Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 815 | Phil Rolls His Eyes at Uncle Si’s Nudist Nonsense & Missy Gets ‘Weepy’ over Jase’s Legacy

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Phil can’t help but be amused and exasperated by young Uncle Si’s wacky antics back in the day, and Missy and Jase capture a moment with four generations of Silases. Al and Zach were witnesses to the “true religion” described in Luke, and the guys stress the importance of practicing generosity in your own personal life, in addition to going through a church or organization.  In this episode: Luke 21, verses 1-5; Isaiah 2, verses 1-3; Revelation 21 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Jay's went to do crickets. I mean to go, he did breaking news. That was funny, too. Here's what I think about that. That made it more fun. It made it more funny. That was funny. I knew you knew what I was trying to do. I knew what you were trying to do.

And to be honest with you, I don't know the difference anymore either, so I might have done the same thing. We're going to have to put a C on this one. Yeah. There you go. You're hard to put it on the red. It might not show up. You need a silver on there. So welcome back to Unashamed.

Jay's just trying to find a silver sharpie. Well, with fun comes responsibility, and we have two buttons. And during a commercial, I tried to make the crissom. Cricket sound, but what I actually pushed was the breaking news sound. It hit twice. So now, with the aid of... So you wrapped it up in one of our commercials to the cricket sound. Then we had breaking news, which is very confusing to us on set.

So what we're going to have to do... Quite a few buttons. One of them was engineered just to make fun of me, so I'm glad we have another one now. So we're going to get a black Sharpie and put it on the... red breaking news we're going to put B or breaking news so and on the crickets we will put a C yeah and so one day maybe we'll have the entire alphabet of sound effects well you know what's next eventually Zach we got to have a like a you know in the Scott van Pelt and those guys they have like a little computer or that has all sorts of sounds so I guess that's where we're heading yeah the

Unashamed podcast. So I will say for our keen eye observers have already noticed it, but our award from K-Love for your award for the podcast of the year for 2023 is now has its permanent place on our shelf of books and whatnots. And so there it is. Which shows you that if you work hard and people are committed and believe in what you do, which is in this case the Word of God. It is.

It is. It's being shouted to the masses. And you wait nine months. You can get an award and feel good about that. You can win it, but it takes a while to get. It's kind of like a new birth. It is. Well, it is.

And I have it for a while. Well, you got the news. Yeah. And then nine months later, you got the trophy. It's just to make sure we're humble and which we are. I didn't really anticipate even getting a trophy. I thought once they gave it to you and took it back, that that was just all it's a dog and pony show.

So they reached out. Do you know you? Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's all that matters. They reached out and said, we got it. We got the trophy. Where do you want to ship it to?

And my question was, is it real gold or not? Because that will determine whether it winds up here or with you guys. So you guys got it. So I'll let you determine if the, well, obviously they had to put our name and stuff on it because the one that you get in the thing, everybody gets the same one. And so it just is very generic. But I kind of knew that because Sadie's people had already told me that it took months

for her to get hers because she won 2022. She won the year before us. So, uh, which by the way, is, is the duck call room going to win this year? They're going to keep our streak alive because I'm not sure they're going to win impact podcast of the year unless it's some kind of heart related. physical pump. Or bowel obstruction, maybe. Yeah, I mean, somebody needs to nominate them because the award, I think, has only been around two years.

Oh, really? Does it say he win the first one? Yeah, we won the second. So the family right now is 100, we have won 100% of all. Do they have a bizarre category? The most bizarre podcast. of the year. Well, all you got to say maybe, like you said,

is impaction versus impactful. And then I just did one of their podcasts, and I thought, whoa. I've been asked to do one this coming up soon. So I'll be back. It was as about as, I mean, look, here's, you have Si, who's in his mid-70s, not that that's just a number,

but you have him leading a discussion. What's the worst thing that could happen? How could it go wrong? Yeah. What's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? But, Sai, one thing about Sai, I will say, because I told you all this about podcasts, because I remember Willie and Corey had a podcast back when the show was on.

Jeff and Jessica had one when the show was on. Of all people, Mountain Man, his is kind of more of a radio show, but it's... Well, his was for the slow listening. It was, for the slow listening. I like the music. the old country music, you have the slow, easy listening.

Well, you know his book was Life in the Slow Lanes. So, but what I noticed about it when I appeared on their podcast is I thought, this is not going to last. Because if your podcast is only about what's happening

in your life this week or some of your old stories, and look, we got a lot of stories. I've been on record saying, Jason's never going to write stories. But I thought, if you just did a podcast on that, a while, you'd probably just, the audience or you would get tired of doing it, which is what

happened to the order to podcast. That's why we wanted to do the Bible is because we're never going to run out of soap with the Bible. Never run out of material. I mean, you got to remember I'm named after Cy and over the Christmas. As is your son and now grandson. Yes, you know what was cool? I mean, look, and it made my wife cry.

We took a picture with me, Cy, and Reed. And David. And young David, Cy. Yeah, four generations of size. That's pretty cool. This he got all weepy-eyed about it. Yeah. I like that.

So, but side gave me a tip because after their podcast, I was like, who I'd like to talk to whoever put that one together because it was all just off the cuff. And he said, well, here's what you got to remember. All of a sudden he went into was the guy Miyagi. He said, here's what you got. Mr. Miyagi. He said, you go through all your story. at least twice.

He said, then you just start making them up. The best line I heard about, Si, is he said, you know, if you close your eyes and listen to Si, you'd think he's drunk. I don't know what that meant, but I found it very funny. See, even if you're open, even if your eyes are open, I think you could conclude that. Well, he's so passionate about stuff he makes up.

That's what's, I think that's his real talent is most people can't be that passionate about things that are just making up. That's why we got, it got developed out there. And what do you call it, Phil, La La Land, Internet World, whatever. Computer land. Because Si keeps saying that me and him can't get along. And all that is, is because I'm one of the few people that will call him out on some of these stories. And he's like, what, you don't like me? I'm like, no, I'm just saying that I just don't believe that you can run fast enough to where your tennis shoes will burst into flames because of the friction.

He's like, well, it happened. I mean, we can't get along. No, we can get along fine. That's the problem with him. It is real. Oh, I know. And you're like, I just always said, but I saw it from young boys. You remember when I was like 12 or 30?

He was going to school butt naked. Yeah. His mother said, get in there and get them clothes on. Well, she had to tear his butt up for him to put clothes on. This is when he was in kindergarten and first grade, I guess. That's right. Yeah. But what we all know about side, the audience doesn't hardly know, a little bit maybe when he's on our podcast,

is there's a real, like, sensitive side to side and a serious side as well. And you don't see it that often, but it's really... He's a very godly man. He is extremely godly man. Is that when y'all knew there was a problem when he didn't wear clothes the first couple of years of school? Because I've never heard of that before. Nobody considered a problem.

They just considered size. I think if I'm in kindergarten and one of my classmates comes in nude, I'm thinking somebody needs... I bet he never actually made it into the schoolhouse that way, but yeah, I'm sure that's... Well, I don't know. I mean, that's... I've heard that story a million time. I have heard him.

say, dad and sigh say that, you know, looking at our family and sort of our family history, maybe it wasn't a good idea to run along behind the mosquito fogging truck that ran through the piney woods of northwest Louisiana. No, no, later, that it's fatal. I said, well, I don't know about fatal, but it can show on, get you on. It was a cool breeze back in the day. But, so, Cy, apparently, because I don't listen to the duck hall room, I try to listen every once in a while, but I don't listen to enough episodes, I guess.

But apparently our people, because we have the same people who are producing our podcast, tell me that size is a big fan of my preaching, which I know that because, you know, he's a big talker during my sermons. So he defends me and takes up for me, whereas the others just like to make fun of me. No, I'm a big fan of your preaching, and I'm a big fan of size commentary while you're preaching. It's good. Because it's loud.

I can hear it, but I can't hear it specifically because it's such a big room. but I can just hear a murmur going on back there in his section, and I know he's talking back. So every once in a while, I'll acknowledge it. Yeah. Well, he told me that. I was like, Sa,

why don't you just get up there? Because he does something that's socially unacceptable and that he talks really loud during your sermon. And you can't really understand what he's saying because he's doing it loudly. And he's like, no, I don't like microphones. And so I thought he was kidding with that. But the few times that I've seen him get up, he stood like 12 feet from the microphone. And everybody was like, he doesn't like microphones.

So that's why they have one of these things like Phil has on his head. Right. They had to get him a headset because he never talks into the microphone. And he's always making a lot of racket. He beats on things. He's a noise maker. He is. But one of the things that was good that people said about the movie,

be seeing that part of side and represented there was they got to see a side of them. They didn't know. So that's good. We need to have him back on again for long because he loves doing Bible study with us because they don't do a lot of that on the other podcast. So we'll have to get him back home soon. Zach, you can make that happen. You're the big boss.

I guess we'll get back to into Luke. We left off talking in Luke 21 about the widow. And we kind of led up to it in the last. podcast in the overtime statement, we kind of got into a lot more depth. Yeah, practical. I mean, because he's introducing what the kingdom is going to look like on earth. Yeah. You know, when he prayed, Lord, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

You know, we, we're unashamed of saying that we believe as spirit-filled people, we're representing heaven, even though we're earthly. Yeah. which is an idea of what the temple was all about. And so what that looked like, post-resurrection, him going to the right hand of God, the spirit coming out in Acts 2, I read Chapter 3 of Acts and Chapter, no, chapter 2 of Acts and chapter 2, where the very issue that's come up with these widows, with the outsiders, with people in need,

with the poor, those who have experienced injustice, all the people that Jesus seemed to be taking a lot of time with in showing what the kingdom would look like, and even in his sermons talking about, what we call the beatitudes, and in Luke 6, you have this blessed or the poor, and those who cry and those who hunger, and those who are insulted,

all this oppression, what you see actually in the acts of the church in chapter 2 is that all the believers had everything in common. They were fellowshiping. They were breaking bread. They were praying. But they were sharing their possessions and they were giving to anyone who was in need. And that's Acts 2, 42 through 47. and then again in Acts 4, 32 through 35.

And then we brought up Acts chapter 5 where here we had a couple who were rich saying they were going to donate their money to people in need, but they lied and kept some of it. They were. They were more interested in how they were perceived and viewed than they were in their heart of giving. And Peter even told them, because they both died over the incident. I mean, it was a terrible, awful thing for the early church. It said the church was seized with fear and who wouldn't be, right? But the reason why is because Peter was saying, we don't want to go back to what Jesus was talking about before,

where it's all about how you look and what you want people to say, look at me, I'm a big giver. And so, like, that was the reason I believe that God treated it so harshly as he did in that setting. And then we also talked about Acts 6, which was another situation where you had Greek widows and Jewish widows, and the people weren't being fair because, you know, they were looking down. So we were talking about the widows being the lowest on the socioeconomic days,

and even the lowest point of widows, there's a lower widow than the other widow, because the Greek widows were looked at as lower than the Jewish widow. So we made the point from Luke 19 to Luke 21. He said, this is what you are doing in the temple, and this is what the temple should. look like, which is him, himself doing all this work, including everybody, no matter how they're viewed, the outsiders, the oppressed, the afflicted. And then now we get to 21-5, and he's talking about

what's going to happen to this physical temple in Jerusalem. to this structure. Let's take our first group. And I want to mention two things, Jay, before we moved into the next phase, because you set it up perfectly. But a couple of things about this text. One is, I was struck in how that out of all the things Jesus was observing in the temple, we know he came in at the beginning of the section and flipped it up because he was like, you come in here, you're a den of robbers, you know, he was upset. But he noticed this situation with the widow and the rich people and their motivations. And that tells you something about God in general is that he notices our hearts and what's behind our motives, whether it's a good thing or whether it's something that appears to be good and is not.

And that's sobering when you think about it that Jesus would notice this moment. Because I have to think about it, these folks that were giving this money out of their wealth. It wasn't like he was saying it's bad to give. I mean, that's a good thing, what was going to anything for good. but it was something about their motivation. They could have dropped these two coins that this widow gave, and it was all she had, and they wouldn't have even noticed they dropped it. It'd be like you dropping a couple of pennies as you're getting out of your truck.

She's not powerful. What can that do? But he had just said that the Pharisees who love to wear flowing robes and have the best seats in the house, they devour widows' houses. So really the practical illustration of this, and I think the reason we're making such a big deal about this, is because when you look in our culture, we're now in a culture where we're allowing the government to take the lead on education, helping the poor, helping the widows, helping orphans with the foster care system. Well, you look around. Well, how's that working?

It's terrible. Terrible. And my point is, Jesus was very clear. The church should be taking the lead, and that was happening in the book of acts. Because you have the heart of Christ. That's exactly right. Even in education, I brought this up. When I was looking at all the history.

historical accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in 8070 and it happened look up the archaeology of what happened giant fire led by Rome and Titus and it was a scrap and actually the Jews set the temple on fire during the battle I mean the Romans were just trying to confiscate it and move in and take over because it was worth a lot of money and it was viewed as powerful but when you see that the Jews were scattered a lot of them were killed i tried to get an exact number but there were too many numbers i mean it was anywhere from 70 000 to 600 000 so given on who you read but it was a massive i mean shift of their whole world that's why i'm saying that because the symbolic language this is where people get the idea that maybe jesus was talking about when he appears for the final

and takes us home and everybody's waiting on some temple to be set up, some physical temple in Israel. They get that because of some of the symbolic language, but you got to remember in Jerusalem, and for that temple, this was their whole world turned upside down. I mean, they scattered to the four winds. And the church, and I'm saying people who followed Jesus, came in there doing exactly what Jesus told them to do.

helping those who had been hurt and had been injured, who had been ostracized. And they did it in the name of Jesus, believing what we believe, as spirit-filled people, we represent heaven and earth together. And we declare Jesus' name, and we look for opportunities to love all people. So I want to make this point. My other thought, before we leave this, is I've heard a lot of sermons about this, spoken in a context of giving in a church setting. But you made an interesting observation in the podcast, Jay's,

because we read James 127, which said pure religion that is faultless and pure is to help widows and to help orphans. And you made them mention that now we're the temple of God. Jesus knows this in the temple, but now we're the temple. We're the living stones of each temple. And so how many people were at Layla's wedding,

you think, in that venue? How many, was it three or four hundred people? Probably about 287 people. All right. So there was around 300 people. Probably 287? That sounds more exactly. I know how many seats we put out.

That sounds like a man he paid for that way. Can you give me an approximate number? No, I can't. As it was in two or three hundred. He said, no, was approximately 287. I would say it's around 7,762,375. I want to guess you were paying by the head. You pay the tab, and you know exactly how many people are.

So here's my observation, Zach, because Jesus observed this in the temple. And I told you guys when I was with Zach in the last podcast, a couple of podcasts ago, that it was a very spiritual, godly environment. It was beautiful from the people participating, the songs, everything. But here's something else I noticed is that there were, I don't know, out of that, 2007 people, I don't know how many were families. units, but I noticed several family units, including Zach's, when his whole family came down, had a child in that family.

Most of them were young, anywhere from, you know, a baby up until four or five years old, that obviously weren't biological from that family for different, I mean, different nationality, different race, whatever. So these, and I'm assuming, Zach, that probably 95% of the people out of that group there were believers, maybe 100%. So I noticed that. I just started looking in almost every family that were there. And I'm assuming these are friends of people I didn't know, a lot of them is some I did know. And I just thought to myself when I observed that, that I am observing this sort of giving that we're talking about that's really what we have. Because if you want to make this, you know, widows,

the widow's might as a sermon, and then you're going to end the sermon by saying, and we should all give 10% of our pre-growth salary, our net. I've heard so many sermons about this. Instead of what happens when you adopt a child and you raise that child and you pour everything you have into that child who then becomes part of your family because you love her and it's not because she's a part of the government process, then you're going to spend way more money than if you just put your giving into a percentage going into a church place.

Exactly. Why is it going to be, look. I mean, that's, isn't that what the temple giving should look like? We're sharing our lives here, and I'm not doing it in a braggy way or whatever. Needs come up. You know, I have a girl from Nicaragua that we've taken on as our daughter. I mean, she calls us mom and dad at this stage. And, you know, we've been, she's been with us for six years.

Well, I'm sure if I added up all the money, you know, that was spent, it'd probably be a pretty big, when you just acquire somebody, especially in that age. But then in the last year and a half, you know, I have a boy who was kind of born an orphan because his mom wasn't able to take care of him. But, you know, since that time, he's with his mom, which is great. It's beautiful.

And we're, you know, trying to help their family get started. But that's a year and a half. And, you know, during that, you're, you said, why are you doing this? Well, I'm doing it because I read Matthew 18, you know, where Jesus is saying, let the little children come to me and don't cause anyone to stumble. And we don't want any tales of the lost sheep,

but he does it in Matthew 18 speaking in context of little children. And he says it's his desire for none of them to be lost. And so I think when you see needs like that, the church should rise to the occasion. You do it. Yeah. And you don't care what it costs. That's it.

You don't, you don't, you're not sitting there thinking about what it calls, you know, with your kids. And, you know, we were raised not with a lot of money. And when I first got married, I had no money and my wife had no money. And we just scraped by. But I remember seeing my daughter being born and realizing that she's going to have to have a lot of surgeries. But it was so bad. And I was, as far as her physical condition, and I was just so glad she was a lot.

because there was a moment there, I thought, I'm not sure she can live as, you know, unless something is immediately done. So it really changed my perspective. And so the first five years of her life, we were in so much debt. It was just mind-boggling. And look, we didn't care because it's like,

well, that's your daughter. You don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life in debt, giving her the best care. It was not even a second thought, you know. It changed my view. about money is my point. I just thought, well, this is my daughter. Whatever it costs, it costs,

and I'll be paying this off to the grave. Of course, I had no idea that the duck show was going to take off. Which to my point is once you're willing to give and you don't have anything like this woman did, then if God is noticing, then he's going to be able to say, okay, I can trust you with a little, I can trust you with a lot,

because you're not going to lose your heart over it. Let's take another break. So that's my point is that makes a more powerful sermon to me out of that text than trying to motivate people to give to a structure of whatever is built to say, you know what, if you just live it every single day and you're willing to invest that into people, because you think about Jay's, you mentioned your situation, because you and Missy made a decision and Lisa happened to be there at the beginning of it, we felt a part of this young man's life, too.

He's like our nephew. And so to this very day, when they got their own house and it was so exciting and all that, well, guess who was over there bringing stuff from our house and stuff she had bought and made sure this little house had what it needed? Well, it was an aunt. It was, and it's not a physical blood aunt, but it's an aunt because of a forever family decision. So y'all's decision brought us in, you know. Yeah, I love this kind of line of practical application of the text because you think, man,

because I have asked this question a lot about this particular text. Why does it matter how we interpret this? Does it matter if he's talking about 80, 70, or the end times and all that? Why does it matter? I think what we're saying here is this is why it matters is because what we're proposing that Jesus is doing here is he is continuing to paint this picture that we're going to be the temple. And it's an embodied spirituality. It's not lofty that's out there that's not accessible. It's not something that can be contained in a building.

It's not something that can be contained in some physical structure that we build. It's much bigger than that. And by showing this, so why does it matter about 8070? Here's what matters. Because if that temple is coming down that they had put their hope in, in 8070, which it did, If that's what Jesus is talking about here, and we think that he is talking about that, and we go back and we look at the entire Old Testament about when God instructed the temple to be built, his purpose he said was so that I can dwell with my people.

That's 1st King 6. Exodus 25. Why did he say build a tabernacle so that I may dwell with my people? So if the purpose of the tabernacle, the purpose of the temple was that God could dwell with his people, and then that temple is coming down according to Jesus, then we have an issue, how is God going to dwell with his people? And the answer is he's going to dwell with his people

by living in them, that we will be the living stones of the temple, and God will live in us. And so the way that looks in our daily life is, you see it like that. You see Jace taking in someone into their family that he has no responsibility to take care of, but he does.

He's extending the love of Christ. It's overflowing out of them. It's out getting involved. It's a family. It's all, it's, it's what the kingdom looks like in your home, in your daily walk on the highways, on the byways. It's it's it. It's the kingdom going out. It's moving out.

And it's, and it's moving across the world in the hearts of believers, in the bodies of believers. And that is a big, big deal. Yeah. And I think to me, that's why would Luke pick this out and why would Jesus say this in, ahead of what we're about to start looking at today if it didn't matter, to your points out. It does matter. Our hearts into this matter. And so, which basically is into this next text.

I want to, before we start reading it, N.T. Wright, who we mentioned on here, is a great scholar. I've been reading this commentary long when we're doing this study. And I liked his outline. And so that's what I put down in my notes. We all keep separate notes. but he had this broken down this way in the rest of chapter 21. 5 through 19 is what he calls signs of the end of this era, which is kind of what's in the margin of your Bible.

He used basically the same thing. This is an era, and there were signs that they would know it was coming. So that's 5 through 19. Then he's going to give a prediction of Jerusalem's demise in verses 20 through 33, and he's going to specifically get into some things about this, which let us know exactly what he was pointing to. But then at the end of it, in 21 34 through 38, and this is probably the most difficult for people

because it seems broader. But Enti Wright calls it watching for the son of man, which I like the way he put that, because you can apply what he's talking about. What I believe is in this context is the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. But that would apply to any time you're looking for Jesus. We do know he's going to come back at the end of time.

And so a lot of people have made a lot of this text about that. But I think you can apply the concept of watching and looking for the son of man to come at any point, because there are other times of judgment that have happened even the last 2,000 years where it's obvious that God was at work. So that's kind of how he breaks it down. And just to give you an outline, I mean, that was mine for this text. But I want to read this first section at least. And then us begin to get a little bit into this last text he's going to talk about because this is the last thing Jesus is going to talk about before the actual, what we would call the passion of Jesus or his crucifixion, his burial, and then his resurrection is going to pick up in chapter 22. So this is kind of this last teaching element, and it's a doozy.

And remember, he's doing it from the temple. So let me read 5 through 19, which is kind of these early signs, and then we'll start breaking it down. Let's take a break before I do that. Luke 21, verse 5. Some of his disciples were marking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. So we just talk about these people that are giving. And so a lot of that's going into this edifice, this beautiful building. Yeah, which is probably why the widow's houses are being devoured.

That's right. To go into this. Not that I said that. He said that in five verses. Yeah. And think about how crazy that is. And look, you know, without making too much application, we could say this thing. thing about today. People feel very justified in pouring millions and millions of dollars

into a church building because they think, well, God deserves the best we got. And that was the mindset here. But if that's not really accomplishing kingdom work, I mean, is that the best use of that money? I've shared this many times on this podcast. But, you know, when I went to the Ukraine in the early 90s, the number one thing that stood out to me was the way the church buildings looked. I'm talking about swanky is is not the right kind of word. Oh yeah. Compared to the condition of the people. Yeah. I mean, it was a third world country. Nothing in the stories. You know, I was 30 years ago. So.

Well, that's even worse, yeah. But I just could not believe. We went into the several up because they were just amazing to look at what, what man can build. Yeah. And the people, and there's no people in there. worshiping. So it's just a hollow building with all this money spent, gold and chandeliers. And then outside, you go to the grocery store and there, you have four options. And all of them are bad. Because that was first time, and only time, really, that I was known true hunger.

Because we gave out all our food. It was a land in crisis. But every time I read something like this, I think about that and think. this is what happens when you don't have the kingdom of God functioning. You want to look holy, put all this money into a place where you meet God, and then outside all the people are suffering. And the government was in shambles at the time. And remember, Jesus is God.

So he knows that all this is being done to honor him as God, even though the people aren't all recognized him as God. But he doesn't even throw him a bone. Here's what he says when they're noticing this. Jesus said, as for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another. Every one of them will be thrown down. So people who think this is talking about the final appearing, well, they use this as symbolic language. Right.

But it seems like if the last three chapters, he's been in the temple. Yep. He's claimed multiple times that he is the temple. and he's bringing a kingdom that will destroy all other kingdoms. I just don't, you know, it's hard for me to get anything. I know there's a lot of different beliefs when it comes to this, but at least you are to see where we're coming from. This seems to be like he's talking about,

and one day this temple is going to be destroyed. And when you know it that 30 years after this, a little more than 30 years, it was. And look, I looked it up. Jerusalem has been, it has been attacked 52 times, I guess maybe 53, if you want to count this last one, but the temple's only been destroyed twice. The first one in 583 BC.

Babylon, 586. 586. And then in AD 70. And there is no temple there today. But just think of all the times it's been attacked. And keep this in mind, too, that this is a key point, the R.C. Sproles and his, he's preached quite a bit on all of this and even Mark's account of this as well, but in Luke as well, and Matthew, Matthew says this as well. But in verse 32, whenever Jesus says, truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass until all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass. way. And the question is that R.C. Sproul's brought up, and I've read other commentators and theologians have also agreed with this. A lot of, a lot of folks have that a generation in

first century Israel was considered about, depending on who you read, 30 to 40 years. So, I mean, so what he's, I mean, he's saying that in 30 to 40 years, what I'm telling you, it's going to happen. And when you know it, that just 30 to 40 years after Jesus said this, he said this in somewhere in 8033-ish area and in 80-70 the temple came down so I mean I mean I don't that's that's one of the reasons why I another another reason why I believe that he's talking about 80-70 because that generation if he's talking about the end times it then then that generation then then the second coming of Christ would have happened in that time period right and it and clearly it didn't because we're standing here although I did talk with some folks the other day that actually believe that believe that the second coming has already happened, which was a very interesting conversation we can talk about later. But, but I mean, I don't think that we can anyone's... Yeah, those are called, yeah, post-malilloes. So I do want to mention this before I read this next verse. This is something I didn't realize until this particular study. I saw this historically.

Starting in about 10 BC to 60 AD, which would have been the life of Jesus and then some, and a little bit before he got here, there had been a pretty good temple upgrade. a big remodel that had been going on. Of course, you know, again, a 70-year remodel is pretty impressive. Dad, that's the length of your life. They were remodeling the temple. And this was about the halfway point. This was 33.

So it's interesting. They're noticing because it's like when you go to somebody's house and they're doing a, you know, upgrade or they're doing some remodeling. You notice you know, oh, man, I like what you're done with a place. You know, it looks really good. So that's what one of the things they're probably noticing is they're 30-something years. almost 40 years into this remodel when they make these

things. And so then Jesus, to me, he could have said, yeah, this is really cool. But instead, he just like throws the wet blanket on and says, yeah, you see this place? Nothing's going to be left. Which makes sense to John, too, when Jesus says destroy this temple and I rebuild it in three days. And they immediately went into their construction project.

And they're like, no, no, it took us 46 years to build this temple. That's right. Yeah, you're going to raise it in three days. I mean, so, I mean, the temple was destroyed in 586, but it was rebuilt, and it was rebuilt by Cyrus, right? Correct. Correct. And so all of this, by the way, I think is important because it's all prophesied as well in from the Old Testament prophets.

It's all through the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 27, I believe, I'm quoting off the top of my head, but it talks about the altar stones being crushed. chalk, the Ashera poles that they had brought in are going to be destroyed, because that's what had happened in this temple. He said, why would God destroy his temple? Well, because they continued to turn it into a place of idolatry over and over and over again. And you had good kings of Israel, a few that would come in and cleanse the temple, kind of this prototype of Jesus coming and cleansing the temple.

Who was it? Hezekiah came in and cleansed the temple, that his father had desecrated. and he had restored Israel. So you had these moments, but the general just and trajectory of Israel throughout the entire Old Testament was to make a mockery of God's dwelling place, to turn it into a place, a den of robbers or a place of idolatry, a place of they were sacrificing children. I mean, there's all kind of stuff going on in God's temple. And so that's why what you're seeing here is kind of this, really this summation of. of Jesus's argument that like that's all coming down and there's a new order being established that that's not going to happen in in the new order which will be the one where Jesus becomes

the cornerstone of the temple and we the living songs built upon him yeah and it's not like we're making this up when you know one of these days when we study revelation you know you'll see what we think is consistent with this and a lot of the symbolic language was used directed at the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 8070. But even if you just fast forward without all the details and you get there and you read something like Revelation 21 and 22, right after he had began the chapter saying,

I will make everything new. It says, I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And so it's not like we're just, you know, pluck this idea. out of the air, when you look at all the temple verses, you see what they were doing in the temple in Jerusalem, he did not like. Right.

And everything, when it came to people being filled with the Holy Spirit and moving together as one and helping this world, just like he did, and pointing people to him, all that's good. Yeah. And so, you know, when you think about all the times he mentioned, you know, what counts as a new creation, the old is gone, even in our new birth process. I mean, he came here to bring new creation, to make things right. And so that's kind of what we're getting at. And that Revelation 21 passage, too, that Jason just mentioned, at the beginning of Revelation 21, again, he connects the temple to God's dwelling place. which is what he did in the Garden of Eden, the original temple,

and what he did in Exodus 25, which I already mentioned, which was the tabernacle, so that he may dwell with his people, 1st King 6, so that I may dwell my people, and then moving to the end of the entire Bible, Revelation 21, which Jace just mentioned where it says that God himself is the temple, at the beginning it says that, and I heard a loud voice from heaven, are from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

So it's accomplished. He will dwell with them, and they will be his temple. I'm sorry, his people, Freudian slipped there. And God himself will be with them as their God. So you see, like, what's the, like, what is the motivation for God in all of this? And I love this, because this is beautiful,

that God wants to dwell with his people. How does God do that? He does it through Jesus. He does it through Jesus being the temple, Jesus being the king, Jesus being the prophet, Jesus being the high priest, Jesus being the summation and the fulfillment of the law, Jesus being the center of all of it. And I love that because it's God providing a way to a con, one, I love the fact that his motivation is he wants to be with me. I mean, that's, that's comforting. that God wants to dwell with me is so comforting that he would think of finite Zach, who occupies a very small place on planet Earth and a very short span of time.

And God had me in mind whenever he was establishing this full picture of how he was going to dwell with us. Man, that's just, that's powerful. The irony, Zach, about when the church first started was that in Acts chapter 2, when you see those first believers, you know, changed their hearts and come to Christ, they started out in the courts, the outer courts of the temple. It's where they felt most comfortable, but now they knew something different. The Holy Spirit was living in them.

They were coming together. Yeah, they were coming together. Remember, they met daily, and they were coming out there, and they were meeting out there, and they were singing. And I'm sure it looked very strange to people going in to offer sacrifices. But then you get to Acts 4, and you start to see them. meet in homes and you start see it leaving that temple. And now it's much more organic.

And that's what you're going to see in the rest of the book of Acts, which is kind of... Well, just to Zach's point, since we've kind of opened up this can of worms, to those who are not maybe they're reading their Bible as much at this or to young Christians. So we just spent three chapters talking about this actual temple, physical temple in Jerusalem. And he's fixing to give a prediction that, especially in verse 21st, 20 of chapter 21, when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. It's pretty specific.

Well, and the reason we're going to Revelation 21, and Zach read verse 5, I read verse 20, but if you just read the first four or five verses, it says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And you don't have to really know all about the symbolic language to know who the bride of Christ is. And you're like, wait a minute, I thought we were all going to heaven. You know, this is what made NT Wright's final analysis a bit controversial because he's like, we're kind of waiting to go to heaven.

And you read Revelation 21, and it seems like the church is coming out of heaven, the new Jerusalem. And so it's not that N.T. Wright doesn't believe in Jesus coming back and everything not being changed for eternity. We get our bodies resurrected. But when you read things like First Amendment 4, and you see that those who are dead in Christ

coming out of heaven with Jesus to meet the people alive and we're changed being made imperishable, immortal, you know, 1 Corinthians 15. You see this picture here, but it calls it the new Jerusalem because he's describing here in Luke 21's what's fixed to happen to the whole Jerusalem.

And it happened. And so then he goes on to say what Zach mentioned, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more mourning, death, crying, pain, for the old order of things has passed away. So it's official in that moment that there was going to be a transition from this temple worship in a structure to what I read in Luke, I mean in Revelation 21, where it says, because he goes on to bring up the new Jerusalem again in verse 10, he carried me away in the spirit.

This is 21, 10 of Revelation, and showed me the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. and then it gets into this streets of gold and walls and all this. So most people are viewing that as heaven, but it seems like he's depicting that as the church coming down out of heaven, and then he gets to 22 and says, I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun, moon,

to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor, into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure

will ever enter it. Well, Jesus did that on a cross. Nor will anyone who does what is shame for, deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I mean, it's a picture what I think of the fulfillment

of what he's predicting. There's this old order is going to pass away. And you said, well, why did it pass away? Well, then you have to know the history of the Jewish nation and how they turned their backs against God, which brought Jesus to earth. And this is how he fulfilled it. It wasn't like God was saying, oh, I'm going to get you.

No, he provided a way, based on love, to rescue all humanity through Israel's fall. Which is so interesting because when you get into this study, I hear you say that, and the temptation for me, if I didn't, if I hadn't been studying Isaiah recently, it's like, well, you're, I mean, I can see how someone might say, oh, you're reading into the text, you know, your, your worldview, because you're a Gentile, you're grafted in. That's New Testament theology that you're reading into it. But really, it's not. I mean, what you just read about the nations. I mean, this is written in the Old Testament. Correct. In the, in the book of Isaiah, I've already mentioned this earlier. I want to read it before we go over time. The Word of Isaiah, this is chapter two of Isaiah, the word of Isaiah, the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord, that's Zion, that's the temple, shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be lifted up above the hills. and all the nations shall flow to it. And many peoples shall come and say,

come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths. From out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, he shall judge between nations and shall dispute between peoples.

And it's this idea, though, even in Old Testament literature, Old Testament prophetic literature, you see this picture of what you just read in Isaiah of all the nations coming to worship the God of Jacob. We're part of that.

We're part of that nation. And I'm thinking, man, we're not reading this into the text. I mean, this is consistent from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. This is the consistent, in my opinion, and I think I'm correct here,

the consistent theme of the entire Bible of what Christ accomplished and what his ultimate mission and goal was going to be. And it's finished. He did it. And he's going to come back and bring, it to full fruition with the coming of the new heaven and the new earth. No, I think you're right. And there's a lot more to unpack with that. So we'll attempt to do some more of that in our overtime segment. If you want to follow us over, blaishtivy.com slash unashamed. We'll see you next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube

and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes. And for even more content that you won't get anywhere else, subscribe to blazed TV at blazediv.com slash unashamed.