Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 851 | Missy Spends a Few Nights in the Hospital with Miss Kay & the Best Money Jase Ever Spent

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Jase admits that there are a few checks he’s written in the past that didn’t bother him at all, and Miss Kay gets a cheerful companion when Missy spends a few nights in the hospital with her. Phil is wary of how many scammers there are out there, and the guys discuss the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, two members of the church who lied and stole from God. Zach points out that when the church really works in community, it’s more like Jesus’ Kingdom instead of a political organization.  In this episode: Acts 4 & 5; Hebrews 2, verse 10; Titus 2, verse 10 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashame. We've been talking about the book of acts in our study. And of course, you know, we all have history in the church and community and, you know, groups and trying to. I don't know. I guess that makes me think we're trying to recreate, I think, some of these. settings that we see in the early days. I mean, we're inspired by what these folks did. And so you're always trying to have, you know, reproduce the good things about it without the bad stuff, you know,

that we're going to get into later today. But that didn't seem very easy to be able to do. That's been difficult. I mean, but you read this and how they shared everything in common. They did life together. If somebody had a need, the church met that need. I mean, it is, I mean, you do have to ask, off that question. Like, why, why is the church not like that now? You know, I mean, I think we all would love to be a part of community like that. And then there's, you know, so I know, I know some of the reasons, but, you know, but it's, it does seem like that would be an incredible community to be a part of.

But I thought, I mean, I think a lot of our experience in church has probably been much more, in the last 50 years at least, so my lifetime has, it's become more consumeristic. You know, I come and I consume worship and then I leave, but it's not really a, about doing life with the body. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, and that's what I was making the point in the last podcast. I can see where it gets so inward oriented instead of outward,

or even thinking about other people and trying to somehow help them. And then you bring in the idea that we're still sinners, even though we're saved by grace. And we have this great example of Christ to follow. man, people in this close-knit relationship hurt each other by sinful situations. And what we're going to be talking about today is a money situation because that seemed to be where Luke took us in this description about how they were sharing with each other's needs and things like that.

But I thought about Zach in the modern culture. Yeah. I would say probably in the last at least 100 years. I think the sin of choice that has destroyed more churches and close-knit community has been depravity and sexual sin, especially in leadership situations. I mean, so in other words, you know, Satan uses different tactics and different cultures to accomplish what he wants to. But to me, I've seen more train wrecks for churches and relationship based on those kind of things, whether it's leadership or people in a church or in a congregational society. setting where these things happen and they just destroy trust and, you know, unity and, you know, it destroys people's faith even when you see that. So, I mean, I don't know. I mean,

that's just my observation of, you know, being a ministry for a long time, but it's, you don't read about that in this setting and situation, but of course you will later in some of the churches and the epistles. You'll see this same thing that start to happen even the first century. but I would say in the, at least in the 20th century, into some of the 21st, that's a huge problem that destroys community. Any sin, but especially, you know, this type sin that takes place, especially among leaders of God's people. It's destructive.

I actually think there's a link between what we've been talking about with what Jesus said and what Jesus is unfolding in his kingdom. I mean, he really is bringing a kingdom where, you do see a deconsolidation of leadership. The Bible says that we are a priesthood of believers, so we're all priests. We've all kind of grew up with this mindset of a plurality of leadership, not building a church around one personality or one guy,

but it's a plurality of leadership, you know, which is, and we did, I remember the best days of our church together, and it was at Rice Free Road was when we were doing, life together. It wasn't around the central figure. The pastor, the preacher wasn't in the main, he wasn't the main character in the story. Yeah, he preached on Sunday, but the main characters were the people and what made the people, the church the main character, or the main character was Jesus. And then the people, I just remember how many meals that I've had at Jason's house, Jason Missy, let my sister live there for a season, people coming in and out, Bible studies

in homes at one o'clock in the morning, Phil, your house was always an open door policy. Al, your house was an open door policy. It just, it seemed to be like the best days were when homes were being opened up and are being opened up to do life with people as opposed to this experience that they come into a 501C tax structure

and experience and then leave. I don't think that's what was happening here in the book of Acts. I think these guys are actually living together. They're doing life. There's a lot to translate there. The plurality of leaders, that just means you got a bunch of leaders at your church. Yeah.

Right. The 501 tax plan. 501c3. 501c3. I got, where's my cricket button? Howdy, you know a 501? I do know what a 501c. Nobody knows what that is.

I think you meant it's some kind of. of organization that became a church at a building where you're filling out forms. Yeah, it's more of an entity that's a legal entity rather than a vibrant, organic body of believers. But it is funny that Zach brought up that particular number because, unfortunately, to so many churches, your 501c3 status is important to. In other words, that we don't pay taxes, that we, I mean, this is all a government structure, but churches buy into that. And to your points, I mean, you're exactly right. And so then it becomes this sort of corporate,

you know, American structure as opposed to something organic that just blesses people's lives. So I actually, I thought it was apropos, but Jay's right. Most people don't know. what you're talking about. Third clarification, you left out all the meals you came, you left out the eye rolls from Missy and I saying, well, here's the dashers again. Ready for several. We may or may not have. Hey, look, I learned that from my mom.

She had no issue bumming free meals and hanging down clothes off of the rest of the Robertson. We folded into that tradition. So my point is, believe it or not, after that very, uh, articulate vocabulary distribution of the community of believers. What I was going to say in which I think you're describing without saying the word is really, because this is exactly where I was going to go. That's what's weird about Zach and me and our relationship. We get to the same place.

What you're describing is the family of God. and I was going to come at it from a completely different angle because when you read, you know, these two passages in Acts 2 42 through 47, you just see this what we're calling community, but it's family. Everyone's devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. They're breaking bread. They're with each other. Every day they're selling what they have.

I'm only doing this just to be perfectly. transparent and honest. I'm functioning like this with family. This is how I function with family. And if I function like this within the Christian world, it's because I'm viewing them as my family, which I think I should be. But it's hard to do, like, to your point,

when you're worried about your 501, 3K, whatever, because you're then looking like, well, I don't know if I trust them. I don't know if I like that preacher. I don't know what they're going to do with this money. And it does turn into an organization, I guess, instead of a family organism. But what I was going to say, I noticed this in my study, and I got in the deep water. And I wasn't going to bring this up last time, but since here I am, I've noticed it very interesting that, let's see, one, two, three, four.

There's four references in between Acts 2, 23, where was that at, 42, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3. 46 and then here again in Acts 4 32 through 35 where they're they're sharing everything it's almost like I've heard people say well this looks like gods for communism or socialism you know we're just all and it's actually kind of a viewed these two paragraphs as a kind of a left wing pursuit in our world today they're like why can't we just all have equity and equality. And what's so crazy is if they ever read these two paragraphs, they'd say, oh, well, evidently, God is for this, because it seems to be what that's being portrayed.

But in between those two, I found Peter and the other apostles referring to Jesus in an unusual way. It's four times. In Acts 313, it says, And I'll make a point here. I know I'm leading you down a rabbit hole. Acts 313 says, The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified.

Look how they refer to Jesus. His servant, Jesus. Well, then again, in 26, it says, When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wiki. way so that's second time then in four twenty five says it again you spoke by the holy spirit through the mouth of your servant oh and this refers to david yeah but then he makes the reflection of jesus in verse 30 stretch out your when they're praying lord consider their threats that's in 29 so that we can

speak the word boldly stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. So I looked that word up. I was like, why do they, why do they keep using that? And when I was, I was kind of surprised because other translations have it holy child. And so I got the idea from the Greek language that in their culture, you know, they would have servants. But they considered them, it's not like, you know, what you think. They considered them family. They became sons and daughters of that family. So they usually lived in the house with them and yeah, they were part of what was going on. Well, and so it was interesting that you see the same phraseology in Hebrews 210, which I said all that to get here. The reason I think in the context of

those two family dynamics in Acts 2 and Acts 4, when you read Hebrews 2 and you know, the part in verse 7, where he's talking about Jesus is exalted and put everything under his feet, which is the same context that we're in in Acts. He gets to verse 9 and says, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, speaking of servant, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death so that by the grace of God,

he might taste death for everyone, which is their message, the Apostle's message in Acts. And then it says, in bringing many sons to glory. Same word. It was fitting that God for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy, and here's the point I was getting at, are of the same family. So Jesus is not a shame to call them brothers. Of course, then he goes on into, you know, the battle and the reason he did it in verse 14 through 18, which is what the church is experiencing at this time. You know, and it says he destroyed him who owes the power of death and held those in slavery by their fear of death. Well, you actually see that happening. They're not fearful of their death because Jesus, since he was raised from the dead and you're part of his family, you're now realizing, what can you do to me?

Because Jesus has destroyed those powers. And then he also helps us when we're tempted because he himself suffered. So you see this idea of a serving son for us and part of a family. And I think the reason they're using those phrases is because that family dynamic is alive and well. This is God's forever family empowered by the Holy Spirit. spirit moving throughout the earth. Now, Jay, that's a brilliant point because you're right.

You described earlier that people look at these passages and they'll see more of a structure, a political structure, or some structure that we should try to emulate as opposed to a family, which becomes much more natural. You mentioned on the last podcast about, you know, mom's been in the hospital, or I think dad did. And so it's interesting to watch family rally when you're in a situation like that because she's needed someone to be with her, you know, undergoing treatment and things like that. And so, you know, Jay's, that becomes Missy and Jessica and Anna and, you know, different people

in our family. And you just don't think about it. Like you're like, okay, yeah, I'll go and spend the night in a hospital room. Well, nobody wants to do that in the terms of that's the one of the most uncomfortable, difficult places to be. but when it's your family, you're like, yeah, we're stepping up. You know, I mean, you just, you don't even think of it. They're not sleeping. They're not getting any sleep in it, but they're not griping and complaining.

I mean, my wife has spent a few nights and she's just completely positive. And I know she hadn't had any sleep. But you just do that for family. It's the same thing when it comes to money, which is what we're fixed to get into. you're like if something happens to a member of your family that's catastrophic you know i mean i have a daughter who has been a money pit and i have had zero reservation about writing checks after check after tens of thousands of dollars throughout all her surgeries and all that'd bother me a bit i mean there's zero animosity or anxiousness, anxiety, or regret.

It's like, oh, I'm glad I have this money so I can spend it on my daughter. I mean, there's zero greed or regret about that because it's your family. I don't care what it costs. Yeah, I think that when people read this verse about everyone sharing everything, it reminds you of my economics professor at Louisiana Tech, my sophomore year of college, And he was certainly not a Marxist, but he said, he said, in heaven will all be communist. And it was kind of a funny joke that we'll share everything. But he said, but here on earth, he said, you got to keep one thing in mind there is sin.

But I thought about that a lot. Anyone that would read this passage and try to extrapolate that into a political system, I would argue you're forgetting one thing, one really big thing, is that you're essentially saying, I want the kingdom without the king. Yeah. This comes with Jesus being king. That's right. And that's a big caveat.

It also comes, by the way, with the Holy Spirit that dwells believers. And it also is voluntary. This is not mandated on people outside of the kingdom. This is not something that is mandated. And when you try this and you try forced charity, when you try to force people into living this way of life, you end up with, I think, a worse tyranny. You see, as Lewis said, of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may actually be the most oppressive, that would be better to live under

robber barons and under omnipotent moral busy bodies. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep. His cupidity may at some point. be satiative. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. You do not want, you got your cricket thing out. It's coming. Okay. If I can't close to see us on the podcast.

All right. Can I translate that? Translation, because that was too much. We're having to process, digest, regurgitate, and then do it again. again. So I was, once again, we're getting to the same place. I got to say something. I wasn't even, like, I was looking at my notes that I just looked up and I could, I wasn't looking at you, but I could feel you laughing at me. And I said, something's off. And so I look up and you're laughing with the cricket thing in your hand. To the 17 intellectuals that we have listening, that was awesome. But for everybody else, here's the problem as I see it. And

And this is the translation of Zach. We kind of live in a culture that says, give me your money. And then I'll show you some courage and the power of the Holy Spirit. And in Acts, you see men of courage boldly sharing Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit and people are just empty in their pockets. Yeah. You say, what's the difference? There's a big difference.

give me your money and then I'll show you some courage because when you're sitting in the building listening to this speech you're looking around and you're not seeing a lot of courage or the power of the spirit you're just hearing a speech like if you give me this money I will show you something what's happening here is the exact opposite they're seeing they're seeing this and they're saying y'all need some money yeah because i don't evidently what y'all are all about I'm not going to need money. It's the question you asked, the guy asked you, is the answer to the question the guy asked you at the supermarket in the last podcast. You know, why are you so hung up on Jesus over the miracles? And your answer was because he's alive. That's the, I think that is the thing that you see consistently throughout the book of Acts is that everything, including the philanthropy and the generosity here of these people in this moment, is centered on King Jesus. it's centered on his authority, his presence via the Holy Spirit,

but it is centered on Christ being central. He's the center point of all of it, which is what enables us to live a life like that. Well, that's why you have statements like Paul made in Galatian 614, which is very hard to get your head around. I mean, I've literally meditated on this for 10 years. But Paul said, may I never? And before I read that, you know, well, he's going to say it ever.

so I'll just read it. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. Because here you have in Acts 4, they're just everything worldly, which constitutes the tops of the list are land, money, time. I mean, they're just giving it without any regret whatsoever. Anybody in need, they're like, here you go.

And they're happy about it. I mean, they're not saying, I'll tell you what. So you realize when Jesus becomes real, the world has nothing to offer me. And I have nothing to offer to the world outside of Jesus. I mean, what a statement. Because then they were trying to add to Jesus, the Galatians. context, you know, circumcision, some physical aspect of what was happening under Judaism and being a Jew.

And then he says in the next verse, the only thing that counts is a new creation. And this is what Jesus does to you. You become a new creation, especially when it comes to things in the world, and especially in light of your part of a forever family of God. Well, and, you know, we haven't really made the point strongly, because we kind of brought it forward to the modern church. But let's face it, what's happening here in Acts chapter four is happening with the backdrop of the temple and the mindset there versus what Jesus has now brought in. And to Zach's point earlier about the king and the kingdom, this is something new. This is a family idea that you read Jax from Hebrews too.

So the contrast is there. You remember Jesus kept warning, don't be like the Pharisees who love money. Don't be like the ones who go and put the big money in the treasury, but their hearts are bad. Be like the woman who had two pennies and gave it because she was given all she had. And so all these points have been made. And so I think that's where we're getting to when we get to now Acts chapter 5. And he set up the scenario because when you first read this, what's upcoming, it doesn't sound that bad. It doesn't seem like it was...

Well, I think I'm going to... I took a deep dive here, and I think I'm going to address some issues. But I did want to say, Al, my whole point about, you know, Jesus being the suffering serving son, you know, if you just look at that in an earthly family, who wouldn't want sons and daughters who grew up to be serving people. I mean, when you think about a family and what makes it work in your marriage, if you're there to serve your wife and your wife is there to serve you, I'm pretty sure that your marriage is going to go well. And so that's what they're doing.

They're serving other people because what is, what does it mean to serve? you're putting other people's interest in front of your own. It's the exact opposite of what the evil one says. You get yours and to heck with everybody else. And so that's really what Jesus is offering and the beauty of being led by the Holy Spirit of God here. And this is the whole new kingdom, the new creation that he was describing all through the book of Luke.

This is what it's going to look like. Yeah, in fact, Dad, in your new book, you give these snapshots of Jesus, and one of them was Jesus the servant, and you use as your illustration from John 13 when he washed the feet of the disciples. I mean, this would have been scandalous for any king to be washing the feet of the people that followed him, his cis servants, his people. And yet to your point, Jase, it shows you the mindset Jesus brings as a servant king, which is, I didn't realize it was mentioned four times in this text, but that just drives

a point home even more. So you get this idea about servanthood and it's here. And you're right, maybe that's the whole purpose. Let me read the text. And then let's get into your deep dive. So now remember, this right on the heels of Barnabas selling a field he owned, he brought the money and put it at the Apostles' feet. That's the last thing said.

And then this story comes up. Now, a man named Adonis, together with his wife, Sapphire, also sold a piece of property. So in other words, just like Barnab's did, with his wife's full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the Apostles' feet. then Peter said, Adonis, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was so, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men, but to God.

So obviously he's, I mean, my assumption is, he's making everyone think he's given all the money that he sold, but he didn't. So there's a lie in here. Yeah, because he could have, I mean, the passage here is pretty clear. You didn't have to give the money. There was no mandate to give the money, which to go back to our previous conversation about making this into a political system. And the point of here is, no, you didn't have to get the money.

Right. This was a voluntary thing. The crime was not that you didn't give the money. Yeah. The crime was this that you lied about it to God. And it was a, it was this virtue signal. you were kind of manipulating the system. Exactly.

And obviously he, there was a, there was the, he was projecting that he gave all the money. Yeah. So at verse five, when Anonis heard this, here's the part that gets scary. He fell down and died. So,

I mean, that's quite the rebut. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young man came forward, young men came forward, wrapped up his body and carried him out and buried him. about three hours later his wife came in not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her,

tell me, is this the piece, you and I'm sorry, tell me, is this the price that you had Adonis got for the lamp? So now he asked her the same question. She doesn't know what happened. Yes,

she said, that is the price. So now she's doubled down on the lie. Peter said to her, how could you agree to test the spirit of the Lord. Look, the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also. At that moment, verse 10, she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and finding her dead carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And this is a,

duh moment here. Great fear sees the whole church and all who heard about these events. All right, days. Well, I was just going to say that when you kind of look at it in the big picture, the context of what's happening here, there seems to be opposition that's happening at the mighty work of the Holy Spirit through people. They're declaring Jesus. People are coming to the Lord. They're having this family of God movement take place. Unity, love. I mean, great things are happening. having these miraculous gifts where they're healing people. I mean, who wouldn't applaud someone who has been crippled from birth being healed. And yet there's groups of people, the priests, the temple guards, the Sadducees,

who don't like this. And now you enter the same one who was attacking Jesus during his ministry. you have the evil one mentioned here. So, and it's coming from within, but I want you to remember also that where did the book of Acts start? One of the first things that happened was them replacing Judas. Well, who is he? It was one of their own number. Yep.

Who had been with them. And he functioned a lot like what's happening here. So the lure of money and the desire to have applause from people. Because really I think that's what it's about. They wanted to come in because they had heard what had happened with Barnabas. And they thought, oh, look what happened here. I mean, this guy, he sold a field that he on and brought them. money and put it at the apostles feet i mean i don't think it's an accident that that happened right

before this happened you say what happened they had an idea we want some of that praise we want to be known as being sacrificial and so well why the question is why they wanted the praise uh they wanted an applause and what they get they got silence so that's just the overall view but when i looked up the word here with this the verse at hand which what makes this difficult in my opinion where it says with his wife's full knowledge this is five two he kept back so i looked that word up kept back what does that mean well did you know that the what they translated kept back is only used that greek word which in english they put kept back but it's only use one other time in the Bible. Titis 210. So how did they translate it in Titus 210? And what does the

word mean? But Titus 210 is going to give you some insight here. And it's going to be somewhere in between kept back and what Titus 2 translated it as if I can find Titus. and not to steal from them. I'm singing the song. Yeah, you're right. Well, he uses it steal there, just downright stealing. So it was an interesting word because when you looked at it, this word kept coming up, which is pilfering. And you said, what does pilfering mean?

I didn't know how to look it up. It's when you steal in small amounts. so that it's not noticed. You know, we got a hustle going on here. And the idea being that, yes, they were free, to Zach's point. But it also says that being free wasn't enough for them. You know, where the Spirit of Lord is, there's freedom. They're free in Christ.

But they love money. They wanted the praise and money. Well, now we're getting into things that, that battle against being in Jesus, acknowledging that he's real, putting your faith and trust in money, putting it in the applause of me. And it goes back to Luke 6, which when he lined out what the kingdom was going to look like, he said, you know, blessed are the poor, blessed of those who are weeping, blessed of those who are insulted because of me.

Well, this is all the opposite of these things here. So you know it was in their heart and the evil one uses those things. And so it's really, you know, the idea of this pilfering kind of goes in with what's going to happen in Acts 8 when you have Simon the magician. What happens there? Well, he wanted the physical powers of the Holy Spirit without having. the surrender to the Lord. And why? Money.

And he wanted to wow the people. And so it made me go down a rabbit hole of what, what are the similarities in con men, which I believe they were functioning as, and magicians. And would you believe that when I did an internet search of that? There's a lot of articles about it. and even in our society now, billions of dollars are made via magicians and con men.

And so I think in the church, it has a temptation for people who are con men to come in because one of the things that they have in common is they target, and I mean, con men and magicians, they target the vulnerable. And who does Jesus target? The vulnerable. You've got to be vulnerable and usually broken to recognize Jesus. And so I think that's why this is here early on, because there's so many scams out there, and there's been so many scams in the name of religion,

because it's the same type of mindset, it's an easy temptation to get into. So I know that was a long speech about it, but I really believe that it was all about deceiving, and they were just, they were con men. Him and his wife. That's what they weren't. And when you said that about Judas,

that made me think back to John 12. You remember when Mary was, take the very expensive jar of perfume, and she was basically anointing Jesus because he was about to die. And you remember Judah spoke up and said, why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He's making like this strong point about this should have been used for good.

And then John makes this statement of verse 6. He says, he did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. So to your point, Jay's to the pilfering, Jai made the point that Judas makes this eloquent argument about how this was a waste of, you know, perfume and money when all he wanted to do was steal it for himself. Of course, Jesus says, leave her alone. That was his response to Judas, you know, because he talks about the greater need there for him.

But to your point, it's very interesting because it's exactly what you see when people take it. And let's face it, churches can become magnets for sleight of hand and con men. I mean, you know, and you're right. It's because of vulnerability, which is why I brought up in the last podcast about, or maybe it was earlier in this podcast, about how that taking advantage of vulnerable people in any setting or scenario is wrong. And whether that's, you know, sexual deviancy that we see, it's manipulating people's emotions, it's turning families against family, all those things. or a lie to the Holy Spirit, which is probably why it was handled so harshly here in their early going. Because let's face it, it's a pretty harsh penalty for what happened. Yeah, exactly.

And I think the fact that he says that you've lied to the Holy Spirit, it makes you realize that that really is the crux of the matter here. Right. Because it's way easier to have an appearance of being spiritual. than to actually participate in the reality of that in your life. You know, if you believe God is inside of you, and it goes back to what I was saying when, you know, the illustration earlier about, you know, when your parents leave,

you think you're free then. You're like, oh, nobody's watching. Well, just think how that is to God. We keep saying, Jesus is at the right hand of God. He's poured out his spirit. God is alive, and then you're functioning like he's not seeing you, which is attacking the very fundamental relationship aspect of God in his nature. He sees all.

It's impossible for him to lie. He can't change his nature. He knows how many hairs are on your head. A lot of people have left the church because of this. So the bottom line is if you try to hustle God, which is exactly what happened here. by gaining the praise of men, you see the results. I think that's why it's so drastic.

Of course, most scholars, you probably notice this too, Al, there's very few scholars that even write about this. Yeah. Because they're like, well, because church leaders are fearful when you read passages like that. They're like, well, we don't need churches to be issuing death sentences, but that's not what happened. Right.

He just, since they tried to publicly get. the praise of men, he publicly rebuked them via special revelation from God because he knew what was up. And then the guy just fell dead. Yeah. And I'm assuming Peter thought, well, through another special revelation, guess what? There's some men waiting for you there. What was amazing was he gave her a chance to come clean. He was like, now, what about this, you know, situation with the land, is that really the price? And so he's given her an opportunity to do the right thing. She could have said, you know what? We conspired. No, that wasn't the price. You know, we messed up. We fell short. She would, I'm convinced she would not have died if she had

just told the truth. And you're right, Jay's, Peter didn't kill him. No. You know, I mean, the Almighty is the one that struck him. And they fell dead. And of course, the point was, I think for the early church because you see this fear that's there is like, wait a minute, whoa, we need to be aware of who we are. And I think if I was going to take a greater point out of this whole story, it would be that. It's like, I want to treat the Holy Spirit living in me with a lot of respect and how I portray what he's doing in my life. I do not want to, you know, make Al the center point and be a thief like these people are and act this way and take advantage of other people. I mean, it's from God's perspective, obviously, this is very serious business and what we're talking

about here. Well, and it just made me go down a rabbit hole of, you know, just trying to keep myself from ever doing anything like this because it is scary. And you want to be honest. and this is through faith that we function. And so it's so easy to, you know, you can be reading your Bible, you can sing a worship song, and then walk out your house, and a woman walked right in front of you scantily clad,

and guess what? Everything you just did left the building. It left your heart, it left your mind, and they call that in this context. man world and and magician world a misdirection. And so I just, I thought this was interesting. I did a couple studies on this, the similarities of this. And they define this, what they do to, you know, to really misdirect you and trick you is it's the tricking of the human brain through the power of persuasion and perception.

because us as humans we see what we think we see and what they want us to see. That's really what happens. And I remember seeing a show, y'all might have seen it, and I had to look it up to see what the name of it was. But the name of the show was pain with paper. And he was from England. He's an illusionist. And he was a con man. And the episodes where he would come up to a clerk or the one I watched that I remember is he went to a racetrack.

And all he had was blank pieces of paper. And he would put it down and through talk, misdirection, and his attitude and just reading the people, I'm going to give the list on how they do this or how they train to be a con man. he would convince people, and in the case I saw at a horse track, that he had a winning ticket, and they handed him money for the ticket, and it was a blank piece of paper. Go look it up and watch it. It's riveting. And so you say, well, how do you do that? It's an illusion, and we're susceptible to illusions.

We want to believe. what we want to believe. And so they go through the ways they do it, but they always look the part. They use your name. They use emotions. I mean, these people can cry at the drop of a hat. They talk about their flaws because they want to be relatable. They're not coming across, whatever makes you uncomfortable in those situations, they're not doing that. And then they exude a bit of authority. like they know what they're doing. They're dressed nice, whatever it is. There's lots of them running around.

They target the vulnerable. They get you to talk, which makes them a great listener. Because part of the fabric of our existence is we like it when people listen to us. And so if you're a comment, you've already made up your mind to be a great listener. Well, you're just a perfect person. and then all the information that you're giving them, then they then use that to manipulate you further down the road. I mean, the bottom line is we're gullible.

So I wrote this quote down. Victims answer a lot of questions, but they ask few. They're just, they're being hustle. They name drop. You know, how many times you're seeing this? Because they want you to think they have influential friends. there's powerful people and popular people that are doing what I'm going to do. And it usually is about money, but they get you to try and commit quickly.

But then they'll start small, which goes to this pilfering idea. And they'll show you have success. And then all of a sudden, they'll come up with a big scheme. They'll throw in something like, we're going to make a lot of money together. And the next thing you know, all your money's gone. you've been hustled, you've been cut. So it's not as difficult as it seems, and I'm saying church buildings are full of them, unfortunately.

But I thought we would bring it up just to say this is part of doing battle with the world, and it's something we never really talk about. And really, Jays, what you're describing is the original magician was Satan himself, the ultimate illusionist, the ultimate, you know, planter of some truth and some lie to be able to get people and manipulate people to bend to his will. So he's the first, he's the first magician, I mean, in essence that we saw in the Bible. I just wanted to bring it up because I really believe this is all about spiritual warfare and powers against God's power. And we have to recognize this is, this is part of it.

I mean, when you hear something that sounds too good to be true, and it's centered around something worldly, that's when you need to enter Jesus into the conversation, you know, because they're using the basic needs and what excites you. And a good question that was, you know, after I read this whole article, which was very interesting, you're like, you got to ask yourself a question, what really does excite you? Because that's what they're going to use. Well, me as a Christian, of course, this wasn't a Christian article I read, but I thought, you know, that's really the answer to it. You have to be more excited about Jesus and that being real than any kind of hook or crick angle somebody's going to come at you with. Because if your biggest need is money or affection, because when you look at all the scounds, which I looked at them, and it's billions of dollars, it's over romance, investment. it's all these kind of things that people are losing all their money. Religion, that was one.

It was like number four. You know, you're going to help whatever, you know. When Jason, when you and I graduated from school and I started working for the church, it was the early 90s. And the 90s were rife with these organizations that would come along and they were built on the idea that you would recruit people under you. And there was usually a product that got sold, but that wasn't the primary point. point was to get people lined up and you could make money off of those people. And I can

remember people hit me with that early on. But I had a conviction. I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that because I'm trying to push the word of God into people's hearts and lives and the gospel. And I don't want to get confused over money. And so I just made a flat policy that I wouldn't get involved in any. And I'm not saying they were necessarily all wrong or sinful or scheming. It was just I didn't want to compete with money in the gospel. And that was the best choice I ever made. The Holy Spirit led me in that because there was never a conflict when I would talk to somebody about me trying to get something out of them. I was trying to give them something. I can tell you one thing. You didn't jump into the clergy to get rich in the churches of Christ. No, you did not.

So I was a place to go make a bunch of money. My dad was a preacher in the church of Christ, and I'm telling you, we did not grow up. We were, we did have any money. Yeah, I could have, used the money, but I wasn't going to do it that way. Well, look, we're out of time. We'll pick up next time in the Book of Acts on Unashamed. We'll see you later. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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