughter's brainchild for our podcast. because we're trying to add to Jace's vocabulary, because as we know, Zach likes to drop these big five, six,

and seven syllable words on us, which is not too intimidating, you know, for dad and I, but Jace tends to get a little bit intimidated by these big words because, you know, he thinks that everything needs to be dumbed down a little bit.

And so we're trying to expand his vocabulary. And so I dropped a word, Jason, my sermon yesterday. I know you're in the middle of no, so you weren't able to see my sermon. And so I used it in its natural thing, but I thought it was a pretty good word.

So I want to see if you've heard of the word before. And so this is just, I tied this into our Jason's word of the week because since I used it yesterday in my sermon, the word is serendipity. I've heard the word. But let me just say, because you're making a lot of accusations

that I believe are unfounded. I'm not intimidated by, Zach's vocabulary. In fact, I think I'd be a rather doubt. No. And I want to reiterate for all the people

who follow Jesus who listen to this, which I'm pretty sure it's a lot of people, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel not with words of human wisdom. Now, I don't know what words of

human wisdom. I don't know exactly that group of words. and phraseology he was referring to. But I know this. When you do that, you empty the cross of Christ of its power. So therefore, when I single out these words, I'm actually given a form of chastisement, not to make this more difficult to understand than it should be.

Having said that, now you can explain to me the, meaning of the word serendipity because my, I think there was a movie about that. Yeah, there was a movie called Serendipity. Oh, is that right? Alex Xen knew the movie. I didn't see the movie. So the definition of serendipity is the occurrence and development of events in a happy

or beneficial way. So it's kind of an unexpected thing that turns out well. And so I was telling the story that. that when Lisa and I were heading to Indiana for an event, this couple, well, it was actually a father and a daughter, and they had a support dog with them as well. They came into the airport, and they were wearing one of our one kingdom t-shirts, the dad was,

and they came in and they knew us, but I didn't know them. And so they came in, hey, I'm Lisa, and they started talking, and I was like, hey, who are you guys? I didn't know who they were. And they started telling us that they were from Idaho, and they had just spent a week in West Monroe on their vacation from their work, basically just spending it with people at our church because, you know, they're a part of the live stream church family.

And so that's, you know, they're very engaged and involved. And I said, well, that's amazing, you know. And so they knew us, but we didn't know them. But I was saying that that was a serendipity. because we didn't expect to run into them at the airport, but we did. It was a fortuitous blessing. So when they used it in a sentence, Jace, it was kind of interesting because their example was, it's like digging a hole in your backyard to bear your hamster and finding a treasure chest of jewels.

So the dictionary I read, that was their example of a serendipity. And I thought that that would apply to you. That's good. Yeah, Barry. Let me, yeah, I think before we move forward, do you guys mind if I give a little more context to Jason's scripture that you read? Uh-oh. We've got a rebuttal.

Because there is another part to it that he, that you left off, Jace. It's the, it's the verse six. I don't mind, but then I will give a follow up to my comment of your dissertation, because I already know what you're going to say. It's called spiritual discernment. But go ahead. I'm just going to read the rest of the scripture. It says, yeah, we do.

Context matters. Yet we do speak wisdom among the mature. A wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away, but we speak God's wisdom. And listen to how he speaks it in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory, the wisdom to which none of the rulers of this age had understood. for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.

And then he has an Old Testament quote in there. So it's not that, you know, Paul certainly spoke wisdom. He just didn't speak with man's wisdom. And I think that Jace may have been cut out. And I don't know if that was, I mean, the only thing I can say is the Holy Spirit cutting him out because he didn't want him to rebuttal. I don't know. Tays are you still there? No, I don't think I've been cut out.

I'm here. I hear you valid, valid points. Let me, my response is in Acts 412, there's a profound statement in the Bible that is awesome. And this is a sermon that from the same fella that we're discussing his letter here. And this statement says in 412, salvation is found. What was the scripture again? Acts 412. Acts 412. Acts 412. Salvation is found in no one else for there's no other name under heaven

given to men by which we must be saved. And you say, why am I bringing this up? Because the serendipity of the crowd happened. Because the next verse says, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, they were astonished. or they were serendipitous. See what I did there, Al? That's a good use of the word. And why were they astonished?

They were astonished because they were unschooled ordinary men, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. My point is, you're introducing Jesus to the world. So if you want to use words, great. As far as his letters are concerned over there, the last time we heard about Peter when you're reading through the Gospels was when Peter is, to Jesus challenged him on where his love was. Do you love me? I mean, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

And he said, oh, you know, I love you. So it's a question about did he love Jesus? What's amazing about it is I don't know how long exactly it. was before the final words John recorded about whether Peter loved Jesus or not. But you went to Acts 4. I'm saying the first thing, you turn one page from John chapter 21 on whether Peter loved Jesus or not. And they had the little row about picking another man to work with him because Judas was gone.

He went down the cliff. But what's amazing is the opening words from Peter's mouth. After all we saw back and forth, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Peter's opening line, it's a quotation from Joel, and he starts out by saying, men of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs. He's on board now, 100%. Peter is, which God did among you through him, as you yourself know. This man was headed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge. And y'all was thinking you were pulled off some stunt when you

kill him, say, I added that. And you, with the help of wicked men, you put him to death by the first thing out of his mouth. God raised him from the dead. It's impossible. He simply, you can take the whole Bible and just zero in on that right there. What did Peter have to say, having run with Jesus for three years and all the problems he had? And I don't know whether we, you know, you're not going die. Well, that's the first thing out of his mouth on what did what he did do. He did die and was buried and raised from the dead. And also, I would just like to, for the sake of it, they said, what do we do, which is a great question, a bunch of people here, somebody pontificating, unschooled, ordinary men, like you said, in 412.

He said, and he get up there. So he goes down there and right off the bat, let all lives to be assured of this, God has made this genius whom you crucified. Boy, I mean, he had chewed them out. When they heard it to people, all them people from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that you read about. when they heard it they were cut to the heart and the question of all questions biblically speaking anyway is what shall we do about Jesus dying for us being being raised from the death what do we do first thing out of their mouth going in the

book of act and peter is the one that's got the reins he said told them repent sounds like they need to have a change of heart. And be baptized. Oh, you don't have to do that. The word right now in our culture is, ah, you don't have to do it. A lot of them, you don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. You don't have to fool with that.

What do we do about just hearing that we kill the Son of God and they'll live forever? What do we do, Peter? Repent and be baptized, everyone in the name of Jesus. And the promises for you and your children, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy. Spirit. That's the whole thing about Christianity in about five minutes. That's, and all this unnecessary wordage that people come out of and write about and all these things. Why don't they just read what happened right there when the kingdom of God started

and Peter's got the floor and he's had some issues before, but he now sees the light, preaches the gospel, and then the response, and people are going around so that, oh, I don't know whether you need to be baptized or not. If you don't know whether you need to be baptized or not, are you crazy? I think that's out of serendipitous. I think he's out of serendipitous. I didn't have to use any big words to say that.

None. There's nothing wrong with using big words. I'm just representing the side of unschooled and ordinary. And I'm perfectly fine. I'm an ordinary fella and I'm unschooled. I mean, the only reason I made it through. school is because I have my brother there.

The unschooled and ordinary was this bunch that Peter's talking to, in my opinion. Well, there you go. Yeah, but the Apostle Paul wasn't unschooled and you know, he was a, he wrote the majority of the New Testament. So I think it's both. I mean, I think there's people like Peter, there's people like Paul. That's the good

thing about God's kingdom. It is diverse. But if you want a starting point, if you want a starting point, where it's a good place to go to kick the thing off, the kingdom of God is come. People are speaking in their anger and all that there's a big happening here and in the midst of it all peter preaches the gospel and the response it just looks like to me anybody who was studied the bible would at least bring that up first

before they get in the iscomology yeah well i know that's a good point phil look i mean i'm going no noa webster education is useless without the bible that's yeah but i think i think the key marker for for the diversity red jace i do think there's something beautiful in there that uh is that the matter if you're if you're schooled if you're educated you know like like a paul was very educated in the ways of judaism um or if you're peter and you're unschooled and you're just a fisherman um no matter where you kind of come from whatever background you come from i think the marker when you present the gospel to people when you present christ to people is that what met what set them apart here in verse 13 is that they observed that they they observed the confidence of Peter.

So Peter and John. So they had confidence in this setting and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men. They were amazed and began to recognize them, and this is the part I love, as having been with Jesus. You bet. And I think that's important because. That's my point.

Yeah. But there's people like there's different. I think the gospel hits us in different ways and different. different people access it in different ways. And so the good thing about God's kingdom is there's not one, like, oh, you have to do it this way. You know, you have to do it this way or that way. And because sometimes you get intimidated by that. And you think, well, I don't have all the language or I don't have the theological training.

And theological training is not a bad thing. But it's a bad thing if it becomes more important than having been with Jesus. Like, what matters is to have you spent time with Jesus and your confidence in your presentation isn't flow from your knowledge of what you've done or what you know. It flows from what Jesus has done in you. And that is contagious with people, you know, just sharing your own story, sharing what Christ has done for you. But I do think that these guys are, is a little different here because they were under

inspiration of the spirit. Part of the, what was so shocking here is that they were ordinary men, but yet they're going up against the religious elites. And they're holding their own, not just holding their own, they're decimited. their arguments and they're they're almost they're embarrassing these people who had been trained because they're like way how do how are you presenting this with such confidence and power and conviction and you you you didn't go through the proper training courses and i think that's what was so shocking about this it wasn't that they were they were speaking deep truths zach i made the

point yesterday in my sermon on the first period 315 which we talked about when we were in first peter that when he said be prepared to give an answer to everyone who who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have, a lot of times what we do in the modern times is we say, well, let me get you to a scholar, to the pastor, to my Sunday school teacher,

to my sponsor, to my wife, who's, you know, who's more spiritual than me. In other words, it's always like, let me get you to somebody who knows the formula better than me.

But that's not what he said. He said, let me, you know, he said for the hope that you have. And so every single one of us should be carrying around in us the hope that we have of the story of Jesus. So, I mean, therefore, that's in us. And so, I mean, it's a, Peter makes a personal challenge to each and every one of us. No matter how far you are along in your faith, if you're a Christian, you should hold within you hope of why you're a Christian. I mean, that's kind of the point. So, you know, whether you're brand spanking new or you're, you know, you've been walking in the faith for 20 or 30 or 40 years, each one of us holds that faith.

And so it's not a question of how smart you are or how mature you are even. I mean, all of us know different things along the level. So I made the point of that. It was interesting because one of our elders closed out of our service and he looked directly at me. And he said, you challenged me today because I'm one of those kind of guys that wants to get people to somebody else. but he said, you know, I need to be thinking about my hope. And I said, well, that's good. I mean.

Well, it goes into the whole Peter's whole thing about that we are a priesthood, we are a priesthood of believers. And I think that's, and I think going back to the last book that Peter wrote that we went through and he talks about elders and how, you know, that there's the chief elders, Jesus. And then, and then, you know, all the other elders. But the whole thing and you read it, it's like, you kind of get this idea that Peter said, And don't outsource your ministry to professionals.

Not to say that it's okay to be paid and that's good. But I can't say, okay, pastor, you take my ministry or pastor, the Great Commission is for you to fulfill, but not for me. I don't participate in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. No, you do participate in it. We all participate in it. And it'll change over time, you know, like what is meaningful to you? I was telling someone the other day about Camp Chioca. which my parents met there.

Al, I was just telling this story this week. Someone was asking me about my testimony. And I said, well, really, I didn't grow up in a strong crew. I did with my parents, but the school that I went to, none of my friends were Christians. You know, it was a pretty wild crowd. And then going into out of my 11th grade year, I was at the beach with you guys.

I don't know if you remember this, Al. And me and you were sitting on the beach. And you just started asking, me questions, which led into questions about my faith. And I kind of share with you where I was at, which was in a dark place. And you invited me to Camp Chioca. And I hadn't been in years since I was a little kid. And I was like, you know, I want to try that.

So I came and just had like the most incredible experience there that. I mean, we were crying. It was camp high, you know, it was a camp high. And it was superficial. but for a 16, 17-year-old guy, it's exactly what I needed in that moment. And it was superficial, and I've grown deeper in my faith, but I can't look back on my life and think, man, that wasn't, that was all. That wasn't real. No, it was real at the time.

And yeah, it was superficial, but it was real and it was meaningful. And the way that I presented the gospel to people in that moment of my life is not how I do it now. But it was, but back then I'm talking with other 17. year old kids. And it was effective. And so, you know, I think that's the thing that your walk will mature and so will your presentation of the gospel. But you don't wait. You do it now. Where you're at now, because the power's not in you anyways. It's in Christ who is in you. Yeah, and that's a great point that in every season that you're in, something matters in that season. And that's a great description of that, whether it be a camp or some other situation.

There's something that God provides in that moment. I think that's a good lead-in to get us back into 2nd Peter because now we're into this, his second letter, which is, as we've described, is much more pointed and I think much more direct because as we've described it, he's at the end of his life. And I think he's, you know, he's kind of given this kind of, this is the end of my, you know, story. So he's trying to be much more direct than how he's doing it. And so we talked in the first chapter. He had kind of this maturing to productivity and effectiveness and this kingdom assurance message in the first part of the letter. And then he gets to this in the second chapter, which is where we left off. And he brings this this idea about these false teachers that are there.

And we talked to, you know, we surmised a little bit about maybe what they were into because he doesn't exactly say some of it could have been Nostas. which we kind of talked about a little bit last time. But one thing is for sure in those first three verses, they were denying Christ, they were disrespecting truth, and then they were exploiting people for their own self-gratification. And he mentioned that specifically that was going on in his context, but we talked about and expanded that that pretty much when you find false teachers, that's universal. I mean, you see that even to this very day, right? I mean, that's what they're going to be doing. They're going to be taking advantage of people for their own selfish reason. I think it's interesting where we have this unschooled

and ordinary man now writing this second letter. And even the scholars and theologians think, well, this just can't be Peter because of the nature of it. But, you know, my point was Jesus makes you smart, but he also makes you feel comfortable in your weaknesses and limitations. You know, I'm not the, I don't have a great vocabulary. And we make fun of that. Also don't look like I'm very smart. But, and we all make mistakes. But I'm saying there's some, there's a piece in Jesus that I think the point I was after is where you don't have to look a certain way. You know, in our culture and our world, people want to have, the illusion that we've made it.

You know, we have this nice house in a manicured yard, and we have a, you know, a boat under the, under the garage. And everybody's wearing nice clothes. And a lot of times there's when you, you go in and see what's really happening in their lives, you know, it's chaos. What I find inspiring about what Peter did here is, yes, he spent the whole first chapter saying,

this is the truth and it's validated. We were eyewitnesses. You know, this is based on God's power and his promises. You have everything you need. You can escape these evil desires that come up in your heart and you can have this growing faith in these qualities. Well, then you get to the second chapter and he's like, but you're going to have opposition because people don't want to live the life

that God has called them to live. When you really see all this, it's really, we're going to talk about their heresies, but it was all an excuse for them to live how they wanted to do. And it's the same thing happens in our culture. When people start arguing about Jesus, and it always comes back to, they want to just live however they want to.

And then I think to Peter's credit, he gets to chapter three, and it gets downright scary, because then he pulls the, oh, we're all going to stand before God. What then? There's going to be a destructive way this world ends, and there's going to be a constructive if you're on the right side of God. I mean, it's a very scary picture of what happens to those who have denied Jesus,

and it's an even more scary picture in Chapter 3 about us standing before God and dealing with the consequences of turning your back on the truth. It's interesting that how Peter's progression here, because there is, I think there is a very logical progression to the heresy and the false teaching that was going on particularly in what he's addressing here in 2nd Peter. And the first thing is that you reject the authority of Scripture. That's the first move versus 1920 and 21 of chapter 1.

It's the first thing you do is you start to question the authority of the scripture. Is this really God-breathed? Is it inspired? Are there errors in this? Did Paul have a cultural bias? Was Paul biased? It was Paul inspired? I mean, these are the conversations that you start having these conversations.

Then you start to interpret the scripture through some kind of cultural lens. And there are cultural applications of the eternal truths in here. But when you diminish the authority of scripture, scripture, then the next thing is, is you diminish the deity or the sovereignty or the, or the supremacy of Christ. And that's what they did here. They denied the master who bought them bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And then the next move is that's when the heresies come in.

That's, well, this is heretical before that. That's when all the sensuality comes in. And so then you start moving in lots of sensuality, lots of. lots of, I mean, the whole, and then it gets back to the same thing the world struggles with, right? Like, sex. And then it becomes a free for all. And so I just think it's interesting how, how at the top of that, of this chain is the authority of God, authority of God at the head of all of this, who reveals through the scriptures to humans. And then we said, nah, God didn't do that. And then once we say that, then we have no leg to stand on when we start, you know, really thinking about

who Christ was. And so then we deny Jesus. And then we start to deny Jesus. Then we move into worship of ourselves, which typically is the sensuality stuff. That's why he says in verse two of chapter two, many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you. So then there's also the greed component as well with false words that in the judgment from long ago is not idle. And and their destruction is not asleep. So enter in basically selfishness and a consumptive nature. It's easy to see why, because once you've removed truth and you've removed lordship

and you put yourself in that position, then you say, well, I'm above all that. And so then I can do whatever I want to. And that's what you begin to see. That's why they take advantage. That's why they indulge in their own sensuality. and they take advantage of these people because we're going to see later they take advantage of with the weak will people that they're supposed to be serving and leading and then they do what they want to. And instead of leading them to something better, as the Lord would do, they instead

debase them and lead them to someplace worse. And so that's what happens with these false teachers and these false leaders. And you see it happen every day. It's still to this day. And so they destroy in this destructive behavior that you see. And that's where he's going to get into this next context is that God's always had a way of dealing with this. And he's going to start providing some context. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, Zach's right. We're on the same page here. But, you know, he threw in that chapter two in verse one when he said, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them. And so Yes, it's an introduction to get to this sensuality and do all these things that are ungodly.

And it's it's a denial of Jesus that he's claiming to be an eyewitness of. And he gave the validation for it. Because then when he gets to chapter 2 in verse 13, he really paints the picture of why they're denying Jesus because it says they will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. which he's going to get into that in chapter three. But their idea of pleasure is to corrals in broad daylight. Their blots and blemishes reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning.

Which was my point. If you remove God as a reality, how you view Jesus dictates on how you live your life. There's a connection. here. Yeah, because you end up your own God. Exactly. That's the point I'm trying to make is they didn't, they didn't just take a look at from a

reasonable or rational way at what the Lord has done. They have a lifestyle that they're not willing to give up. Therefore, when they look at what the Lord offers, well, they attack it and they come up with ways around it.

Because the bottom line is they don't, they don't change their life, which is why when he gets to 2nd Peter 3, that's not scary to people who have been repentant because basically that's who, that's who are in the group of people that are rewarded in the home of righteousness. Because you remember the passage where he's going to say in chapter 3 that, where it says, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, this is 3-9, as some understand slowness, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. So that's the problem with the heretics. We tend to put them in a camp like, what's wrong with these people? Well, they don't want to repent.

And the reason they're not open-minded to what the Lord has done is because they want to do what they want to do. See, I understand even the psychology of it. They think in their minds, they're above it. Just think about it. If you've deconstructed the Lordship of Jesus and the authority of truth, well, of course, you're above this. In other words, you're where God is. So of course, if there's just these women here and they're here to serve you, well, of course, they're just an object to serve whatever desire you have. So they put themselves in this position of God like authority. And so that serves whatever base-like desires they have. They don't realize. that by putting themselves in this authority, they're not God, though.

That's the difference. They don't love this person as God loves them. They're totally doing this on a human desire level. And that's what they don't understand. They become these beasts that is being described here. And so I get it from a psychology level. They have put themselves in a position. They have no desire to be.

And that's why they become this person. Well, think about the language here that he uses about they denied the master who bought them. And I think about, I've said this on a mini podcast before, I'll say it again, Bob Dylan said, you got to serve somebody. You got to serve somebody. And so the idea that we're going to be free autonomous creatures is just, it's not, it's not a possibility for us.

And we think it is, but it's not. Either you're going to be a slave to sin or you're going to be a slave to righteousness. You're going to be under the mastery of the devil, or you're going to be a, uh, under the mastery of the devil, or you're going to be under the mastery of Christ, and Christ is our master. So I think when they deny the master, and by the way, I mean, this is kind of interesting language here. He says these people were bought by the master, which tells us that, I think it tells us that these people were in the church. I mean, these weren't like, you know, people from the outside. These were people that were paid for by the master.

And they were doing this, which has other implications we could talk about later. but they're denying the, they're denying the Lordship of Christ, and they're saying, I'm not going to be under your control or your guidance. I'm going to, I'm going to be my own master, which really, when you're your own master, you just become a slave to sensuality and greed. I mean, that's where it ends up because, and I think that he gets into this too, when you're a creature, there's just limitations on being a creature. One of the limitations on being a creature is that you're not a creator. You're not the creator. You just, we can't exist outside of our temporal, spatial world. I can't, I can't be in two places at one time.

No matter how hard I try, I can't. I can't stop time from taking its toll on me. And with every minute that passes, I'm an inch closer to death. I'm a minute closer to death. I can't. But what's happened is when you leave the mastery of Jesus, and you say, I'm going to be my own master. Then you're essentially banging your head up against the wall of your existence,

and you're trying to get out of there. You're trying to say, I want to be God. The problem is, is that you're not God. So you end up with frustration. And I think that's the progression here that you see is eventually what you'll do is you'll give up trying to be God, and then you'll just go down and you'll descend with the animals. And you'll be like unreasoning animals. You know, you'll, and that's where this kind of ends up.

So when you see, like, someone who's just completely given over to sensuality and, like, with no, no boundaries, I mean, like, no, no guard rails. And, like, we're just going to go at it, whatever we can get. And so, what does it look like? Well, it looks like Mother Nature on stairwares. I mean, just, you know, Mother Nature can be brutal, you know, and it looks like that. It looks like that world. It's like, I'm just going to be a creature of instinct. What the problem is, is that you can't purely be a creature of instinct because you do possess rational faculties.

You are made the image of God. Even in your sin, you still bear these image-making properties of God. And so what we do, as humans, the Bible says, that we invent ways of doing evil. So then we use our God-given rational faculties to intensify our animal instinctual desires. And that's where you get all the crazy stuff that you see today. you're like, man, where's all that come from? It's humans using their God-given ability to reason to invent ways of doing evil to descend further into the animal kingdom. And it's like, man, what a reversal, you know, of what sin can do to us.

And so what he does in verses 4 through 9 is he's going to give three examples of showing that God knows how to deal with this situation before he gets into painting the picture that we've done. kind of already jumped ahead and looked at. And he gives three examples of just what you just described that. And the first one is in heaven itself. And this is one that we only get like some glimpses of. And I wrote down four or five different verses where we get these little glimpses of it. And one of them is right here. It says, if God did not spare angels when they sin, but sent them to hell,

putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment. So the first one is whatever happened before us. Something happened in heaven. And we know from you read about in Revelation 12, there's an allusion to it in Jude 6. Jesus refers to it in Matthew 2541. And then there's little glimpses you can tell in Job 1 and Job 418 that something happened in heaven, and we know as a result of that, Satan is a result because he was part of that fallen angel group.

And there was some sort of a rebellion in heaven, and we get this glimpse that whatever it was is kind of what Zach was describing about this idea of turning against God. And so that's the first example that he gives. And we don't know much about it other than it happened. But he's going to paint the same picture with the flood. in verse 5. And we do know quite a bit about that from reading in Genesis 5 and 6. And what happens later with Noah, if he did not spare the ancient world,

when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, and we know what happened there, every human being that was present on earth, except for one man in his family, right, was just wicked and violent. But protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others, just his family. So there's another example of what you were described as that.

Just total depravity. Every thought, wickedness, base animal instinct all the time, except for one guy in his family. That's where we had gotten. And it didn't take long to get there. So there was another example. So he's just giving you these examples of what it looks like. Then he gives you another one. If he condemned the city, so here's a localized situation of Sodom and Gamara.

You read about that in Genesis 19. By burning them to ashes, it made them an example of what is going on to happen to the ungodly. So here you have the same situation. You've got one guy if you rescued Lot, a righteous man. So you got one guy in the midst of this entire city, twin cities, of just constant evil, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men, for that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard.

If this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials, and this is his point, and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment while continuing their punishment. So there's that the point he's making is that God knows how to separate and look at righteous versus unrighteous. And I think that's his point that he's trying to make. He uses three different examples to do that by looking at what happened in heaven. There were angels who still believed and followed God versus those that didn't. In the case of Noah, there was Noah and his family versus all those other ones.

In the case of Saddam and Gamora, there was a lot. And then there was all the rest of him. I mean, what he's saying is, is, look, God knows the difference between those who are trying to do the right thing versus a vast majority who aren't. And he gives an end here. Like, he almost doubles down on this dichotomy of what you're talking about. He says, especially those, and here's the two sides of the dichotomy, especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires. So that's one group, right? That's one way you could go.

I'm going to indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires. By the way, I told a young guy that was dating my daughter, the first boyfriend she had when she was about 16, I said, do you know the best time of year to kill a buck, to kill a deer, a male deer? And he said, no, I said, when they're in the rut. And my point was like, watch yourself. You know, it's when you're in that mindset, that's when a deer is most likely to get killed because he's not thinking clearly he's just following but think about if that was you all the

time you know i mean i think that's what he's talking my hair and then and then the other side of that dichotomy is is they despise authority so they i think that when you think about this idea of authority because we want we like no one's going to be control of me nobody's going to tell me what to do yeah that that's a that's kind of an american way right i'm not going to be under anybody's authority i'm not going to i'm going to do what i want to do it's a western western western way of thinking, but man, when you talk about, like, that is one way of thinking about the world and you can go after it, or you can submit yourself on the other side of this dichotomy to the authority of Christ, who is powerful.

He's more powerful than you, more powerful than you can ever imagine any of us. So on a pragmatic level, we should just do it just because we don't have a chance against this guy. And then two, and maybe more importantly, is he is good. and he wants what's best for you, and he has planned for you is better. And when we submit to the authority of Christ, you know what the end result of that is? Life and life abundantly. When we deny the authority of Christ, the end result of that is death, isolation, misery, and hell.

And I think that that's why there's a threat of grace and hope that runs through this entire warning, as you just mentioned there. There's that threat of hope and there's that thread of grace throughout all of this that we can be rescued from that way of thinking. No, that's a great point. And it shows you how pervasive and bad times can be, but you're right. There's also, there's always that idea that God still knows who has the heart for him, which is Peter's point. He understands, he's always been able to understand. You think about all those different parables that Jesus taught about whenever the Satan comes to sew in, you know, what's bad among that, which is good. Whenever it comes up, God always knows the good from the bad.

And so that's his point he keeps making. You know, there's, God knows. You don't have to, because, you know, we get to worry and say, oh, it's just all bad. How would God ever know? How would he be able to separate it out? He understands from even before time began. He understands good from evil. he understands false from true and and real from what's not real he he gets it he understands it and you have to trust him to do that because it's hard for us sometimes to understand that from our perspective even in the the midst of all of this horrible stuff and there's and there's hope there's a threat of hope through there about an interesting that he says that lot who was in the midst of all this he says that he was tormented

his righteous soul. And I think there's an element of that. You said by, he says, tormented in his righteous soul day after day by their lawless deeds. I think there is something like if you're out there and you're thinking, man, I just look at,

I weep for our culture. I just weep for that. I'm tormented. I think that's a, I think that's kind of a byproduct of being a righteous person is that you look around the, around you and, and it hurts.

It should hurt us. to see the world and that kind of calamity. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I want to flesh that out a little bit more in our overtime because there's a lot to be said about that. That's pretty rich. Because we're out of time for this podcast,

but there's quite a bit more to be said about that. So we'll talk a little bit more about that before we get into the rest of this description of these false profits. If you want to follow us over, blazedv.com slash unashamed. to hear more about this that are over time. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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