Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 869 | Phil Receives Anonymous Notes on His Land & Uncle Si Wriggled His Way onto ‘Duck Dynasty’

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Uncle Si wasn’t meant to be on “Duck Dynasty,” but he wriggled his way into a meeting he wasn’t invited to and impressed the producers so much that he won a starring role. The guys tell some of their favorite Uncle Si stories, and Phil has been receiving odd, anonymous letters left on his property. Jase floats a new theory about the reason for “clusters” of miracles, and the guys study the gruesome ends of some powerful people in Jesus’ time. In this episode: Acts 12; Hebrews 2, verses 3-4  -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. Things seem a little quieter here. We always say, you know, because you guys are listening, there's a couple of days go by before you hear the next podcast, but for us it just happened. And, of course, when Sack comes in to do the podcast, Zach, it's like a, it's like a hurricane. Like when I walked in this morning, he was already full-blown going. Like, you know, it was like... Well, I came in. I was like, we should be recording this because everything I heard 15 minutes before we started would have been an amazing podcast.

I do feel like we need to probably give a moment to just do some side translations because I know what this means, but for some reason when I came into the podcast, it hit me. Like, we should, we should tell our audience. I didn't want to say it in front of him because I didn't want to. But now that he's not here, we could talk about it. But he says, nah, nah, no, or no, like, no, you feel like he's disagreeing. No, no, no, no. because you like jace you would say something and he would say no no and then he would repeat what you said so it actually means i agree with you yeah it doesn't mean i disagree

sometimes he does a no no yeah no no yeah well well let me now i'm named after him so i think i've become the authority the uh to be the interpreter of sah so when he says no no it's yes i agree but when he says no yeah that means not only do i agree but i will fight for what you're saying. So that's a more, he's making that point strong. Yeah, no, no, yeah. Yeah, that's I'm all in.

Because he doesn't like to say yeah or yes. He says no, no, which is yeah. Which is interesting they doesn't like to say yes, but our whole podcast was a verse that he came up with from St. Griffith is one that said every, all the promises are yes in Jesus. I mean, that was, yeah. Well, I think that's his point.

Yeah. He's saying I'm too humble. You know, I'm not qualified to agree. Right. So it's a kind of a humble way, but I don't know where he invented that. I've never heard another person that uses a form of no, which is non-all, to mean yes. I've never heard it either. It's like in Christ, all God's promises are not all.

Yeah. And amen. But I'm glad. That's the science translation. I'm glad you brought it up that because people are probably confused when they live that they assigns disagree with everything they're saying, but no, no, no, he's very emphatic. So just our audience knows a lot of you guys cross over, because I talked to you out there across the fruited plains, and you listen to both our podcasts.

You listen to Duck Har Room and to ours. Of course, we discovered Zach before you came in. I don't know if you heard this, that Si is an unashamed podcast listener. Oh, really? Yes. He listens to the podcast. I did not hear that part. I was shocked.

Yeah. Because, I mean, like, we're so busy doing our podcast. I can't listen to anybody else's stuff. I'm too busy doing this and preaching. So it was funny that he said that because he said, y'all come up with some good stuff. But I do know this from talking to sigh off camera of either podcast. The reason he loves coming on unashamed,

because on his podcast, Jace was right. It's side's podcast. He carries it. But he has to be side doing what's side things on their podcast. Which means he's a human distraction. You should have known because everybody has special gifts. And I'm just want to define Sye a little bit. When he didn't want to wear clothes for the first six, seven years.

His dad brought that up, yep. Just think about that. He's a human distraction. If you ever need a distraction in life, some people take vacations, other people do different things. They listen to podcasts. Or you can be around Sai. Because in that moment, it distracts you from everything in the real world. You make an interesting point because this is a little inside baseball for you,

folks that watched our duck show, then Sa was never going to be a central character. He was just going to be a recurring kind of like crazy guy that dropped in there once a while. No, and I'll tell you the backstory on that. He literally wasn't invited to the meeting. Right. That's what I'm saying. If you're familiar with the show, Andy Griffith, he did something that I saw exactly

happened in that show when they were going to film the town and they were getting all the specially talented people. Well, Barney Fife showed, which reminds me of Sye in a weird way, Barney Fy Fy. I've always said he's like Barney Fy. He showed up and he's like, look, he had his harmonica. And they're like, no, who are you? What are you doing?

He's like, yeah, but I got some skills there. So he was just thinking, if you're going to do a show, I need to be on it because I have special skills. So Sa basically did the same thing. He showed up and was like, look, I'm. I got some skills that I... Which is what I always say about a TV show, especially in the reality realm. You never know. The best person that's going to be the star of your show,

maybe not have been invited to the initial meeting. So the guy who was the president of the production company, I remember the exact phrase after he met Sai. Because Cy was not involved in being part of the show originally. So, Cy comes and does his little tryout. And he had some movie idea. Everything was weird and nothing made sense. So it's kind of like Barney Fifey.

You're like, you don't take him seriously, but you think, but I need him to be press. The show wouldn't be the same. For entertainment purposes. So the president, after Sae gets through this spill and his movie ideas and all this, he looked at me and dad, mainly dad, but he just kind of looked and said, is this guy for real? I think Phil said unfortunately yes Well dad's famous line about Zai from the show This was after he became famous for it

Was when they now they love Sai Because you know he would say and do anything And dad says that someone said You know you can tell what real talent is A guy that comes up to the line and then crosses the line That's the real talent And can do it on camera And Sye was

fantastic to do it wasn't he jay i mean like he you would come to sad and you never really knew i mean there was an idea about what was going to happen but then sye would just be sye you know well what was funny is they didn't realize you know sigh is like a roller coaster he's like he is and then he'll sleep for four hours so when you're in sleepy time the producers would come up there and be like sai we got an idea and he's like well give me an hour i'm taking a nap here it's like i was like you can't force the roller coaster. No, it's got a roll. It has to be filmed when the roller coaster is going over the hill, not when it's at the bottom.

And it's funny because every venture that Sa got into, they never quite understood him because when he was going to, the first book he was going to do, their big idea, the publisher, was to do a book about sayings from the show. And I heard about it and I just thought, man, what a waste because that's just all like, that's not going to be. Well, they don't, you don't realize, they felt in a lot of people, I think the number one question I get, besides something about the podcast, is, is I really like that? Right. And I always say, it's actually worse than you think because you edit some things out because some things sigh talks about.

No one has any idea what he's talking about. So fortunately for Cy and the world, I knew the editor at the publisher, and she called me because we knew each other. She used to be here in Westminster Road. And she told me the idea that. She said, I want to know what you think about that. I said, I think it's a terrible idea. And she said, what should it be? What should the book be?

I said, the book should be Sai telling his story through his stories the way only Si can do. I said, and look, I'll volunteer because I love my uncle, side. And I don't want anything out of this. I'll sit with him on the interview with the writer because I know how to prompt all the best stories out of Sy. And she said, you would do that? say, yeah, I'll do that. If you'll commit to doing this book, because it's a way better book if you do it that way.

But it's because... And so psychology grew out of that conversation because, and it is, it's an amazing book. Because he's a human distract. When size shows up... That's a great way of describing. Yesterday, when we had a little family get-together for Easter, which we call Resurrection Day, whichever day's Resurrection Day, so don't get me started. But it's good that the world recognized.

We're not down on it. Yeah. But it is true. Every day is resurrection. What are we talking about here? But when I walked in the room, I mean, there's people are listening to Sae, pontificate on whatever. And you're not sure what he's talking about, but you just can't help but listen and watch. It's a human distraction.

He's like a sigh when he would get off from his army tour, he was in the army. Yep. He used to be overseas. He'd get off for about, you know, six weeks or whatever. Well, he would show up, and he'd go out there on the river with me. And I showed him when I had a trammel net all the way across the river on the bottom. I was catching fish out there. Pretty good little current, but not that bad.

But, sigh, after about 10 minutes, he's watching me. He said, how come you are sweating so much? And I said, you want to try it? Let me show you why. So I told him, said, get a pair off right here. I should pull this net in here when you come to a buffalo or catfish to get him out of the net and we'll move on across the river, all the way across the river. Well, he went from about here to right there, about 10 yards and had a couple of fish.

And he said, he had the fish in front of him trying to get him out of that net because it tangled up. It tangled up. And I said, what about it? He looked at me. he got to help me i can't do it and you got a memory he was smoking about four packs he was building up that c lp d and i put him where i had been and i said yeah good ass and i just sitting there watching him

and i thought to myself he's gonna burn out quick you know he just and he did and he burned out he said i don't say how you do it because sire you know it's hard to know i guess what people look like if you only see them on tv because i get a lot of strange comments when people they it's either oh you look bigger you look smaller what you look skinnier you're taller but sye might be a hundred pounds and he's always been i mean he is skin and bones yeah it always has been little so i hate y'all miss the story of what he told as soon as we turned the cameras off because sa i just think about sire saw showed up here he only lives 10 minutes from here right

and he had a full gallon. I don't think it was quite full, but it was almost full of tea. Well, we're only here an hour. What are you bringing a gallon? You could have left it in your truck because he had a full glass that he dumped out everywhere on his way out.

And he said, I pulled up at about 20 minutes before we came in here, and I just looked over. I said, oh, sigh, he just sitting there. When he saw me pull up, he started getting that. tea he started getting his stuff he was sitting and waiting oh yeah so i said why did you bring all that tea and he's like hey hey boys when i was in the military there was two things

that i never ran out of which i'm sure i've heard their story before but in the moment i thought what are the two things because i know one of them's going to be tea and he said i never ran out of tea and I never ran out of bullets. He said, if it would have come to hand-to-hand combat, hey, I'm going to sit there and drink some tea because I'm dead. He said, that's why I didn't run out of bullets. And he said, I couldn't run and outrun somebody. He said, because I got too many bullets weighing me down.

That's funny. Oh, that's hilarious. There's only one Uncle Si. But the reason the producers love to have him come on our podcast after I preach. So I was one of my biggest cheerleaders. He loves, you know, we're Robertson, so we kind of like to hear each other. We're pontificating on the Word of God. But he's always coming up to me with some thought that comes out of it.

So that's why I love it. And sometimes when I'm preaching, Sai will start having commentary back there, but I can't hear him. We got a big auditorium. I'm up at front. I'll just hear a voice back there. And then I usually hear people laughing because Sy's back there commenting during my servant. It's a strange thing. But to give to Cy's credit, you know, he loves the Lord.

He's got a good heart. You know, he served our military. He loves kids. He stayed in the military for about 25 years. 25 years, yeah. We've all done hundreds of things with kids with cancer and kids that are dying. And I'm going to tell you, Syes and my mom. are the two best representatives in those settings.

Yep. Because they just have this special gift from God about making them feel better. Mom's like everybody's grandma. You know, they just, they come up and hug her. But Si, and I have a combustible relationship. He's constantly saying that we don't get along, which has led to a lot of false rumors on the Internet. But the times we don't get along,

because I'm one of the few people in Sy's life that will tell him no. Not, no, no, no. I was like, no. No, like, no, no, so your no means no. You're not doing that. And he's like, well, how come we can't get along? I was like, because you don't like it when someone disagrees with you, but I am part of this family that's saying that's a terrible idea.

But on the positive side of that, is he's constantly, when he sees me, he's like, well, you've been studying on. He has a love for the word of God. Which that's what the point I was trying to make. That's why he loves coming on the podcast is he gets his Bible on with us, which is a, and our thrust is a different thrust than duck car. We love what those guys do. I love what Sadie does.

I love what Christian does. But, you know, we do Bible. That's what we do. Let's take a first book. So speaking of Bible, we left off in Acts chapter 11 at the end of it. And we had, there was a little bit, as we're telling the narrative in the book of Acts, which I really love this whole kind of tie-in that we've done from Luke to Acts, because it really highlights what these guys did from kind of just going to bumbling their way through being the early.

It was a rough job. It was a rough job. And then all of a sudden they become these giants. Yeah. I have so much more compassion because I used to think, what would I be like if I would have been back then? And, you know, it's just hard to put yourself in that situation. Here's a guy coming from Nazareth, which you can go to moderate. day Nazareth today.

There's a city there that I think it's the largest, one of the largest cities in Israel. And maybe it's because Jesus was from there. Who knows? But I just don't think it's as easy as you would think having a human being making these kind of claims. Especially when you're entrenched in the state religion, which was Judaism pretty much, with all these great stories and these, you know, promises of Abraham and even these prophecies. And you trying to imagine what this is going to be like. And then here's a carpenter from Nazareth claiming to be the Messiah, the one that was to come.

It'd just be hard to wrap your head around it. Miracles are no miracles. You're like, wait a minute here. I thought we were going to take over the world and whoop Rome. And they were thinking more of that than someone being humble. humble and kind and looking at people that basically society wants to forget the lame and the down trial. The fear, it wasn't so much fear that they didn't fear death. Right. I mean, it was just, they would go in this way and that way to get away from them, get untangled in the middle of the night.

They were on the move, really trying to avoid. They'd have jail escape. Well, you know, I don't know how, you know, back. when you've got a military-run apparatus to Roman Empire. I mean, you get in a bind in a hurry. You bring up a good point, Dad, because that's really where this starts when we get to Chapter 12. This thing expands politically into a much bigger deal. You know, Peter's miraculous escape from, they were just barely holding on to life.

Well, look, this is the third time, and I've said this before, I'm not a numerologist, but I keep coming back to this with Peter, because every time I get into these texts, I notice it seems to be three times with him. This is the third time in Acts chapter 12 in these first 12 chapters of Acts that he's been arrested. Yeah.

You know, everything with him is three. It was the triple denial, the triple thing with Jesus, and now it's three times he's been arrested. The first time, you remember, they didn't know what to do with them, so they just let them out because they, you know, and that was when, what do we do with these guys?

Second time they beat them and told them and threatened them and said, don't do this anymore, and now the third time, they're going to kill him. He's set for execution. Yeah. And when we get to Acts chapter 12. And God gave them all enough life to make their play, get on it, preach the gospel. But looking back on it, it's come a long way, the gospel of Jesus.

Oh, my goodness. And you're right, in the power of what these guys did. So it says in 12, verse 1, and I want to talk about this a little bit, because I don't know if you, I did a little bit of research into this King Herod, and there's an expansion politically that's going to take place here. It was about this time, and this is Paul, I mean, Luke shifting back to Peter, because he's been talking about Paul and Barnabas and Antioch. He just kind of inserts that.

And timing-wise, it's a little off because he tells the story about Paul. If you were writing a book and say, it would be meanwhile, Paul was doing this. Now, meanwhile, we're back to Peter. So just so you know. But it's also the, we've had a transition from this just being about the Jews to the Gentiles. Yes. Oh, that's huge. That's a huge point.

So I just want, because somebody may have missed two podcasts to go, we had Si here, which is the human distraction. So we were going to talk about acts, but we never got. We never got there. And also the famine that's mentioned in Acts 11 is two years after this story we're about to read. So just, you know, again. Which, by the way, I looked up the famine, you know, because I thought, well, they bring up a famine. There was a prophecy about a famine. By the way, it helps historically to keep track of everything that's going on here timing-wise.

So I looked up when famines happen in Rome, just from a historical standpoint, just to check this. and there were four that came up. The first one was in 41 and 42 in the city of Rome. The second one was in 45, which was centered in Judea, which that could fit because it says... 45 or 46 is where most people have this one being. Which I find interesting that I'm telling you, I'm just looking up history, and here you have a Bible, which so many people challenge the accuracy. validity. Yeah, and the validity of it. And there's this prediction. I know we're fixed to read

Acts 12, but we didn't talk about that famine. Right. But, you know, in 1127, some prophets came down, Agabus stood up, and through the spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. This happened during the reign of Claudius, which I looked up Claudius, and he reigned from 41 to 54, which I, and I found anything. interesting that he died because he was poisoned by his wife so her son could take over the throne. Yeah. So when you talk about these powers against powers and who you put your faith and trust in, either government or politically, just think about that. That's how he died. You think, oh, I want to be powerful and take over the world and I don't recognize Jesus because he's not as great as one of these

political powers and well that's what happens in the political power world that's why you need poisoned you that's why you had to have food testers yeah i mean and so anyway the third famine was uh in 50 and the fourth was in and it was in the greece area and 52 another one in the city of rome but no the one you hit is the one that's here and another one jays just to jump ahead when you the last section in acts 12 when herod goes down to cesarea That whole story is recorded historically, and it's around 44. So it lets you know that all these things are happening exactly when the Bible says they do. You know what I'm saying?

The history of the Bible lines up perfectly with other historical sources. Yep. Which is, I'll just make another point since we've gone historical here. When we get into Herod's death at the end of this chapter, Josephus in his book, he was a Jewish historian that, I believe was a Roman, but he shared a history narrative of a lot of things that happened. And mentions Jesus and a couple of the disciples. But he tells this story in antiquities almost word for word of what the Bible does.

Yeah. Which I know we haven't read it yet. But to the point of that when I Googled it, there was a report from ABC News that out surprisingly in 2002. I thought it would have been before that. And the name of it was researchers diagnose Herod the Great because it says he was struck down and was eaten by worms and died. And so I read the article and they basically had a doctor's view. And the reason they did the article because it wasn't just in the Bible. It was there's historical documentation, which is the point I'm making. Oh, and there's a lot more stuff.

about that story that historically comments on that the Bible does it that makes it interesting. There was an owl that was like looming over him. It mentions the owl. The owl is mentioned. He claimed to have seen an owl. Which is like a bad omen. You know, he knew something bad. But they basically had it down to some kind of kidney failure or some kind of sexually transmitted

disease. And then worms, he died a miserable death. It was the only thing. When you say worms, hey, worms as that, imagine that's from the inside. I mean. Right. When I first read that, not when I first, I thought, oh, he just got struck down and like a bunch of worms. Yeah, that's what I first thought.

But when you kind of read the, look at what exactly it says. But I did think that was fascinating that even the world took this story from history and tried to make an analysis on what actually killed him. And the same people disregard that it was in the Bible and it was actually, there was a bigger context going on. And just so to piggyback off of that, the reason why you get this step up in persecution, once you study the tactics of this of King Herod, you understand why he would have ratcheted up this persecution against the church. Let's take another break. So what happens is, Harry comes along, and he wants to be as great as Herod the Great was back in like 4 BC, that guy. He wants to control this territory.

By now it's all been split up into these sections by that Herod's children. Well, and just Herod the Great was the one that tried to kill Jesus as a baby, right? Right, correct. Well, so this Herod is actually... Agrippa. The nephew. Yeah, Agrippa. of the first nephew of Herod Antipus, Antipus, which is the one who sent Jesus to the cross.

Right. And he would be the grandson of Herod the Great, right? Who tried to kill Jesus as a baby. Correct. So he wanted to control all the territory of Judea like his grandfather did. So he figured out, because he had some Roman connections, that if he got in good with Rome, and he promised Rome, he could control Judea and Samaria. he could control all of it.

And that's what he did. I mean, when you study his tactics, he was politically shrewd. So what happens we get to Acts 12, the first thing he does is he kills James, the brother John, which is one of the two sons of thunder. Yeah, and if you're a chosen watcher,

because I had to do the research, because when I asked my wife this, she says, you need to say that because people watch the chosen. This would be big James, because they have big James and little James on that show. So this would be Big James, which does create another line of thought, because here you have a chapter in the Bible in Acts, surrounded by miracles and God speaking audibly, an angel showing up.

But in one chapter, you have one of the chosen 12, Big James, being killed. And you have another one, Peter, being rescued from jail, which creates a question. well why did God let that happen right i mean i think it's a fair question right and and uh even to i brought up the chosen they try to address that in some of the episodes especially in season four and uh and people through a fit you know because they're like what are they doing you know because we don't like to ask those questions because it's now we've entered a world where there's a god and we're not him and evidently he knows more than we do, which should have been obvious.

And some people in this story of acts are rescued and clutched from the jaws of death, and others are allowed to be put to death. Right. Well, and I had, oh, there seems to be, here would be my answer to that question. And when you look at the way this has happened so far in Acts 1 through 12, there seems to be a challenge, a triumph, and then a kingdom expansion. And in that challenge, usually something bad happens. That's what we've seen so far.

I mean, we talked about the same thing when Stephen got killed. Why would he get killed? Exactly. I mean, he was a great guy. But out of that came this great persecution. But guess what happens? The church expanded, which is what Jesus and God had in mind to begin with. Even at their death, there is saved as you can get.

Yeah. Well, exactly. death of the apostles. Well, and they were all going to die, right? A martyr's death. It's going to happen to every one of them. Their idea of death, like they're miserable and all that. It was back to my sermon just to, we view it differently.

And these guys viewed it differently as well. That's why we make statements like Jesus is the miracle. Jesus is greater than the miracle. And you think, why do y'all say stuff like that? He's conquered death for us. Because him being known is the most important thing there is. In all these miracles and all these workings of God and all the miraculous, what happens after?

They get back to sharing the same story over and over how God chose Israel that prophesied about Jesus. And Jesus came and you killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead, exalted him to the right hand of God, has poured out his spirit. And I presented the same message that they're same. Exactly. You know, Jesus, who he says he is, he died, was buried and raised from the dead. I mean, that is the heart of the whole thing.

Yeah. They wouldn't be hollering about being raised from the dead unless they knew, oh, what, what, they're going to kill me? Right. Look, it's the same old thing, though. When you're going through something difficult, it's hard to go through. But Jesus had a short answer for that question, Jay's, in John 9. It's a great picture with the message.

It's a great on how dedicated people can be. That's right. And here's the thing. Jesus said, they looked at them. They said, why was this man born blind? Was it his sin or the sin of his parents? Yeah. He said, this man was born blind so that God would be glorified.

I mean, that really is the short answer. But if you're living through something, and I said this yesterday had my sermon, why did Lisa get a cancer diagnosis so that God will be glorified? They basically killed all the front runners. I mean, one came out alive, wouldn't you say, out of the whole thing. And then it's not like he got an easy bed of roses. He was boiled and boiled in oil. And it's not like John, everybody said, well, John didn't die the way of the rest of them did.

Yeah, but he suffered. He suffered greatly. That's why that Hebrew's 11 passage is so important because when you, like it does put in perspective. We teach here on this podcast, obviously, if you listen to us long enough, you know we believe the kingdom is here. Right. Now, you know, but we also believe that the kingdom is to come as well. So when we get to places in scripture where you see tremendous suffering, which we all suffer in our own life, too.

I mean, maybe not to this degree. Some of us have some of us haven't. But we all suffer. And particularly for the, if you're going to walk the road of. of Christ, if you're going to be a follower of him, a disciple of Jesus, you're going to take licks along the way. And so when we do that, it does push us into like this eternal perspective of like, this is not fully realized yet.

And we do live in a world where there's pain and there's suffering. That Hebrew's passage is, I love it because it's like, it's, it's so honest and real when it gives the stories of our patriarchs. of these heroes of the faith, and all of them, I mean, at least in the Hebrew section, it says they suffered horribly and did not receive the promise. They will receive it with us when newness comes, when the fullness of the kingdom comes, then they'll receive it. So it gives us a way to participate now in the kingdom and enjoy morsels of the kingdom of God, but also with a longing for its consummation,

a longing for the presence of sin to be removed, the presence of sickness to be removed, the presence of evil to be removed. That is a hope that we will realize in the future that we can hang on to. So I think these guys knew that, particularly because they've been walking with Jesus in such an intimate way,

these guys were ready to go. And they were able to do that with confidence, not of their own ability, but they'd just been walking. They'd walked with Jesus. They'd walked with the Holy Spirit. And they've just seen so much of the kingdom stuff unfold that they were willing to die for the cause. And they were able to deal with the mourning and how painful that was as well.

And they also, Zach, understood when Jesus said everything they've done to me, they're going to do to you. They remembered that. So, I mean, he had already told them, and that includes being killed. I mean, they understood that going into it. Well, I had a thought. Before you said, Jase, there was a little card. I get them all the time. It was hanging on a fence on the way to my house in the woods.

But that little card, some guy said, I'm with y'all all the way that I watch a podcast. If you need any kind of help, this is my number. You know, y'all are spread in the gospel like it's never been before. It was great, but it was a little hard. And I get them all the time. Yeah. They just hang them on where they know I may ride through there. And a shame nation.

I love it. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Well, I had a thought, and I said I wasn't going to do this in the podcast because I've only had this idea last night as I was studying. And so I caught, I got a guy who doesn't have the most dynamic person. I'm not going to mention his name because y'all know he is. But he knows the Bible.

Is it Si? No. That would be the opposite. He's the opposite of Si. I just wanted to check in you. That's a good one, that. But this guy knows the Bible. He's like a human...

Concordance. Yeah, concordance. And so I call him often, and he answers, and I'm like, here's what I'm thinking. Because I just want to run it by him because am I crazy, stupid, or am I on to something? Where'd I go wrong? Yeah, where'd I go wrong here, you know? So, and I believe God gives these people the special gifts, you know.

Hey, look, when, you know, I don't live on compliments or, or critiques that much of my lessons, but I will say this brother you're talking about, when he tells me that that was a good one or that was a master's face, I take that as a very high compliment. Yeah, so. That's how much I view is. So I had a thought because, and I'll just. Tell him, and I want to say this, I'm early in this study, so be patient. But now that this has come to this point, I think it would be a good point here to discuss.

Because when you read the book of Acts, you see all these fantastical things happening. And we keep saying, look, this is Jesus exalted. The Holy Spirit poured out. The church is now making Jesus his presence known. We need to be like this. So a lot of people read this and they're like, well, God's not talking to me. He's not breaking me out of prison. He's not giving me the ability to speak in another language.

I can't touch someone in the Hill. So what is the deal? So I've been studying that and especially what Al's fixed to read in Acts 12. There's a lot going on. I mean, prison breaks and angels showing up and God audibly saying things. And you're like, well, what happened? Well, what I noticed and what I ran by the human concordance. In that context, I said, look, I got to looking.

And I only see these clusters of miracles show up in three instances in the history of human existence. One is went from Moses to Joshua. You remember the burning bush and... Then all the things Moses did in front of Pharaoh and the plagues and all these miraculous things. Then you have the next cluster, which is hundreds of years later, is Elijah and Elisha. You remember the fire coming down and talking donkeys and all this kind of stuff. And then next is Jesus and the apostles. And so what hit me in that moment is thinking, because if you add all that up,

none of those went on past 100 years in any instance. And I just thought, well, maybe this was some kind of cycle of, of for some reason. And the reason that I came up with, and just to give you a hint on where I was studying, and I got this from Hebrews 1, 2, where it says, you remember Hebrews, we studied Hebrews, but it said in the past, chapter 1, verse 1,

in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, which Elijah and Elijah would fall into that capital. And I guess even Moses to a certain extent. And by the way, I would add one more. I would add the Babylonian captivity, Daniel, Shadrat, Michigan, and Bendigo. That would happen.

That would be another era. Yeah, but there's still profits. You're going to see the point I'm making. But in the, and you're right, various things happen. Only because that happened later in time. Yeah, but I'm saying as a big cluster of just miracles happen everywhere.

I agree with what you said. So even if you want to throw in Daniel in that error, it's fine. But then it says, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. So the key phrase there is spoken to us by his son. And then in chapter two, it talks about how the salvation that he brought was confirmed in Hebrews 2-3, this salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, and there's that same phrase, announced by the Lord, he has spoken to us by his son, was confirmed to us by those who

heard him. God testified to it by wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. So here's what I got to thinking. And like I said, I'm early in the research. But when God had a new revelation, a new message. Take Moses. What happened was, and what did he reveal? The law, the Ten Commandments. He had a message from God.

Because when I read Exodus 4, do you remember when Moses said, well, God, people are not going to believe me. And so then he does like a miracle 101, how to do them. Remember he said, put your hand in your coat. And when he brought it out, it was white, like he had leperse,

And he put it back and it was healed. And he's like, put your rod on the ground. He put the rod on the ground. It turned into a snake. Oh, he jumped back, took off running, you know. Then he turned it back to a rod. He's like, when they see this, they'll believe you. So, and look, the same conversation happened with Elijah.

And then I thought, well, what if when God had a special revelation, a new message from heaven? It was God speaking. and he wanted the identity of these men to be supported. He gave them miracles so it would validate their identity from God and their message which was from God. There is a law, and this is how you do it, with Elijah and Elijah. I'm now going to speak through prophets.

And so these miracles validated. Well, when you get to Jesus and the apostles, it seems to be now he's speaking through his son. Well, how do you know? What's the validation? Well, look at all the miracles. Look at the signs. So it just made me think that instead of falling in the temptation of like, well, why is this not happening now?

Well, now we have Jesus. And you have all this authenticated through the Holy Spirit, written down into a Bible. So the message is authenticated by actually us having that Bible. And I don't know, you know, what else to say about that, but it just seems like that would give a little credence to why there's so much miraculous activity going. No, and I like Jason. Another thing that buttresses your point, which I tend to agree with at first hearing, is that the miracles were very centralized as well to an individual who then had to pass that on to others. because I was thinking about Elijah to Elijah, he had to physically pass on those manifestations

for him to be able to do what he did, which is exactly what you see happen with Jesus and his disciples. And then even the disciples to what they did, you never really saw it past them being able to designate who is able to do this. In other words, it wasn't just broadcast out where anybody could do it.

And I think when you read that happening of when that happened, Think about the authority that they received that Jesus said, that if you forgive sins, what does he say? They'll be forgiven. If you don't forgive them, they won't be forgiven. Oh, that's one of the verses I read. That's John 21, but that happened right after he breathed the Holy Spirit on them. He gave them the authority.

Yeah, but my point is that's a different kind of authority. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. No one in the world today has the authority to look at somebody and say, your sins are forgiven. Nobody has that. Nobody has that authority. And if anyone tells you they have that authority,

you need to run because they're claiming what is Christ and his alone. And so it does get in this big conversation. And it gets controversial, but, and I'm not saying that miracles aren't happening there or anything like that. But nor are we. Yeah. No, right.

That's what I was going to say. It's like when you make a point, then you got to go back and say what I'm not saying. But what I, you know, I do think, because I think like you, Zach, I think people that would probably embrace what I just got through going through, well, a lot of them go too far, and they never mention the Holy Spirit. And they're like, well, he's non-existent. And I think they take for granted the power of prayer. And we've all had things happen in our life that may not be a miracle. And I have that in air quotes. And because that's why we have trouble defining miracle. Because when you think about it, everything's a miracle.

The fact that we're here, that we came out of our mother's womb, that crops are growing out of the ground. I mean, because I've heard preachers say that. They're like, well, you're not noticing the miracles because you're not looking around. It's like, well, everything about God's a miracle. He's above nature, and so he can do anything he wants to. But at the end of the day, the miracles were happening, according to Hebrews 2, to get people to validate.

the messenger and the message, and the message that these people were preaching, full of the spirit and having the miracles, was Jesus is Lord. He was raised from the dead. He died for your sins. And nobody compares to him. And nobody compares to him. Way above everything that anybody ever thought about. So at the end of the day, would you rather give someone a miracle or the ability to do a miracle? would you rather give them Jesus, which is greater? It is greater. Because even though he rescued Peter from this jail cell and James died right off the bat, eventually Peter's going to be crucified upside down, so say the history books.

Well, what happened there? You see what I mean? To your point about the bigger, you know, we would all agree that God creating something from nothing is one of the greatest miracles ever, right? everything we see he created. So in that sense, you can say, well, everything's a miracle. Well, yeah, in the sense that God made everything. But when I got home for my trip, I just stood there and looked at my azale bushes that because of this season and the time of year, and I looked at that pink and it's pinker than pink.

And I sat there as a believer saying, wow, look what God is just showing out. Look at these azaleas. I mean, that was a green bush when I left. When I came back home, it's an explosion of the pinkest pink I've ever seen. And so I looked at that as a believer and I thought, man, it didn't God great. But you know, an atheist could walk up and stand right next to me and look at that and say, eh, me, you know, it's just something that grew out of the ground. So that's the idea.

Like, it affects me as a believer differently than it affects somebody. But a miracle when you see it and you know it from what we're reading scripture, me and the atheist look at each other and say, how did he do that? Yeah. And even when we talk about the miracles, like, my point, though, is just simply, whatever the apostles were doing, like, what the authority that they had, we just have to remember this. Like, that's a different kind of authority that is reserved for those people that Jesus met with and said, you have the power. Like, I'm giving you that, like, when you forgive someone sins, they're forgiven, and when you don't, then they're not.

And that type of authority is not in the world today. Like, and it's not to say God doesn't have authority. God's moving. A hundred percent God's moving. But we can't give men that type of authority. You know, I was watching during COVID, there was a particular guy I was watching online and he said, he said, standing in the office of a prophet of God, I command you COVID-19 to like cease.

Like he basically dictated that COVID would stop. here's a problem. It didn't stop. And, you know, like, my granddad died of COVID. Like, I got COVID. Like, it didn't stop. And, and these guys are making all his money off this. But I'm looking at these men here who God gave this ability to.

And at the end of John 21, he tells Peter, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and you would walk wherever you wanted. But when you were old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress. you and carry you to where you do not want to go. This he said by what kind of death he was to glorify God. After saying this, he said, follow me. I mean, thinking about that. Like, you're going to, this was going to happen, Peter.

You are going to suffer at a horrible death. Now come follow me. And they did. And they did. And so when you get this part of Acts and you see these guys getting killed here now, you see one of them's killed and now this same Peter is in prison, you got to think Peter's probably thinking, man, I wonder if this is the moment.

that he told me I was going to experience. These guys weren't getting rich off of the gospel. These guys were dying for the sake of the kingdom. And they also were suffering for the sake of the kingdom. They also weren't using their authority and the ability to do miracles just on each other. I mean, theoretically, right? Couldn't somebody have just raised James up from the dead? Exactly.

But he didn't. But I will say this. They did find, and maybe we could do a whole podcast on this, their fear seems to have left. be and yeah because they they said quit speaking or we're going to kill you and guess what they kept speaking and said you know you can tell us whatever you want we're not going to stop and i apologize for hijacking the podcast because we never read acts well i guess we'll read it when we get together but i will say this zach in your response you know what i find

fascinating is that peter who's fixed and be killed that night if you look at the greek translation he was on his way to be getting killed that night and he is sleeping so sound while chained to two prisoners and an angel has to not just say hey let's go hit him a lick hit him and said get up how can you be sleeping so sound i threw that in there said peter kind of wondered whether whether this was really happening he wasn't sure was going about if you're on death row and it's an hour before you being executed, the last thing I'm going to be doing is sleep and sound chained to two Roman soldiers. And he had actually been there eight days. That's what Phil's famous line.

He said, peace of mind, the rarest of commodities. That's what he had right there. When you get to that point in your faith, now we got something. They replace their fear with a fruit of the spirit, I think. That's good. All right. So we'll come back and pick this story up next time. I'm unashamed.

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