Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 687 | Jase’s Reptile Run-In & Miss Kay’s Objection to Wonder Woman’s Outfit

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Jase recently had a deadly animal encounter, but he didn’t let it stop him! Jase and Al reminisce about their adolescent obsession with Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, which offended Miss Kay’s sensibilities so much that she took the issue into her own hands! The guys speculate about the differences between the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. Jase dives into a study of demons, their powers, and qualities. Last chance: Vote for "Unashamed" as K-LOVE's podcast of the year by FRIDAY 5/26: https://www.klovefanawards.com/vote In this episode: Luke 4, verses 31-44; Galatians 4, verses 1-5 https://philmerch.com – Shop now for your “Unashamed” mugs, shirts, hats & hoodies! "The Blind" hits theaters on 9/28/23. Get sneak peeks, updates & insider exclusives: https://theblindmovie.com — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we're back. The band's back together, Jace. It's back together. It's amazing that we all get back. I know. I'm pretty fortunate to be here. I will admit that. I told Phil this yesterday. So I don't know when this would be released, but we had Mother's Day a while back for y'all. But for us, it was yesterday.

Yeah. And so I was telling him that, because I was in West Texas filming, of course, it's hot now. Very hot. It just like went to summer overnight. What these TV people do not realize is that treasure hunting is seasonal. We generally don't treasure hunt when it gets above 90 degrees for obvious reasons. It's too hot. You have earphones on.

you're not keen to any kind of snakes and things like that. So I'm in West Texas, and the day before we started filming on our ride out there to scout out the property, I was going to say six foot, but in the spirit of non-embellishment, five to six-foot rattlesnake was in the area. We all saw him. of where we were going to hunt.

That doesn't make for a good night's sleep. So on day... Or a good day's hunt either when you know you're going to be just, you know. So it was pretty grown up. And so day two, I guess, of the filming, I'm kind of away from the herd, and I mean the people. And I took a step. I was looking to the right.

I had my metal detector. I took a step, pretty high grass. And about a four-foot snake was, I'd say six inches in front of my left foot. The snake bolted up and to the left. I bolted simultaneously up and to the right. My jump was better than his. Because when I landed, this rush of emotion came over me. You've had some close encounters before.

And he didn't, it didn't look like he struck at me. He just jumped to the left. I mean, it was like we both jumped in opposite directions. He didn't know what you were, but he was getting out of there. Yeah. Well, it was strange, though, and I was telling you this, I haven't had this feeling come over me in years ago. guess, and I'm not sure what it was.

I guess it might have been adrenaline. Because, I mean, I'm not scared when I'm in the woods. I've been in the woods, my whole, I'm not going around thinking, oh, you know what? But something just, it just from, it started at the top of my head. And it took me a couple minutes to like, why am I feeling like this? And so then I just thought, you know what? Thank you, Lord, and I'm going right back in these woods. Five-foot rattlesnake and may give you a miserable day and a few nights without sleep.

I'm pretty sure, Phil, if that snake, if it had been a rattlesnake, I'm not 100% sure it was a rattlesnake. I mean, the grass was thick. It was a big snake. But you had already seen a rattlesnake, so. Well, we saw two others going to and fro from just filming across the road. Probably in that terrain, it was a rattlesnack. So I was like, thank you, Lord. But it did trigger quite the conversation.

Because we had just studied the temptation of Jesus from the evil one who, I guess he indeweled a snake at some point, you know, and the snakes were cursed. You know, you read just a little Bible 101. You know, he cursed the, God cursed the snake too. That's right. Now on, you'll slither around on the ground. So whatever the precursed snake was, he wasn't slithing around like he is now. So that's interesting.

So I overcame my fears, but it brought up quite the conversation because I was like, well, I overcame my fears. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, but don't put the Lord God to the test here. I think I need a meeting with these TV people. What are we doing in West Texas in May, and when it's 95. degrees and that ground was hard you know you just you hit it with your shovel and it just that's the other problem especially yeah baked baked dirt so it was tough but i'm pretty sure you have leggings you can wear that up to about your knee that's snake proof yeah you might well i had hip boots on which caused me to almost dehydrate because it was so hot but that would have

helped a little what's funny as i crossed it i had brand new hip boots boots on across the creek later and my boots immediately filled up with water brand new and you're like what what happened well there's also a lot of thorn trees uh-huh in west texas so speaking of our show a few weeks ago i think i gave a hint that our show would be released come summertime i will say this this is breaking news concealed and concealed in mystery it will be released earlier than I anticipated

so from the time that you hear me say this I would think weeks not months now and just a reminder too Jase you were talking about that with your breaking news that our podcast you remember is up for the podcast of the year and the podcast impact categories. You only got a couple of days left.

You want to vote. It's clovefan awards.com. And you got until May the 26. So if you want to vote for this as podcast of the year, be sure and get that into. Yeah, so, so, Jay's,

I was gone. I had an event in Alabama, the men's event. So I barely got back, but I had to preach Sunday. So like, I noticed that. I thought,

well, your schedule. Now, how did you do that? How did you prepare since, well, You were already speaking. Fortunately, I had a couple of days home that week.

I wasn't going anywhere else. So what I did was after we did a podcast last week, then I spent a couple of days working on my sermon. So I got it pretty much ready. And I already had in my mind what I wanted to do for the men's thing. But then to execute that, especially on back-to-back days, and I was driving there because it was just kind of right in that circle where flying, it would take about the same amount of time.

And I got to where now with the way the airlines are. If it's within six hours, I'd just soon drive it because I don't really trust that I'm going to get. We have the same rule on the TV show. Yeah. You know, if it's within six hours, we drive. Yeah. And this was about six hours away. But it went great, but I was like, you know, I was, you get a little bit tired like you experienced when you're coming in off the road.

But I was super excited about my lesson because it was sort of a different approach. It was definitely the most unique Mother's Day sermon I would do. Because, you know, there's, you don't have to preach about mothers on Mother's Day, but sometimes, you know, there's several things in the text, you know, you could talk about Hannah. I thought that was sacrilegious, not to preach on Mother's on Mother's Day. To not do it? Yeah. You could just mention Happy Mother's Day and then preach on it.

Well, I'm just saying now, the only thing that could really be bad with that is to make all the mothers mad. Yeah, you don't want to do that. But I have noticed something about. You had a point in there about one of your points. Yeah, so that's what I was going to say. So, but I will say this. And I heard it at the men's conference. That was it, not by me, but by some of the other guys.

So with men, you tend to want to kind of just wear them out. I guess just because we're men. So we're like, we've got to challenge each other. And but when it comes to moms, we're like much more like, oh, we love our moms. And it's a much more soft, subtle approach. But we challenge the fire out of the men. There's a big difference in Mother's Day and Father's Day. No, I've always

resented that. Yeah, I mean, it's, I've noticed that. Yeah. When his mom's Mother's Day, the preachers, they're like, I mean, everything is very articulate and beautiful and you are awesome. Father's Day, it's like, it's time for you to do something. Make it right.

It's true. Stop being the problem. Stand up. I mean, it's more, I have noticed that. And then we even used to joke about it because I did the Santha for years. I would plan like on Mother's Day. We'd have a Mother's Day breakfast at church building where we meet. And, you know, we would have all these great things for them and these funny videos honoring them.

And we'd feed them breakfast. And then the father said, they'd be like, ah, donuts for dad. Grab a donut on your way out. I think I'm the one who brought that up. I said, I went over there because they, they, they, they. They used to do that where they would, you would go into a room what they call the old auditorium. I don't know what they call it now. Fellowship Center.

The Fellowship Center because old auditorium just sounded terrible. That's too hard to say. And I noticed that when I, because I walked by on the Mother's Day and I thought, boy, you're talking about a spread. Look at the food here. I mean, it was nice. And you'd had the men serving, you know, they all had the apron zone. Oh, yeah. And so I went over there thinking Father's Day, boy, we're talking bacon and eggs.

And I was thinking, yeah. And it was just some donuts laid over there that have been there an hour. And no drink. So I brought it up. I was like, hey, what do we? I'm all for making the moms happy, but let's just, let's do better than our old donut. Let's, you know, let's have someone frying the donuts. like life.

Right. And I can get into that. So anyway. Well, you're right. It's just, and I'm guessing it's because men plan this. I did it for years. And so you're just thinking like a man. And so you've got to challenge a fire out of the men,

but you've got to be soft and syrupy to the women. I guess that's, I don't know. No, I don't know. It was good. You did a good job. So, yeah, my approach was, I sort of took, my thought process was, So speaking of mothers and fathers day was I thought wouldn't it be neat if you looked at Jesus through two perspectives? And I got the idea from our podcast because we've been in the first few chapters of Luke and we're really been focusing on the humanity of Jesus.

Because we've been talking about his birth. We talked about him being a little boy. And so it struck me that I thought, you know, it's Mother's Day. What if I looked at it, the son of man on Mother's. Day in his connection to humanity. And then if we looked at him as the son of God on Father's Day and more of the deity idea. So that was my idea to kind of bookend a picture of Jesus, one from his human perspective,

one from his divine or deity perspective. Which went along with the temptation. You know, the evil one was challenging him as a man. I mean, he was he was trying to sow that seriously. of pride. I mean, look who you are. What are you doing being hungry and weak? He was like, you know, kind of saying, you're a big deal, son of God, but this acting like a man, right. That's a path you shouldn't go down. I mean, that was, he was, he was tempting him through pride not to be vulnerable. And let's face it, you're right, as the spirit of God laid him

out there, which we talked about, to, but it was for him to face a physical and spiritual challenge, because the first thing he does is he takes a 40-day fast. I mean, I fasted before maybe a week. I've never fasted for 40 days, you know, and yet, so 40-day fast, I mean, there's two or three times you're in the Bible. That's a pretty serious thing to not eat food for 40 days. You bet you. I mean, it has a toll, and it challenges you at the base level of who you are. Let's take our first break. So in an interesting development for the Mother's Day where I started this, so Missy invited our parents and her parents and really the brothers of the family to come.

And so, but all that showed up was our parents and her parents, which was kind of weird. I don't think we've ever done that before. was just uh and so missy was nervous you know i prayed for the meal she cooked roast uh rice and gravy what else did she have oh she had some homemade bread and uh she had a little salad she had a salad but she was nervous because she said however this goes i'm sure it's going to end up on the podcast but i've made peace with it so dig in i mean she said that before No, I pray. That was a prayer.

So the podcast discussion now is part of the description of the meal. Yeah, she was like, you know, if this goes horribly wrong, I'm sure to be on the podcast. So I'll let Phil. Oh, and we had a king cake for dessert. And Phil got another cake. What was that? What was that? Is that a Mother's Day cake?

One of my little granddaughters bought a cake by. She had baked for me. which was kind of weird because it was Mother's Day. Yeah. But maybe now we're honoring mothers and fathers at the same time. Maybe the next generation is getting it right, Jay. So, no, I thought it was really good, though. I thought the meal was good and it was very enjoyable.

And it was a funny thing. I found the most perfect card because it's always hard, you know, at this stage, which, you know, I give my mom. just cash because I call it dole out money. She's not going to use it on herself. No. But she's, and I make sure I give her like everything in 20s. Because I'm like,

just give it out 20 at a time. And because the last time I gave her as a kind of a joke, but being serious on her birthday, because we had had an argument about, and I shared it on the podcast. You can go back about 100 podcasts and find it. It was quite the ordeal about when, remember when she asked, you know, I wanted to fly with y'all somewhere because y'all were already going.

I was like, yeah. So then when I got back, she sent me a bill for the flight. I was like, do what now? So anyway, which was fine, but I'm just saying, go ahead and say, do you want to split the flight? I was more challenging the, hey, come ride with us. And then when you were sending me the bill, that was kind of weird. So I gave her like $1,000 for a birthday, which I mean, I know that's a lot of money.

But I was trying to make a point that it wasn't about the money. I was just saying, let's be, let's have some clarity on this. Let's be open. But then she had given out that $1, $100 bill, $100 bill at a time before the end of the day. So yesterday, you know, I gave her some 20s. I was like, it's okay. to dole it out. Just do it 20 at a time.

And so I just get a card because I've been out of town for weeks. And she's fine with that. But I found the perfect card for her of all the cards I've ever given her. And you're not going to believe what it was. It was a picture of Wonder Woman. And when you, and it said, it was a quote from Wonder Woman about, somebody saying that she was a hero. Well, I had done a sermon years ago,

and I was like recognizing unsung heroes, you know, and of course Jesus is the ultimate hero, you know, of her soul and life. But I had picked three women who I viewed as heroes. One of them was my mom. She was there in the audience, you know, boy, she cried. So I was like, I have a wonderful. woman card and you said what's the significance there and you remember this probably oh yeah when we were

i guess we were early teenagers i think we shared this story before we had this big poster in our room of wonder woman i was a big fan yeah i was too and one day we go in there and i'm like what has happened to our poster. Somebody had taken a black felt pen and colored in the cleavage on the poster. And extended the bloomers to make them into shorts. Yeah, and to match. And I, which I was thinking, boy, I figured it was Willie or, you know, somebody just

spoke, because, you know, Al and I really liked that poster. It was your grandmother. Well, it was, it was, it was, it was, okay, yeah, it was, your mother. But it took an investigation. I never thought she would do that. And so. Because we can't, we felt more like it was defacing our property. Yeah.

So I, so I got the card and I put, you've always been my hero, you know, I love you, Jace. And then I put PS and I drew an arrow because inside the card, there were like different. They were black and white. photos of Wonder Woman. I drew an arrow and said, feel free to color in the cleavage. That's funny. Well, I thought about Jay's,

that's somebody put out a meme the other day, which fit this perfectly. It said my era and had a picture of Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, which that was who was on our poster. She was the Wonder Woman from the 70s. And it said, your era, and it showed one of the current,

you know, trans people on here. that you see a lot and it said wonder if it's a woman so that's that that's kind of the difference in the two eras which i thought was pretty yeah that's pretty clever but anyway yeah so wonder woman mom was trying to help us she she didn't want us to i guess she was our early covenant eyes she wasn't yeah it was funny she didn't want us lusting over i mean to be honest once she gave her speech about it i didn't have much to say you know she was just like i'm making a spiritual decision And that woman's outfit is cut too low at the top and it's too high at the bottom.

I'd always had a thing for Wonder Woman. I think I've told this story before on the podcast. But actually, my mother-in-law broke me of it because when we used to have the trunker treats, she came dressed as Wonder Woman in kind of a skimpy outfit. And she was at this time in her late 70s. And I took one look at her and that was it. And I was like, all right, I'm over it. You did it.

You broke my idea. You broke my idea. She did it. So that was kind of a running joke in the family. So anyway, back to my lesson, Jay. So it was called the son of man. Our brother from another mother was kind of just a clever way of saying it. And I had four points.

The first one was what we talked about with relating to him as a human being that had a mom. You know, he had a mom. She nurtured. She cared for him. She carried him. She nourished him. The same as us. And it made me think about that text in Galatians 4, born of a woman, born under law. You know, Paul made sure to mention that. The second thing, second point was the one you've already brought up. He relates to us because he knows what we're up against. And that's when he got into the thing with Satan in the garden, I mean, in the wilderness and later in the garden. because Merritt said he left him for an opportune time. We talked about that on the podcast that I think that transferred forward to that moment he has in the Garden of Gassimony when he's basically saying, is this it?

Are we doing this? You know, that was kind of that moment. And then that led me to the third point, which was he relates to us because he knows what we fear the most. And that would be death. I mean, without him, without knowing that death could be conquered and defeated, that's the greatest fear, right? Because, and the Bible says that in Hebrews too, that we were held in slavery by our fear of death. But the resurrection is what changed all that. And then the last point was he relates to us because he gives us his spirit when we're born again.

And so I made the point that even living in this life, we have an opportunity to live a resurrected life. because we're basically paying it forward. He gives us the Spirit of God as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, according to Paul Ephesians 1. And so you think about it, everything in Jesus, this idea of the Son of Man, as he represents both the struggle we have and the victory we have as we kind of look forward.

So that was the four points of my sermon. No, it was good. And even that Galatians 4 and 5 you mentioned, we read that verse so much that you just, it's almost diminishing to the power that God's plan was going to be fulfilled at the right time through a virgin teenager having the son of God in her giving birth and going through the process. So I get it for people who are not believers, they have a hard time getting it. pass that.

It's not like they have a better idea to say, you know, on the meaning of life and why you're here and what your purpose is and how you're leaving and these kind of questions. But I made the point, too, that, you know, that's what makes Christianity unique in that no other world religion has this story of God becoming flesh. and being one of us and then delivering us both from sin and also our fear of death. I mean, whatever you choose to believe, this is the only one that delivers on all the major things that we do. Well, right.

But most other religions is always about you measuring up. That's right. This is God coming down. And doing it for us. That's exactly right. Let's take another break. So anyway, my idea for that actually came from our study that we've been doing in the book of Luke. And you're right, Jay's kind of up to where, I think we left off in chapter

four. We had talked about him going to Nazareth. Which was interesting because in Mark's account, it has him going to Nazareth much later. Yeah. There are a couple of things about that. I was going to mention when we got there. Same thing with the calling of Peter in chapter five. You find that a little bit different in place of like him healing his mother-in-law in some of the other gospel. So I don't exactly know what that is other than most people that I read have Luke sort of, you know, his description and style is to kind of tell you about who he's about to talk about, you know, like introduce him and then he tells the story. Whereas the other guys are more chronological. Here's exactly the way it went down. Luke's doing it more, a little bit more

There's an idea about, okay, this guy, Peter, you know, here's who he is. So he mentions him first, and then he tells about his conversion. He does say that here's what happened in and around his hometown in Galilee. And then there's a shift, I think it's in Chapter 9, where it's like on to Jerusalem. Yeah, that's exactly right. 950 is where the shift is made. So I don't, you know, people say, oh, you know, I'm not sure the timing. I mean, look, you can get, these are from four different perspectives.

None of it is in opposition to each other in principle or who's the son of God. His name was Jesus. It's just a little different the way that it's put together. Well, just imagine, Jay's, if you were in the first century and you only got one look at this, maybe you were in a setting where Luke had written this. And so you were reading the only eyewitness account that came through him, whereas somebody else may have read Matthew, somebody else may have only read John.

In other words, it wasn't like it was compiled so neatly like it is for us. All right. For those that were reading it. So you've got to keep that in mind. Plus, Luke seems to, because I went ahead and looked ahead, he just really seems to capture. Jesus being for the world. Even when we read

the angels' announcements is good news to all men and he uses the two Gentile illustrations in where we left off at his hometown, which was this widow from wherever she was from. It was hard to pronounce.

Where was that from? Zarifeth. Zarifeth, yeah. Which was up in Syria's is where that was. So she wasn't even an Israelite. Yeah, and naming the Syrian. But that's what I'm saying. There's more of this.

The more you're going to continue to read, you're going to see that he really reaches out to the poor, just women in general. There's more conversation, at least him, I know of, that he has this encounter. and the Samaritans, various Gentiles. I mean, this... Even the first two chapters. I mean, we basically get the whole birth of Jesus and John the Baptist as told through their moms, which, you know, that's unusual,

because Matthew, you focus much more on Joseph in his version of it. So, yeah, you're right. It's definitely told from a perspective of a broader view. Well, and... And in the middle of all that, that, Luke starts in chapter 9. Matthew started in about Matthew 16.

And Mark mentions it, and so does Matthew, Mark, Luke, John mentioned it. And it's this. They said, what about you? Who do you say I am? Well, when we get to chapter 9, Peter answered what all this is about, the Christ of God, this what they said, Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone what he was going to do. So somewhere in this, the evil one was hoodwinked through what's fixing to happen. He strictly warned him not to tell us anyone, and he said, the son of man must suffer many

things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law. And he must be killed. He's talking about himself, and these people are looking at him saying, do what? He must be killed, and on the third day be raised alive. So the gospel is officially announced among all this. You get to chapter 18, we're going up to Jerusalem, son of man to be, be, he, he, He'll be handed over to the Gentiles. They'll mock him and insult him, spit on him,

flog him and kill him. On the third day, he'd raise again. So underneath all these teachings that he's given, you know, underneath all of that is the gospel of Jesus hidden for, ever since God created the heavens and the earth, It's just now the salvation of the world is fixing to be at stake in a big way. All he talks about is how it's going to be, how it's going to be. The spiritual and the physical are fixing to come together,

and it'll last, it'll never stop. And 2,000 years later, we're sitting here reading it saying, and it's still a wilder story as it was back then. They were all confused about, you know, he's fixing to get into them and, you know, just a chapter or two, you know, all these, the parable of the soar and the lamp on the stand and all these, all these issues that come up. Sin, sin, death, it's all covered. Just step at a time, easy as to go. It's pretty amazing. In the layer, and I guess in the eastern layer where Zach is, we are, littered with Phil merch, Blaze merchandise, where we're in church today that are on Philmerch.com,

because we want to encourage you guys to check out all of the apparel and the different things they have there. They also have these coffee mugs. Here's one uncanneled, unashamed. Zach, you got an unashamed mug up there in North Carolina, right? My hot coffee and a fill mug, yeah. You know, one of the things by wearing our apparel does is it causes people to ask you questions. What is that? What is an unashamed?

Whoever heard of that? So it just provides you an opportunity to tell folks about the podcast. I know that our podcast is a word of mouth thing. So that's what this merch is about. We encourage you to check it out. Phil Merch, M-E-R-C-H.com. And it really goes back to- He's building a foundation on what all this is going to be about.

He's going to be, he's the king. And they're looking at him like, you're what? He said, the king of the kingdom there. they're just shocked. You know, the whole underlying lesson, I mean, preaching in that was repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. John the Baptist is just out there, holl and about it, you know, up to his death, and it never stops.

And you're right, Dad. That last podcast, we talked about it. That was his message in Nazareth. Remember he had read that text out of Isaiah. Yep. And it said, preach good news to the poor. he sent him to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recover of sight for the blind. And at this day, they're saying, do what?

Right. And then he just sits down and they're like, he's talking about himself. And I mean, do they ever turn on him? They decided to kill him on the spot. Well, his drop the mic line was, today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, that would be me. Yeah. All the old testments I've been reading about me.

Yeah. I'm here. I'm here. They were like, looking at ease of the law. You're right, they went from astonishment. They went after him to kill him with that information. They took him to the cliff to throw him over the side. How to kill him.

That's exactly right. So the bottom line, the chief priest and the teachers of the law and all of them, I don't know how you would categorize them as far as their behavior. But, I mean, these were some mean people. Yeah. Well, but what they were mad about is because he wasn't considering them to be. be the audience that he was going to help that that's it was a you know he he he gave this character description of who he came to help and he he brings up to examples that people weren't even

from their region yeah right it infuriated them oh and one of them was poor but the other was rich was also infuriated them i mean it it's like what are you talking about you know the Spirit of the, when he said the Spirit of Lord is on me because he's anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. Well, they love that. But then he used the rich man as an example. But they weren't following that he meant spiritually for, which is if you go back to read Matthew's account, you remember the beatitudes. Because he doesn't really talk about the hometown throwing off the cliff in Matthew. It does in Mark.

But. And you go back. and read so right where Matthew's at in to parallel with Luke I was going to read this in Matthew 4 23 so this is right after he says I'll make you fishers of man and right after the temptation he says Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues preaching the good news of the kingdom to your point feel yep and healing every disease and sickness among the people yep news about him spread all over Syria. Well, there's your reference to this, what happened in his hometown. He told this story about these two Syrians. And people brought to him, and here's why I wanted to read this, all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain,

the demon possess, those having seizures and the paralyzed, heal them. So I was only going to make the point that when we're going to go back to Luke 4 and we get to verse 31, all of a sudden you're going to have this encounter with someone who's demon possessed. And I wanted to read that in Matthew's account because I think people kind of like they do with the evil one, they tend to be people of extremes. Because look, the million dollar question for all of us is people want to know is what does demon possession still happen today or when did it stop yep so Luke seems to have more uh I know there's more parables in Luke but there's also it just seems to be a lot of stories about people being possessed

by demons right but when you read Matthew's account what I was saying is there's a difference I think when you approach people's problems, you know, the extremes are either, you know, the devil's everywhere and doing everything, you know, or he's not real. That just tends to be where people camp out in one of those two extremes. And I think it's probably somewhere closer to the middle. Right. I mean, he is powerful. He does have an entourage.

He is filled with fury over Christians, and he does tempt. And there's an entourage here. You have demons, you have evil angels, you have the devil himself. Ephesians 6 says you have rulers and powers in the spiritual dark world. Am I leaving anybody else out? Authorities. The authorities of Roman, I mean, a phasing six.

Right. Yeah. Rulers, authorities. I mean, it's a... In both the heavenly realms. It's organized. Right. So, but you also have, you know, sometimes there's things that happen that's God's discipline.

And I mean, like, that's why you saw there's diseases and there's the things we just read from Matthew 24. I mean, the list, I mean, Matthew chapter 4, the list was pretty long. He said, people who were ill, various diseases. is those suffering severe pain, well, that could be a lot of things. I mean, what I'm saying is if you trip and fall and you hurt yourself and you're a severe pain.

Or chronic, you know, just people have been in a pain alone. That's just life. Life on a earth in a perishable body. Right. And so if you're wondering, my point is I'm like, we try to assess blame, but right here in the middle of this,

you have the demon possessed. Well, I want to know what that. is. I mean, that's like, whoa, it just doesn't seem to fit. Those having seizures, people have been paralyzed. Usually it was an accident, but Jesus was healing everything. So I wanted to introduce this idea because we're 31 of Luke 4 and we have someone who is demon-possessed. So I'll read it. And then we'll discuss. Then he went down to Copernum, a town in Galilee. and on the Sabbath began to teach people. They were amazed at his teaching because his message had authority.

In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. My little letter on evil says, or unclean spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, Ha! You don't see that very often. You can't make this. These people say you can make this. Ha! Ha! Ha!

What do you want with us? Jesus of Nazareth. Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Be quiet, Jesus said sternly, come out of him. Then the demon threw the man down before them and came out without injuring him. all the people were amazed and said to each other,

what is this teaching with authority and power, he gives orders to evil spirits, and they come out and the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area. Spiritual has met the physical. These strange people, and they're hollering about Satan, and the things they're doing,

you're like, and the winner, Jesus is always the winner but if they had known Paul told the Corinthians that he was going to save the world they wouldn't have crucified him they wouldn't have got rid of him

they said don't no let him live but he had to shed blood to remove sin so that's why when he was saying don't we tell anybody what's going on right here exactly right now. He was just sort of skating, but he was showing who was the boss.

Well, it was interesting that they recognized him. Yeah. And the humanity didn't know who he was. They saw him just as the carpenter's son. Well, the demons identified him, but they did. But they were admitting you're bigger than we are. Right. But it shows you that their demons are superhuman.

It shows you that right there. Because how they know that. That's right. That's right. So, supernatural, superhuman. And even in you, you know, because I went down to study. And what I studied, because as I read ahead, there's just, I'm going to get to Luke 8 and probably the most famous demon possession story.

And we'll get it in detail when we get there. But here was a guy who didn't just have a demon in him. He had thousands. I mean, I know there was 2,000 pigs, or do we know that number for sure? I don't know why I read that somewhere, that it was, but, you know, when the demon said, we are legion, we are many. You know, a legion, I think in the military, in the Roman era, was like 3 to 6,000 or something like that. Right, right.

So I'm saying, I read somewhere that there was 2,000 pigs on that field, but I'm not sure. sure that's a Bible word, but it was multiple pigs. Yeah, the Luke one just says a herd. It didn't give a number. Yeah. Well, we can somebody, that'll be easy to look up. Right. But my point is, it was a lot in one guy.

And so, and here it seems to be one, but this one's out of synagogue. And you can kind of, I think once you kind of stop and meditate on this story, Because we've all spoken in front of audiences. What was he doing in the synagogue? Well, right. And just picture a guy who, well, he probably came to the synagogue because he had a demon in him. You know what I'm saying? Somebody helped me get this thing out of me.

Or maybe the demon wanted to go there and find out what the other side was up to. I don't know. But just imagine this person staring at you, this weird. Because I think this is not made up. I mean, the guy had a demon. He's at the synagogue. Jesus is speaking, and this guy's looking at him like, I'm a demon-possessed person, and he was.

And so finally couldn't have it. Or maybe, you know, the words of Jesus, or the presence of Jesus invoked this, ha! So everybody in the room turns around to see where that came from, and he's like, what do you want? with us. So that's why I said. I think we had a battle of wits going on in the spiritual world. Jesus had recognized this. And I mean, the presence of God brought this on.

Right. And I think because it can't coexist. There's got, there's got to be a, something's got to happen. This is combustible. The demons, I mean, the book says, the Bible, the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. Well, but before he said that, Phil, I think it's interesting that he says, the demon says, have you come to destroy us first? Which, while ago when I said that demons, based on reading this and Luke 8 and others, they're supernatural, they're superhuman, they're a, form of deity, but they're not the deity. You know, they were considered to be gods.

I'm going to read this in the Old Testament. They had knowledge that surpass humans, but they weren't the deity. And they acknowledged here when he said, have you come to destroy us? Which means they get it, that he's more powerful than they are. And in the Luke 8th passage with the pigs, the first word is, have you come to? you have you come to torture us? Now, I'm not real sure what that means, but in both cases, they knew who he was,

and in all cases that you read, they quickly knew who he was, and they showed that he had more authority and power over them. So in the Luke 8 pastures, they said, don't throw us in the abyss, which seems to imply that was what the torture, which these, you know,

I read what people think, these scholars, they're like, well, he just meant throw them in the pigs that would then go into the lake, and you can make a case that the lake was the abyss,

but, you know, I ain't buying that. I think he meant, they meant the abyss, as in like a bottomless pit, whatever hell is described that. Because the question is, once they're in the pigs,

and they're, the pigs are drowned, so the pigs are dead, but what would that do to a spirit unless there was something that went on simultaneously? Well, they wanted a body. Right. They can't express themselves without a body. So that leads me to the question before we get into overtime

and we'll discuss this next time, what is a demon? So you would think that would be easy to answer, but the more I studied, the more I look, oh, my goodness. You know, there's a lot. there's a lot but one of the books i remember when i read as a teenager was uh or maybe a little older was seeing the unseen by joe being yeah we would probably been in our 20s when that came up yeah yeah so i went back and read it and uh boy it was very convincing he and i really recommend that if you're going to be with us through the study uh of luke you can get get that book every everybody

sells that because joe beam is the author. Joe Beam, seeing the unseen, and he asserts that demons are the wicked dead, the spirits of the wicked dead back on earth. Right. And made a pretty powerful argument based on scripture and old writings and historian writings. Because they're different from angels. I mean, there's no doubt. There's something different than that. He did assert that. Yeah. So we'll discuss. that moving forward. Yep. That'd be good.

They were there. Are they here? Well, that's what we're going to get into. That's what we're going to get into. That's the question. We're going to give you the answers and the options, and then you make up your own mind. So if you want to, we'll talk a little bit more about this in overtime. BlazTV.com slash Unashamed is where you get our bonus material.

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