Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 725 | Phil & Jase Have a Yearslong Argument & How Phil Changed Burly’s Life

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

The famous Burly finally makes his first “Unashamed” appearance! He has been present for some of the longest-lasting arguments about duck blinds and hunting dogs, and he’s ready to put it all out there! Phil recounts the way he ministered to Burly’s father early on and how that affected Burly’s walk with Jesus. Jase recalls the time he used to work for Burly as a roofer and how Burly was able to master his hot temper thanks to Jesus’ influence, and the guys put together all the pieces on how Burly and his family fit into the Robertson family.  In this episode: Luke 10, verses 17-18; Matthew 10, verse 32; Romans 1, verse 16 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashamed. And we've talked about this before. We record a couple of podcasts in one setting. So to the listener, you're listening. There's a day maybe in between. But we're doing it right here, one after the other. And so we just had Joe Beam on our podcast talking about spiritual warfare and specifically the story in Luke chapter 8 about the demon. Moniac that Jesus cast all the demons out of. All I can say is, wow. My mind is still, I'm somewhere in between reeling and, you know, man, there were just so much more I wanted to talk about. We couldn't deal with it all. Well, really, after we finished that, I was just talking to him off air and was like, look, I really believe God chose you to be a lightning rod for all our questions on this. and he seemed humble.

And because a lot of, you know, these issues that you come across, there's really no answers definite. And because it's just what people theorize. And all you've got to do is go read what all the scholars say about Luke 8, this whole section. And you're not going to find agreement on all the issues, which is why I wore this shirt today. I was like, my wife's coming home, and we're going to talk about demon possession.

So I need to break out the I could be wrong shirt. And Phil is added on the back, but I doubt it. No, but, I mean, it was hard to limit the questions to him to a handful of questions because there's a lot, even in this section. He mainly gave an overview, and so a couple of questions I asked him was one, you know, in the middle of Luke 8, and just to kind of review what we read, I mean, Jesus is going along, explaining the kingdom of God, and multiple times it says he's driving out evil spirits and casting out demons, and even in the next couple chapters, he's going to give that ability to, you know, his apostles. And they come in and they were the euphoria over having that

ability, you know, in Luke 10, it caused excitement. Yeah. And they're like, you know, Lord, even the demons submit to us. That's in 10, 17 of Luke. And then Jesus gives this famous reply like, well, look, he replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I've given you authority to trample over poisonous snakes and to overcome the power of the enemy.

Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirit. submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And so I really found that fascinating that he has all this knowledge on this, but the bottom line is, you know, Luke is doing this investigation and revealing this to reveal who has the power over this. And in the overtime, I made that illustration that Jesus, just a couple years later from this becomes this man if you walk by.

You know, they stripped him naked, they tortured him, they bound him, and they crucified him on a cross, and he was led to the tombs. And Jesus did that as the ultimate victory and triumph over evil. And so here he's showing that he has this power, because it was very comforting to me that when he said go, and you can read all three accounts of the demon-possess guy in the teams, and Matthews, there's two guys. But you just realize who has the power here. Jesus is the only person that's ever been on the planet in any manuscript that didn't have to appeal to a higher power.

And we're all familiar with exorcisms, and whether you believe this is going on or not, everyone else is having to go get a power to assist them to exercise a demon. But Jesus said, go. Kind of like he did with the storm. Peace. And this leads for us to not miss the point that Jesus is the son of God. He is who he said he is. Yeah.

And Joe makes a point about the name of Jesus when he's talking. when he's talking about how we deal with these interactions, which are rare, I think, when it comes to the imposition. But he told the story that I've told before from Acts 19 about these Jewish exorcists, the sons of Skiva, that had tried to invoke the name of Jesus, but the demons were a little too wily for that. And they said, well, we've heard of Jesus and we've heard of Paul, but we never heard of you.

And then they didn't, not only did they not leave the people, person, but they didn't beat the fire at them when they all ran out naked and bleeding. So he was making the point. It's showing time after time what the Hebrew writer said, he too shared in their humanity to Jason's point. We went through all that misery so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Right. I mean, it's life and death hanging on Jesus showing up to battle these demons. Right. Start there. Right. And I had a couple other theories that I wanted to talk about. I mean, I do have my, I could be wrong shirt on. But I think one thing that when I was studying this that Jesus was showing is that even John the Baptist in the previous chapter and his family, they were struggling with the name.

narrative of who Jesus is, the king, and the kind of kingdom he was bringing, you know, when he was talking about blessed are you and you're weak and poor? And everyone, I think, from a Jewish perspective, they were looking for the king to crush the other kingdoms. When are we taking on Rome? And, well, if you look at the details of this story, he goes kind of outside the Jewish realm here in this, because we have a bunch of pigs. Well, that tells you right there they're not in Jewish territory. Either they're not or, you know, when I read all these scholars, or someone is selling these pigs to the Gentiles,

which would technically be not kosher with the law. But, I mean, who has 2,000 pigs over there? I was over there. You know, I didn't see a pig anyway. Because it's a not, it was considered an unclean animal. And some of them to this day. wouldn't eat a pork chop or even have a pig. And my point is that instead of him going out the region

and killing a Roman as a sign that he's fixed to overthrow that regime, I think Jesus does something, that's the last thing that you're expecting, is he redeems a Gentile. in front of them. And so I think what I'm getting at is we got to be careful. A lot of times people throw evil around into groups of people where Jesus is bringing up this idea that everybody went into controversy about that there are spiritual forces

of evil out there. And with us, all we can do is love the person and hate the evil. but you can never just take whole groups of people and all of a sudden cast them off as evil and we need to go kill them. And our weapon, the best weapon we have, and you can reference that passage in Corinthians where he said the weapons we fight with

are not the weapons of the world. And I realize that wars happen to end oppression and I'm not really saying that. I'm just saying the best weapon we have is this guy who has the power, power to fix this guy. Because if you saw this guy and you believe this story is true, and he has supernatural strength, superhuman strength,

because of these demons. And no one can, you know, can bind him and control him. And Jesus, in essence, transforms him into a normal being by having this happen. well, Jesus is the greatest weapon ever. Right. He can change the worst of the worst, the evil of the evil. And so I said all that to say, I think their picture of Jesus was, Rome is oppressiveness.

Let's destroy all the Roman soldiers. Because he had just had this other instance with the centurion just a couple chapters back. He's trying to send them a message that what you think I'm going to do is not what I'm going to do. And I don't know this because the text doesn't tell us, but I'm, I've always assumed, and I'm just guessing, because again, it doesn't tell me specifically, that this guy that the demons came out of was, I've always thought he was a Gentile because Jesus didn't take him along with him, but he told him, no, you stay and you tell people what God did in your life. And I've always thought, why would he do that? I mean, most of the other people on this point, whenever something happens, they kind of follow the entourage. That's what he wanted to do. He wanted to go with Jesus.

There was a reason why he left in there to talk to people. And, you know, the Gentiles aren't going to come in fully until way down to Cornelius in Acts 10. You know, this is going to be years, 20 to 30 years after the gospel was preached in Acts 2. And so I've always thought, you know, I think Jesus left him there as a great testimony for what it happened that day. I mean, everybody knows this guy. Who hasn't been afraid? But they were more afraid in the story, Jason. We didn't get into this with Joe who would love to her what he had to say.

Why were they so afraid? If there was anybody to be afraid of, it was this crazy demoniac with over 2,000 demons in him. They were more afraid when the demons were cast out because it says they came and they heard what happened and they were afraid. Well, because they were in the presence of God. It goes back to what we were talking about in the last podcast. And they asked Jesus to leave. Yeah. And don't get the wrong idea about, you know, groups of people do rise up and.

do atrocities. You know, we all know what happened, you know, with the, with Hitler and the Germans and the, you know, they're murdering millions of people, the Jews that were even talking about. But a lot of people drop their atheistic views when that happened because they deemed that people could not be that evil without some kind of evil forces in there. And I agree with that. Yeah. When you start thinking about how evil shows itself, and even you look in a world today, even you see it on the streets where people just have random acts of violence and all. Yep. I mean, don't close your mind to the presence of evil. And I love what Dr. Joe said in the overtime about, you know, we respect it. We're not looking at it as a clans.

or something we're just laughing about and we're going to dress up, you know. And he talks about it more extensively in the book. That's the red suit and the, you know, the forked tail and the pitchfork. And that's all the sort of commercialization and like almost clown-like. Yeah, and he brought up that spiritual song about, you know, we're rolling the gospel chariot along. We talked about that for it. Yeah, well, I've always hated that, you know, and you run right over the devil. you know, and it's just, it just makes it, when you look at real life and the lying and the

murdering and the altar of the thinking and the futility that we read in Ephesians 4, look, we're in a spiritual war. Yep. And you read these stories like this, and I know it's hard to learn and understand all the details, and if the Lord wanted us to know exactly what was going to transpire and how this all works, he would have laid it out there for us. But there's no doubt that there is an evil presence. and there's no doubt that Jesus is victorious and has an authority over it.

I mean, that is us as human beings our best weapon. Right. So we respect that and we take comfort in it. So a couple of things before we go to break. One is I'll mention the book again, Seeing the Unseen, Joe Beam. It's a fantastic, it's a detailed study, but it's not written at a level that you can't grab it. But he does do a really good job with all of spiritual warfare. and including the story that we've been talking about in Luke chapter 8 is in there.

And also Marriage Helper.com is where you go for the marriage work they're doing, which is incredible. And we talked about that on the last podcast. I think one of the reasons why we talked about this with Joe, that his stuff is so good, he hasn't written a lot of books. But the ones he's written are very, very good and very, very personal. And I think that's part of his success is because of his own life and his own over- for coming in what happened to him and he goes into that in his books which I think is powerful. In that vein, so we got a guest on today, another guest on our podcast.

And I think practicality and story go along with this guy perfectly well. And a lot of you have been asking me because I've gotten several emails over the last year. When are you going to have Burley on? Because we talk about Burley quite a bit on the podcast. He's one of our entourage that's here. But other than I think one picture of him going in front of a deer cam where he looked like Sasquatch out in the woods, we've never seen Burley. So we're going to actually get a look and a conversation with Burley because I think in this vein and context of talking about spiritual warfare, his story and how he came to Christ is pretty amazing and continuing what he does as well. So we're going to take a break.

We come back on the other side of the break. We're going to let Unashamed Nation meet Burley and hear his story. Welcome back to Unashamed. of shame. Burley, welcome to the lair. Good to be here. This is actually your old bedroom. It is. You were the only one that lived here for like a hunting season over several seasons. So you actually lived in this space. I kind of homesteaded this place and I got run out. We ran him out so we could build a podcast studio. Or as Phil's always said, Burley.

There's a lot of funny stories involving you, which I'm not sure. sure of why that is. And look, I'll give you some breaking news here. Burley actually used to be my boss. I did. Remember that? And Willie. And Willie.

I hadn't heard that. Oh, I worked for Burley. Where? Here in town. I mean, back when we had no money, and I was trying to buy myself and figure out what I was going to do. I'm not sure, really, how we got hooked up. Well, it was, we were roofing.

Yeah, that's what we were doing. The big hellstorm. Okay. I'd just obey the gospel. Yeah. That's what it was. Run around with Kurt Rider. I had a roofing business going on.

Because you were a construction guy, you're a carpenter. I mean, Burley can do anything. The thing about Burley is the man is the jack of all trades. I mean, you could always build stuff and do stuff. None of us can never do. Well, the reason you're here now, because you moved to Colorado. How long ago did you move to Colorado? 18 years ago.

Well, it seemed like you never left because you really didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I just come back every year. and go duck hunting. So Burley has this, we have this weird relationship. I'm the guest that never left. Yeah.

That explains most of the children on her family. So he was raised here. You were brought to the Lord, which we'll get into that later. So you move away because you found, you know, your wife is spectacular. We love Miss Rose. A rose among thorns. She is. She is my dream woman.

She's amazing. And it testifies to the evidence of God that she said yes. So she was young I could say it the same about you People do That's why we have this in common Maybe that's why I took a job with But you came

I did not know that you and Willie weren't for Bernie This is this is breaking news to me And I'm the family historian Somehow this slipped by me I never knew this I'm very appreciative of it Because it showed me We all work for Mac too at some point

Except for Jayes It showed me in life That I need to do something else Besides this It made me appreciate future jobs. I put you on the right track to get out of construction business. Yeah, it was rough.

It was a rough job. Roofing in Louisiana, especially in the summer. I mean, I watch guys that do it, and I think, man, you're talking about rough. You get up on top of that hot roof because it's hotter there than any other place and you got that stuff that they, that heat stuff that holds up. Well, let me finish, though, the arrangement with. So you moved to Colorado, but you've always duck hunted with us. because your dad did.

And so all of a sudden you just, I don't know how you made that arrangement with your wife, but you basically come here for, what, three months? Three months. Three months every year. So, which I think there's a couple that my theory is, is that Ms. Rose is like, I need a break. She's happy to see me go. No, yeah.

No, she wants to see me go. Yeah. But then she's happy when you come home. Yeah. No, Rose is great. And she definitely have to talk to her. She's definitely, yeah, y'all keep burly down there. And the reason you're here now is because you're building a duck blind.

We had a problem that developed last year in duck season, which was our best spot for the ducks turned out to be where we have the worst blind. And it's mainly, you know, Phil had an idea that we were going to put a pit blind in the woods and hunt this spot. But the beavers tried to build a house there and the mud got in there because this pit was under the ground. And it's real tight. And the older everyone is getting, I'm not going to mention any name. But it literally become impossible to sit in this blind. and be comfortable.

32 inches is how wide it is. Yeah, 32 inches. Just think about that. Some of us are wider. So when you buy a pair of blue jeans, do they still have the little waist size? They do. Well, there's, we got 32. 32 been a while since we've been.

I'm probably the only person that's still wearing a 32. Well, that is again now. 32. The blind. The blind saved us. for hunting a good hole because the ducks started moving up there to go down. It's probably about a 10-acre opening in the woods. Over there right now, if you drove up next to it and looked.

It's beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful. Burles said pictures today, yeah. Yeah, he did. I was going through those earlier. It looks beautiful. That whole thing is, it's a... Smart wean.

Smartweed. Oh, that's beautiful. Pink smart weeds. You got pink and then you got the white. But this is all pink. So it's really, really the best duck food you could have. Well, it's right there in the middle of this thing. So Burrell's trying to lift us slightly a little higher than standing in the little bit of water.

But as far as comfort and all, we have more comfortable blinds. But I wouldn't have done what they're now doing. Here we go. See, this has been a three-year argument. doing it. Merle's at the head of it, so. But Phil, every time. They're set to wait until dad retired from the blind.

Phil's going to defend his blinds to the death, and we've figured that out. But the problem is when the scout. It served as well. The scout says we need to go hunt there, which I'm the scout. Yep. And Phil's defending this blind, but when we're hearing practical conversations in duck season, No one will pick to go to that spot because it's so uncomfortable. But when they do, they kill more ducks.

There's been a lot of ducks kill there. Very good. I can speak to that myself. This one will be, this is more comfort. We are getting little age now. The duckman crew is getting older and some of us wider than 32 inches. Well, and this blind didn't have a roof. You know, it will now.

Oh, I remember. So if it's raining. We'll be able to hunt it when the water gets a little higher. we've been going under water just had to be standing there and hit boots but now it's be up about another three foot so but maybe two foot off the ground yeah so burley brought had brought that to the operation the ability to be able to construct things which was helpful yeah that was his end yeah and he can build duck blinds which is very useful to what we do so when burley was younger he bore a striking resemblance when his hair was dark and his beer was dark to Randall Tex Cobb, the old kickboxer.

Remember that, dad? Because we would always say, look, this Randall Tex Cobb. And so that opened the door for Burley to be a part of the early Duckman video series, New Christian. And so some of our people are a long time back. You remember Duckman 2, Duckman 3, all those early videos. So Burley is on there. And you always just kind of had that persona.

It was kind of the Randall Texcob. That's what you used to call you back in the day. That's what he said. Well, tell us how your dad, you know, got you involved with us. Because I think that was really the bridge, I guess. It was. Dad, he played football at the University of Oklahoma. And he was just a wild man.

And won a national championship, right? Two national champions. He was All-American. He was there when they won 47 straight. They only lost one game. He was that old coach at that time? Wilkerson. Bud Wilkerson.

Yeah, yeah. A legend. So dad was just a wild, you know, whiskey drinking, woman chasing, bar room brawling football player. He met my mom at a bar, knocked her up, married her. Here along comes to my little sister, big sister. And then me. well he was still gambling and fighting and drinking and married to my mom and she said it's either my way or the highway something's got a chat his dad was an alcoholic and but his mother you know

lester heart my grandma she was going to church and that only thing he needed to do was go to church with grandma now was this still in oklahoma it was still in oklahoma so he sat down with a preacher old weldon flanagan shared a gospel with him baptized him. And then he started taking my little sister to church. Well, Mama stayed home with me watching him because she didn't trust him because he's lying, sneaking around, gambling, drinking, you know. She wanted to see if it was real.

I would imagine about three months passed and she got me and brought me and she sat down with the same preacher, shared the gospel. She was baptized and they never looked back three days a week. You know, they're in the church. That's all I remember. Yeah. And when Phil showed up in about 76, maybe, with y'all, a little rag-tag family. Yeah, with his conversion.

So what got him to West Monroe? I don't know that I've ever ever asked you that. Just business or? He was selling tire. He's a salesman. He runs his mouth. You don't think he'll sell anything. He's great.

You look you right now and sell you a used car. Oh, yeah. Big boy. thing to do. So he wanted to start the furniture mark, Alton Howard. Okay. He got him to come and kind of join up with him and Gibson's was next door and Pigley Wiggly and Gibson's.

We had a lot of business owners in our church. And then, of course, Howard Brothers, you know, and then, of course, Howard Brothers, you know, turned into Walmart eventually. So we came and I was in the second grade. And, you know, when I was about in the 10th grade, you showed up. at the church building where me and my family was sitting. And, of course, we didn't know what to do with you. He was the first alcoholic we had come up and admit it.

Yeah. You know. Right out of the world. But you found my daddy, big boy and Tommy Powell and a few others who came out of the same lifestyle and you saw that it could be done. So the ironic part is my dad mentored Phil. Yep. But I wouldn't listen to my dad because, you know, I didn't believe what he'd said, you know.

Yeah. I thought he was the dumbest man on the planet. And then Phil mentored me, you know, 10 years later when I was ready to come to the Lord. I remember when I got out of college playing football at OU, we went up to Moss Lake. We got in a big Cypress Tree Blind and we spent a weekend up there. And I don't remember you preaching to me, but I do remember you loving me. And so he earned that right to speaking to my life 10 years later when I was. I was ready.

Yep. And, of course, dad, you know, he hunted and fished. You know, y'all did a lot of stuff together, a lot of tails. Oh, yeah. I think the most memorable one was the, when he was trying to get in down here, and he brought the ham, a big ham, because he knew he couldn't just show up, my ask you, duck hunting. No one comes empty-handed.

Just think about it. If I have a clock in the morning, knock on the door, I opened the door, and his daddy was standing there with a ham under his arm he came early I said what's he got here

he said I want a duck hump with y'all and I got a whole ham with me I said well come on then well the next morning at five o'clock he's a salesman next morning at five o'clock

I opened the door he was standing there with another ham I said let's go duck on well three days days later, knock on the door, he's standing there with another hand. I said, I said, big boy, let me explain something to you. I like the ham, but get off the ham.

Bring something else. We need some variety. I done got burned out on that ham. I said, hey, you can go. You don't have to have a ham. His mind was, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's so funny now because Burley is in charge. He brings, he got that from his head.

Snacks. Even to this day, he still does it. He always has a bucket of snacks and foods and berries. But you have a lot better selection. Yeah, I mix it up a little bit. I learned. Well, going down the line, if somebody forgot their coffee or something, you know, or some grub, Burrell was your man.

He had canned sardines, little snacks, little paper things, you know, twinkies. He had all kind of stuff, always. You know, among Dunkin, that's an important guy. Well, yeah, because you get out there, you're hungry, you know. You need something. So, Burley, your dad, I don't know, I think I've told you the story before, but he had a huge impact on me because when Jason I went to preaching school and then I wound up working with the church and I'd never really done anything else before.

And so he'd come up and spend time with me and just, you know, visit and talk a lot about it. And then he knew we didn't have any money, and especially we were just starting out ministry. and now he was doing pretty well in the insurance business by this point. And, you know, he, so he set us, me and Lisa, up with a life insurance policy, and he paid it for us. Well, through all of that. You know, I mean, he offered not only did he set it up, but he said, and I'm going to pay for it for you as my gift to you for making a decision to go into full-time ministry. The barrow went through the stage of carpentry and roofing and all that, but he also went to nursing school. and I know it sounds funny

because people will be looking here, you know, but this man right here is a registered nurse. And I've long said, if you're in a coma, they put you to sleep and, you know, for operation and they open their eyes with burles standing over you like that.

It's that, you'd think you'd go on to hell, see? He had that look as a registered nurse, standing over the patient, but they're thinking, what are they saying? Because you're a travelinger's now. What do they say when you come in?

Do you get a few strange looks from a... I've been sending out of the room before just on site. But once they know me, they love me. Yeah. But I think I look more like maybe the Archangel Michael than Lucifer himself. That's right. Well, we just were talking about that the last couple of podcasts.

That is amazing that you can find a job looking the way you do in that field. Well, I can say the same. Looking around the table, that's right. Where do you think the look came from? Well, most people listen to this podcast because I have a face for radio. Which is kind of funny. No, yeah, Burley, again, he continues on that. So I want to talk about your conversion itself.

Before we do that, let's take a break. So what I remember, Burley, was when you mentioned that 10-year period, you went off. You kind of were like me. You spent some time in the world trying to figure things. out and that of course becomes a dead end and when you came back um i guess you were just out of college or just around college age but you showed up with this little guy that he's still around he's called little b he's about he's a miniature person it's very small and uh he his name is brad we used to call him little b and it was burly and little bie what ever happened to him he's around he's up

he's in that duck commander bob will one of his His story. His story. So the first time I really met, I mean, we kind of were around each other, but then you were gone for a while. So when you came back, my first memory of you was being with Little Beans. So y'all pulled up together. And I guess somebody sent you out to talk to Dad or something.

I don't know. But tell a little bit of the story about how you end up with, you were kind of the original Mutt and Jeff, because you're a big man. He's a little bitty guy. But y'all ran together. Well, before you do, I met Brad. at Westboro High School. And the only reason I remember him

is because he was in trouble all the time. And I remember the night that you brought him down to Phil's house and I was there. When he walked in the door, because at this stage of my life, I didn't realize that anyone, really, you know, God can reach anyone.

I mean, we're in this story in Luke 8 with Jesus repairing a guy who's got a legion of demons in it. Yeah. But I remember looking at my dad saying, this guy, he ain't going to do it. Let me just tell you. He was in so much trouble and just such a foul mouth and just off the charts at high school. Everyone knew who he was.

He kind of had the little man syndrome because he was a little guy, so he kind of made up for it by having a rooster attitude. I didn't know if you knew that, but I was going to remind you that. Oh, I knew it. that I had to repent after because then you can tell the story. Yeah. Well, you have worldly friends. Yep.

And it's because they got something that you want. Well, he had good weed. So he was my buddy, you know. So we would go to the bars together. And he, I would tell everybody, I said, that little dude there, he's my bodyguard. Don't mess with me. Or he's going to, you know. Yeah.

Because you're like, what, six, five, two, 40 or. You're a job. You had been playing college football. Oh, no, you. You're a big guy. And he's, you can put him in your pocket. He's about five, four, yeah. You could put him in one of your pockets. But he would go over and start stuff, and then he'd point at me,

and he would say, that's my bodyguard. You know, like, okay. So, you know, I promised mom that I'd go to church, and you've got to keep your promises to mom. Yeah. So I show up at White's Ferry Road, and I'm in the parking lot, and there's a field. He says, what about it, Dane?

You know, we've been duck hunting before, you know, And he was running with my dad. And he said, let me ask you a question. Do you love God? And I said, well, to myself, what kind of question is that? And I said, well, sure I do. So he broke his Bible out and he read 1st John 5.3, This is love for God to obey his commands.

And his commands are not burdensome. He said, what about it? Do you love God? And I said, not according to that. I don't. I said, don't get me confused with a hypocrite. I'm only here because I promised Mama. Yeah.

I said, I'm not even pretending to obey his commands. But I love God. He said, no, you don't. You don't love him. Actually, you hate him. And if you hate him, you're his enemy. Well, I was fissing to fight in the parking lot, but I knew Mom wouldn't like that.

So that made you mad. He probably would win, so. Yeah. It made me mad. But I believe the Bible, and it made me think. So I started showing up. I started coming out to the house to house church, brought Brad with me. Of course, we smoked a pot on the way, you know, and on the way back and just, and, but I had

been on a decade of debauchery, about a 10-year run, and I was ready. I mean, I was nowhere to go but up. It always takes a train wreck to get your attention, and I was there. Yeah, the little guy, what was his name? be yeah Brad he said finally after they left one night he said instead of breaking out the weed and smoking it they threw it out the window threw it out the window kept going that was the that was the sign yep and and both y'all came around around the same time right i mean you both made that decision we did i had a 12 year old conversion kind of like you did you know i was about

It didn't take. Yeah, me too. And when I was 29, you know, I kept hearing people hear the gospel and coming to them. And life's changing. And I hung around for three months before I could finally figure out that that didn't take. And I didn't have God's spirit because I had no power. I couldn't quit smoking pot. Yeah.

And so one day we were coming back from Alexander. And, you know, we were doing a little house church down there. And I was a prideful man. you know like most people and i said phil i got a good friend of mine he was 12 when he was baptized and now he's trying to you know get it get it on and and just don't know if that baptism took or not you know no power no holy spirit i said what do you think about that guy and and of course i was talking about myself but i couldn't even yeah you were disguised in it yeah phil said bird of ye he's son you need to you need to be baptized you know i said well you know there's a potho

right up there let's stop he said calm down yeah come down in the house tomorrow we'll we'll look at the verses write them down you'll have no doubt bring you a change of clothes and that was april 27th 1988 wow 89 89 good night and so nine 2009 and 2009 don't start doing the math it's going to make it i was i just graduated high school two years 33 yeah yeah i was that was uh i was uh just got married, started working for the church. So, Bertie, you were a part of that era then when we were going down to Elek and the riders and all that. So you mentioned them earlier.

It was really interesting because it was a group of people, a bunch of them kind of came to Christ at the same time, but they were all about an hour and a half from here. And so it was where they all lived. But they would come up on Sundays and meet with us, and then we would drive down there. But then they were bringing all their friends into a house church type setting. Right. And so we were leading a lot of people to Christ. There's still quite a few.

Oh, yeah, they're all great. One was here the other day, was it? Kurt was here the other day? Kirk, yeah. So that was an interesting and fun era because, you know, everything was, we were just hitting people. I mean, what a great time to come in to Christ, you know, when all that was going on. We had our own recovery group. We didn't need to celebrate recovery, because we had her own little recovery group.

That's right. That's right. And which ultimately, by the way, and anybody in Sierra, I'll tell you this. If Jesus isn't in charge of your recovery, then you're in the wrong business because he has to be the one. You've got to have people by your side. Exactly. But it's even the principle when Jesus, you know, we were studying Luke, when his mother and brothers had showed up because they thought he would gone crazy because he's forgiven people of their sins. And he was giving you that picture of what the family of God is. and it is in homes.

You know, I tell people all the time, you rarely find, you know, Jesus in the church building. It's usually through those relationships and the conversations that happen. And just like, you know, my dad was telling you, come down to the house. Right. And it evolves because it's way harder to live for Jesus on the way to the house and on the way to the church building and out in the world. And even in that business we had,

You know, I was, I think I was going to the school. Yeah, in 89. We went to 88 to 9. Right in that time, which maybe that Rufan drove me to the school of, preaching. The seminary, yeah, because, boy. Crawfishing and Ruffin will send you right. But I just remember seeing you as a young brother.

And even though you were older than me, I was, I was older in the faith. Right, yeah. And, you know, I just remember that day when everything went wrong. You left to try to get a job somewhere, you know, another roofing job and all your workers. They, which I was the destruction crew, so it wasn't my fault. But they had put, we had roofed the house like backwards. And it's like all the shingles were upside down. Hang on, let's take a break.

And so when Bernie. Out of all the things you want to do backwards, roofing is not what up. You basically put the shingles on backwards and Burley showed up and I was the only one there for some reason and he's, it was a fit of rage. Me with a shovel. I don't know if you remember that, but you were almost, you know, it reminds me of this superhuman strength of some kind of demon coming up. Because he was taking two bundles at a time, which those things are. heavy yeah and he was just throwing them across the rich and just ripping it off like i was like this guy is so mad and he's such a big fella that i'm not this may be the old man returning

i don't know if you remember that it was the only time and you were using four letter word i mean you were kind of sort of apoplectic you just lost it that was the old me trying to come back well it was but it led to a good conversation i mean you know because at the end of the day it wasn't because I said anything, you just kind of stopped. I don't know if you remember the details, and you're like, you know, I'm not going to be this way. And it, but because it was clearly understood. I mean, I don't know what that cost you, but it pretty much,

you lost money on that because we had to go buy the, not only did we do it upside down, it ruined everything. And then he had to go, had to do it again, basically. So I don't know, Burley, if it's because of your, own conversion experiences or what. But one thing I've noticed about you just in our kingdom work together, because even though you moved away, you've always still been a part of us, as we described earlier. You've always had an ability to talk to anybody.

We had a guy in here a couple of days ago that was around, and he told us his story. And you were one who just, you saw him, you noticed, and you impacted. And that's happened a lot through the year. So you think that's just something, is it because of your own past and being delivered? Or what gives you that? Because a lot of people don't look at people as an opportunity to then help them and show them. Jesus, a lot of people avoid people or whatever, you know, but you have that ability. And you always have.

And even some of the tougher cases, you know, some of the ones that are a little bit, they're struggling with some, you know, either demons or, you know, their own sinfulness. But you've always had an ability to bring calm into that situation. I've noticed. Just in everybody, all of us have a role here, but that seems to be one of yours. Where do you think that comes from? I mean, why do you have that? Well, if you've been down that road, you know, all things happen for the good, for those who love the Lord. I heard Mack Owen say one time, every hurt, every habit, every hang up that you overcome,

needs to become a ministry to help others. And you do that with families with children with special needs and you. and Lisa with marriage and pro-life and all that. So, you know, if you've been down that road, you can have some empathy, some sympathy for those people. But, you know, I've seen him do it over and over and over. Well, all of us need to remember what Paul said to the Corinthians. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, which we all are,

We all talk about our journeys for our faith from years back. He's a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. All this is from God who reconcile us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, and this is the text, the words,

not counting men's sins against them. He has committed us the message of reconciliation. So although we all struggle, we all make mistakes, the great news is God doesn't count our sins against us. We just get up and keep plowing forward. That's right. I thought about before, though, I think your skills of being a nurse,

I think you get that one of the, and I've thought about this, I've never shared this with you before, but you know we always break down the qualities that the spirit gives us you know the fruit of the spirit the fruit of spirit love joy peace patience well gentleness is in there yeah well when you look at a guy like burly i mean i make a joke all the time that one of the benefits of looking like i do is that people don't try to mug me same here oh you're you would be the last person on the planet I mean, number one, because they don't think you have anything, just looking like you do.

But, too, I mean, who's going to take it? He's a big guy. He's a big guy. And lately, I'm not seeing him without a pistol on his body. Yeah, well, he doesn't need the pistol. So I feel better about running with him because there's a shootout ensues. I always got old barrel to lean back on it. But my point is, it shows you, it's almost that shows you God convicts people in

that, you know, I was so wrong about Brad because I had met him from a distance. Yep. And I was like, no way. And I'm sure people said the same thing about Paul. And then when you see your life, our me, our dad. But even in Burley's case, I mean, his talent is gentleness. And it shows you that it's a fruit of the spirit, which is, you know, it's borderline. You're thinking it's almost a miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit.

which it's not. So gentleness and patience, I would add in there. I mean, that's the way that you hounder yourself early is that. And that's what I see in people. And, you know, people working with people is a messy business, you know, because people are a mess. And I think people that have been delivered as a mess do turn that into that message you're talking about. And so I think that served you well. And I know it has in the medical side because that's another case where,

people are afraid. They're scared. You know, they're sick. Something's wrong with them. And, you know, again, a lot of times a doctor or somebody will come in and just, this, this, that, and the other. And they're harsh with these people. But you have a way of being gentle. And again, I think it surprises them because they look at it.

They're like, oh, no, this guy. Yeah, but that makes sense. That's why they love you once they get to know. It makes sense when it's the fruit of the spirit. Absolutely. I remember having that awe. Where Burley works, he's the one they call in when they have an irate person He has a calming effect.

They're tearing up the hospital room. They call Burl in and football takes over and, you know, it's... Well, I mean, physically you can handle it, which is another reason why nurses, me and nurses are great, right? Because that's a physical job. You're moving people around. Have you ever had a scuffle with them? Yeah, but more times than not, I'm able to spiritually take care of them than physically, you know.

But sometimes you have to. I remember a couple verses, you know, when you shared the gospel with me, one of the first ones was Romans 116 where we get the name of this podcast. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. And when we got done with the Bible study, the very last one you shared with me

was in Matthew 10, 32, whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my father in heaven.

So I knew that I had to go public with Jesus from the get-go. I couldn't be ashamed of the gospel. And that's one reason I'm so ready to talk to people. But to me, to disown him would mean just keep my mouth shut and don't say nothing. Bodies, you know, like Brad came over and he said, I got some good weed. You want to smoke it? And I could have said, no, I think I'm just, this stuff's bad for you. I'm just going to quit.

And I said, I got something. better than that. He said, what's you got? Yeah, better than we. Let's take a look. Let's take a look. I said, I got Jesus. He's like, he was putting it up. He's like, and that's how I acknowledge Jesus. If I just shut up and said, no, I think I'm just going to quit. I would have disowned Jesus. I like that. That's good. And that goes back to the idea if he's not ashamed of us either. So we're out of time. Burley, it's always a pleasure to have you around. It's great to finally get you on the podcast. We've got our overtime segment, so I want to have a little more discussion. one of the things I didn't get to bring up, I want to ask you about Blue, Dad's Dog, because

we've had many debates on this podcast in the early days, especially about Blue versus other dogs. And so you've got some updates on that. So I want to talk about that, as well as just this idea of what we do together as Kingdom Workers. So again, thanks for being on. If you want to follow us over for overtime, it's blazedtv.com slash Unashame for more with Burley Jennings. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. 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 blazed tv at blazedtv.com slash unashamed.