Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 896 | Miss Kay Finally Comes Home, Lisa’s Surgery & a Tornado Nearly Killed Jase’s Son

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

The guys have a lot to talk about after Miss Kay finally comes back home to the river, Lisa comes through her breast cancer surgery like a champ, and Jase’s home in Tennessee is directly hit by a tornado with his son, Cole, inside. Larry Bowles joins Phil, Jase, Al, and Zach to talk about Acts 19 and how the faithful following of the theology of Jesus eventually becomes faithful practice of Jesus’ commands. In this episode: Acts 19; Mark 1, verses 4-5; Matthew 7, verse 21 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. We're spread across the fruited plains today. Zach's there in his normal place, Black Mountain. I'm in the city of New Orleans, Nola, as they call it down here. And Lisa had her surgery. And everything went great. And I just want to say right off the bat, all of you who have been praying about that. We felt it. It made a huge difference. She's been amazing, hardly any setbacks at all. The surgery, Jase, was about, under the knife, about 10 hours. Well, and basically, wheeled her back at 7 a.m., brought her back to the room at 7 p.m. So the doctor told me, he said, it's going to be the longest day of your life, but the shortest day of hers. And that's exactly what it was. But she's doing great. Still here. I have turned into quite the nurse, which I didn't know I had it in me, but I found out, and dad might can relate to this because mom's back home too. You figure out that you can do things you never thought you could do when you have to do it. So part of that's just the, I guess, part about serving your bribe, especially when she needs you. So we're all good,

waiting to hear a few more days until our follow-up visit, and then hopefully we'll be back home. So thanks for all the prayers for everybody. it sends you back to that you know when I my daughter's had so many surgeries and my wife used to characterize it as the new normal yeah and part of the new normal is you do things that you never thought you could do when I when I love one is down you just figure it out roll up your sleeves and I actually learned a lot just from you know kind of viewing you guys from the outside jays with Mia and just the toughness that people have and uh And I would say just our wives and daughters in general.

I mean, there's a toughness there that's pretty amazing. Of course, you know, for me, it's almost like it's weird for me being back here in New Orleans. I kept to thinking about it because you have a lot of time to, you know, reminisce in your mind when you spend a lot of time with the Almighty. And, you know, I came to Christ here. I submitted my life in this city when I was, you know, a wayward son. It happened, you know, just up the road in Kenner. and then I came back here with dad and I saw him for the first time that I'd seen him like do a public, you know, witnessing of who Jesus is in a setting that was a duck call setting. And it impacted him in a huge way.

And then I came back here for Katrina and we planted a couple of churches and helped folks. And now here I am again in another phase now 40 years later serving my wife. So it's almost like the almighty. uses this city for what I need in my own personal walk. It's just kind of a weird coincidence, I guess. It's four different times I've been here, and all of them have had a huge impact on my spiritual walk as well as my just regular walk. So I don't know what that means, but I used to not like this city.

There's a lot of bad things about it, but for whatever reason, the Almighty has used it to grow me. So I'd give them praise for that. You should write a book, Al, New Orleans. I should. Gateway to Heaven. Orleans. Walk into New Orleans. With a sick wife, you find out what really, a friendship really is.

If you call them at 1 o'clock in the morning, and they tell you this, and my woman's down, I need some hands down here. Oh, within 10 minutes, there was two of them out there. come walking in. Oh, so you were talking about if Kay was down and you... Kay was down on the floor. Can't get up. I'm not stout enough.

Yeah. Dead weight, but it's alive. Live weight. Yeah, that's a better depiction. Your neighbors will come in and I said, let's grab a hole of where we can and stand her up, boys. Yeah. I've been involved in that process. It is, it's not easy.

I got to thinking about it and I said, I better have some, some, uh, wait of where they'll say where they'll be happy so my friends who live up the road the redneck crew i mean it's it's a it's a it's a it's a bunch of them yeah what's funny is we get out now you know i slipped them about 20 bucks apiece i said oh you don't know nothing i said go ahead and take it they were reaching for it when they said don't you don't have to hold yeah yeah anybody can always use a little cash there live i actually look i know it's one o'clock in the morning but if I have to call you back be ready they said all you do is call we will be there it's amazing what people do for 20 bucks well yeah lifting fee yeah I would say that after watching you over

the course of my whole life and you and mom now been together 60 years I mean how you are and taking care of her is is pretty amazing I mean you've taught me some life lessons even in the later years she was having trouble getting up on a bed because most of the time if you walk up on a bed you it's upward somewhat though jersey joe said we need to we need to lower the bed down closer to the floor was a chainsaw involved in this i mean a saw was involved oh yeah i like it and he walked and looked at the bed and looked at said yeah we didn't we didn't lower this where they her feet will be on the floor and her buttocks would be would be would be We get the picture.

Yeah, I got it. Oh, yeah. Very descriptive. Very descriptive. Yeah, we've been off for a little bit. So I guess the audience doesn't know we've been off. No, we can't roll in the episodes, but we've had a little sabbatical, Zach. Yeah.

A sabbatical where, or Kay's in the hospital. Yeah. Lisa gets major surgery with her breast cancer and Jace's house gets destroyed by a tornado. It was a great sabbatical, right? It was a pretty amazing. Jay's tells that story. Well, I got a week off, you know, we were going on vacation, which was a transition period because I just got back from vacation.

And usually it's called our family vacation. But Al and Lisa, y'all were there right at the beginning because y'all came. A couple of days early. Y'all came by and we had prayer together because Al was like, don't feel bad. that you're spending our traditional vacation while we're going to the hospital because everybody did. I mean, we almost didn't have vacation because especially all the women were like, well, we're not going to go to the beach when Lisa's getting cut on. But we kind of had that conversation.

And y'all were like, we really would, there's nothing you can do. Y'all have vacation for. And what I said, Jase, was you guys were in our favorite place in the world. And so we got to live that out through y'all. we would have rather y'all done that because you can pray for me anywhere on the planet and y'all did that and i really appreciate your prayer over us that night that was very touching yeah it was touching we all cried and it was not that we were scared or fearful uh actually lisa was surprising surprisingly the most confident person there was kind of it was uh very inspirational but and so mom

who's who's doing a lot better she was at my house last night night we had a Memorial Day celebration so you can date this to whenever this is coming out. And so she was down, so she didn't go on vacation. And her sister, who's in her 80s and doing quite well, she stayed back with Ms. Kay just to help her. So I say all that to say this, about three or four days into the vacation, I looked up and realized something that I was the old. toot of the vacation. I was the oldest person there.

You're the patriarch now. It was really weird because all of a sudden, all the old people jokes were directed towards me the entire time. Because it wasn't even close. I mean, Jep was there, but he's what, 10 years younger than me? He's a young buck, although you would never know that if we did any activity. That's another story. But because Jeff acts like an old person.

He really does. And as for years. He's talking about his ailments, you know, and everything revolves around, you know, when's his next bowel movement going to happen? And he's sharing that, you know, every day. So, but before that, we had a week where we were just going to have off. And so when you know it, someone just sends us a random text and we're praying for y'all. And this is a, you know, it's a terrible story for me to say because I actually have a couple houses, which you're like, oh, big problems, you know.

I mean, one of your houses was destroyed, yeah. But my son lives there in South of Nashville in Columbia. And so we get a call saying we're praying for y'all. We didn't even know there was a tornado watch in that area. So as soon as she got, Missy got that message, I said, call our son. Well, when she called him, it was a 30-second conversation, and he was in and out. Because I'll have to tell you what happened so you can kind of explain and understand from our perspective. I mean, the reason his phone wasn't working is because a tornado had already hit.

We didn't get the message until a couple of hours after tornado hit. but in the 30 seconds my son was in shock because he had survived a tornado that hit our house and so he was like yeah there's a tree down and then we'd lose him and then it was like pretty bad no electricity and then we never heard from him again so we tried to call him for about an hour so then i was like we'll call our other son so because he's in Nashville and we're like go check on coal because, you know, the tornado hit, but we were still thinking, he never said I was in the tornado. We were just thinking he showed up at our house and realized that a tornado had him. So my son gets on the phone, read as he's searching for our other son. And this went on for a couple

hours because what was happening is the closer he got to the town in the in the area where our house is the worst it got just trying to get there he's like they got the road closed there's trees everywhere so finally he's on foot with a buddy of his trying to get to our house and the further he got the more he kept saying are y'all sure cole i mean when did you talk to because he was just thinking this destruction is massive. He said, it's a war zone. Because when he got to our property, we had a forest of 30 acres on our property. And he's like, there is no forest.

All the trees are down. And I was like, what? Are you embellishing? He's like, no, all the trees, there are no trees. And so he's climbing over trees trying to get to the house. And so when he got to the house, he's like, there are multiple trees. The house is still standing, but a lot of, of it's out in the yard, the roof's out in the yard.

So finally, when he found Cole, which we were all, because at that point, now we were all just anxious, it would be an understatement. Yeah. And so then we hear the story, and Cole's story was incredible, because we were almost mad saying, well, why didn't you just say this? But then we realized he was in shock. So whatever we were getting out of him was from a person that was in shock. and so what happened was he pulled in to the driveway and we have a little which which is incredible that this is one of the few structures still standing it's basically just some some post with a little roof under and that's where you pull your car and how that thing survived that because his car just got ripped up under there from the side you know trees but he saw we had just built a new goat pen and moved our goats

and one of the little beady goats was out of the pen. So when he pulled up, I mean, it was storming a little bit, but he said it was eerily quiet. And he sees the little goat. He takes about five steps toward it. And he just, he said he just felt something weird, like with the pressure in the air. And when he looked behind the house,

he said all the trees were just, like, sideways to the ground. And then all of a sudden he just heard this hum. And he's like, I think this is a tornado. So he takes off running and we have a shelter that was not built for a tornado, but it was deemed that some guy built a bunker there to hide all his treasures, like a couple owners. It's where you record when you're up there. Yeah, that's your later.

It is literally a bunker. But he made a decision in that moment because it's on the other side of the house. And he said, I'll never make it. And so he said, the next thing I knew, I was on the ground because the wind hit and it just blew him down. And so he's crawling, running, trying to get in the house. He said he gets in the house, jumps in the bathtub, and he's like, then he hears sounds like a train, wind is breaking, trees falling on the house. And he said it didn't last very long. And, of course, then there's no power and you can't go anywhere.

I mean, there's, I think they said there was 13 trees on my house. Now, some of them were uprooted from somewhere else and just ended up on our house. And these weren't small trees. I saw the, oh, no, they're all big. Yeah, it was a virgin forest that we're around. Huge. In fact, the only trees still standing are the little ones. All the big trees.

And they're all twisted up. So he survives, I mean, providentially. If you looked at it, the only place that was not deemed totaled was our main little part of our house, all the add-on and all was deemed totaled. And that's where the bathtub was. And he was 20 feet from right behind our house was the worst. We had just built a nice deck and all the, it's all gone. I mean, obliterated. And so, of course, then what happened was I was real proud of my sons.

it wasn't like, oh, he's alive, we're good, let's get out of here. They, my son, Covey's like, well, we got to go check on all our neighbors. So they, which took hours because you just couldn't maneuver anywhere. And so there was, at the end of the day, there was one neighbor that no one had heard from, that we knew. Unfortunately, one of the neighbors we didn't know that lived across the street, a woman, she lost her life, which was not, I'd say, a quarter. or mile from our house. But they've, fortunately, the neighbors that we knew that we hadn't checked on, they happened not to be there, which is why no one could hear from them.

But I was real proud of them. They worked through the night to try to help other people. And he survived, and the rest, you know, our place is just a mess. But then you start this process of trying to figure out what the insurance pays for. And unfortunately, they don't cover trees that fall that are not on a structure. So I figure it will take me about a year to clean this up. But it was devastation. But in the proper context, my son could have died very easily.

He survived. None of that seems, you know, we haven't been stressed out about it. I did get a text from someone, our friend from I am second. And so she has said she's got a bunch of. redneck sons with chainsaws that will come help when the time is right, Jace. You know what's crazy is a lot of people offered that. And at first I was like, oh, sign them up. But once we got there, because we didn't, you know, another backstory to this, two things

that I thought were real powerful. One is Missy was going to be there the day before, but she decided to wait on me to finish the podcast. And we were going to go together. So that was one thing I was real thankful for that she wasn't there either. And the other thing that was really weird is, you know, once we realized the tornado, it had our neighborhood and hit our house, we started watching the footage online. Well, somebody had taken a video where you couldn't see our house, but we knew where they were on the road. And our house was part of the shot.

And so, well, it had a time stamp on it. It was like 5.51. And I said, what were we doing at 5.51? Because we felt terrible that we didn't realize a tornado had hit till 7, 8 o'clock that night. Our house and our son could have died. And she said, well, I got the, we had eaten spaghetti. And she's like, I had gotten the spaghetti out at 5.50. She said, you were praying.

And I said, I was praying. And you know what's weird is during my prayer, because we just look back on it, I prayed for protection of our family twice in the prayer. I repeated myself. And so then, you know, Missy started crying. I got chills. I was like, that's at 550. The prayers are 550. And I'm looking at this desk cam at 5.51.

And I thought, you know, I will never take for granted a simple prayer before the meal again. And I said, I don't know why, you know, because Missy said, well, you repeated it. And I thought you just said that, babe, but I didn't say that. But I said, you know, I just, when you kind of analyze things that happened, you realize, you know, there's a God and he's for us. And I don't know how to make sense of that any other way. But we were real thankful that God did, you know, protect him. But, you know, having said that, people lost their life and things happened. So we're not guaranteed this will happen.

But in that moment, yeah, it was powerful. And so we saw the typical things of a lot of people coming together and neighbors and love. But there's also a sinister side of that. Every con man in the world is trying to take the insurance money. And so we've had to be dealing with all that, you know. But what I was going to say is when we got there two days later, I realize there's no amount of chainsaws and groups of people that are going to fix this.

I mean, it's not that the trees went down. These are very large trees. They got twisted in piles and just, it's like where would you start? I mean, you could start a chainsaw group. You're going to need bulldozers and... Yeah, I need things with big blades and big motors and cranes, bulldozers. You're not, it's just so, the devastation is so severe. There's so many trees.

I mean, I'm sure at some point we could use some help, but at this stage, there's really not a whole lot you can do. I mean, there are things on my property that do not belong to me, roofs, whole roofs of other people's houses and the fences are in every conceivable direction up in the tops of trees that are now standing on their top, you know, with the trees. trunk out of the ground. So it reminds me of that time that the tornado hit our property, our hunting property down close to where y'all are today.

And remember dad, I mean, they were just twisted and gnarled and big piles everywhere. We actually had to, you know, people came in and cut it all and took it away. But, well,

yeah, we're obviously blessed for a lot of different reasons. We felt that same thing, as the prayers were. And I guess you could say that because a lot of people talk about the Unashamed podcast, guiding them to Christ and saving their lives in the sense that it may have saved you and Missy just by you having to do the podcast.

So we'll chalk that up to one more positive of the award-winning, Unashamed podcast, Jay. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of people on the comments the last several episodes praying for you guys, Al, a lot of the listeners praying for you and Lisa. Look, there's no doubt. We felt it. Jace mentioned the confidence that we both had, and people kind of marveled at it, But it really wasn't us. It was that we just felt that it's like a wind beneath your wings kind of thing.

I mean, you just feel that the people are out there and you just, in your spirit, you know, and you're just like, and like Jay said, there's no guarantees of anything. But once you're confident that God's in charge, no matter what the end result is, it's all going to work out for the best. So, yeah, I had, I actually, we had that same group of storms came through Black Mountain, which is, it's very rare to have a tornado in the mountains. but that same night that Jay's guy hit, we got hit not nearly as severe

because the mountains helped dissipate a lot of the storm, but there was a tornado here in western North Carolina. And it's the week, I was actually preaching that Sunday and after. And I had this whole thing in my notes about this line from tombstone where Wyatt Earp, you know, sees the tempterist and he says, I'm going to deny her.

I'm not going to, you know, when Dog Holiday asked, what are you going to do when you see her? She's like, I'm going to ignore her. And he's like, okay, well, we'll see. Well, there she is behind you. And of course, she approaches Wyatt Earp. And she makes, you know, you can tell there's like this moment. And then he does exactly what he says he's going to do.

And he turns. And then Doc Holliday has one of the greatest lines of the movie. He says, Wyatt, you're an oak. And I had had that phrase in my sermon and that story because I was talking about like being firm like an oak. And then that happened. And I saw all the. pictures of Jason's property. I'm like, you know, oaks are on, they're strong, but,

but the power of a storm is just. Yeah, you don't want to be an oak and a tornado. But you said that about the mountains. You know, we thought that too, but I learned through this process, wherever that tornado, the path that it goes, because we're kind of in the highest regions there, but it just, once it went, it went behind our house and dropped down, well, then it just continued down, like through our driveway and then went up the side of that mountain that's out in front of us, which is where, you know, the woman that lost her life, you would have thought she was in the safest place ever on the backside of the mountain, but the tornado come up through that side.

You know, if you were on the other side, you would have been all right, but it made me realize there's really no rhyme or reason. It's just wherever you happen to be when it goes. you're just at the mercy of what happened. And that's why we talk about storms and they talk about hurricanes and stuff because, you know, we're on the Gulf Coast, but tornadoes are the ones that scare me the most because they just seem to come out of nowhere.

Well, right. I've seen hurricanes, but I'm just in the short window of damage, I've never seen that amount of destruction. Yeah, it's the suddenness of it. It's intense. So hurricanes are long, sustained wind, but a tornado is just an intense. just sell that just everything just like with that cold experienced is so fast you know it happens

so fast so we praise god that he's okay we do pray for those families that uh had difficulty in death and so pray for those families also so we're going to take a break when we come back from this break we're going to get into book of acts we got our old friend larry bowls and in the house uh is going to join us in our act study he preached at whitesfair road so we'll we'll get a little update on him and how he's doing as well so let's take a break Welcome back to Unashamed. We've added in our old pal, Larry Bowles, who is sitting in my chair. Larry, that means you have to have a lot of great insight and wisdom. You know, I feel like I'm sitting in a tree full of owls when I sit in this.

Three full of owls. Owls. Owls. Is that a wisdom reference? Oh, absolute wisdom reference. I'm going to tell you like I tell my wife, Larry, lower your expectations. Yes. The last time I was there, I did my Chick-fil-A stop, and they gave me my receipt,

and I looked down to you, they put your, they get your name, you know, what's your name? And I told them it was Al. And when I was leaving out, I looked down to my receipt and there was OWL. Good old owl. The old owl. I guess they thought that was the old wise up. You know, get the W in there. So, so Larry, you, we've been, you know, kind of catching up on our sabbatical time.

You hadn't been, we had you on the last time. Yeah. remotely, you joined us because we were talking about Corinth, and that's your expertise. Oh, man. And all the temple of Diana and all that stuff. But what, so you were, you were like laid up, but it looks like you're getting around pretty well. I'm doing. I was in a straight leg brace for four weeks.

Wow. And so, yeah, I had a sabbatical kind of in a recliner for a long time. but the Lord sometimes conveys a sabbatical on you. It's not really your decision. So anyway, it was one of those things. What's crazy is the more I'm listening, we're all falling apart here. Oh. You know?

Yeah. No, you were talking about being the old guy on the, and I brought up, I think, the last time I was on, I'm the second oldest guy in the room, you know, when we're all together here. Yeah. Yeah. One day you just wake up and you're the old guy all of a sudden. Yeah, it's a tough feeling. It's shocking.

I understand what Phil says when he says the resurrection's looming larger. Yeah, it is. Phil, you're almost 80. But a little birdie told me that last night, was it last night or night before? You had a middle of the night, two baptisms. Tell us that story. Well, just out of nowhere, the nurse that looks after Ms. Kay, where the information, how it got to her, she brought, somebody was visiting them, and that person was going up in the far and north up there. Yeah.

She was on the premises, and so was the nurse. and they just came up all excited looking around saying they said we're feeling sorry we didn't we didn't understand coming to jesus and what that meant you know except and believing that he died for my sins yeah and was buried three days later in the bible the gospel showing that they said would you please baptize us and i I said, well, yeah. I said, the river down there is ready to go. The temperature is real good in it.

I said, so let me just give you a little lesson here on what's fixing to happen. So we walked down, and I shared Jesus with him, and his death, barrel, resurrection, you live, receiving the Holy Spirit when you come to Jesus. And they said, that's what we want. They were both crying when they, showed up, the one working on Miss Kay and the other one that was visiting her. So I baptized both of them just walked down there. Awesome.

And I told them, I gave her some little history. I said, if you had watched this road going down to that water over the years, you would be shocked on how many people are walking that way like y'all are right now. Yeah, that would have been a good time-allap CCTV, just the road to Bill's front yard, what we call the boat dock road. I just walked out in the rivers up about eight, nine feet. So it was down there on the boat ramp with mud about like that. But I knew that there was concrete underneath it.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about. You're in the black night. Snakes are, there's a snake under every log down there. and, you know, just dunking somebody. All these people in the Book of Acts, you read where they were, but evidently there was some kind of running water or on the premises throughout the Book of Acts. Yeah, that's true.

The conversion stories. Yeah. I just look at the whole thing, you know, Jesus, you know, when he said, you know, going to all the world preach the gospel, he that believes and is baptized to be saved. It seems so simple, and a lot of people just overlook it. I take that seriously.

Yeah. Well, you should. That's, it's my job. I'm one that just preaches the gospel. In the kingdom, if you said, well, who is that? He said, I don't know. If you want to listen, he always preaches the same thing. He preaches how to obey the gospel of Jesus

and have maintained the Holy Spirit of God. No, it's a valid point, Phil, because that's what the book Acts is all about. Yeah. Peter gets up and verbalizes what Jesus has been doing for about, you know, three years. Yeah. You know, he started out.

He was about 30, you know, when that's in Matthew. And so it all works out that he's trying to convince him over and over. You get the mark, same thing. Every one of them, the last two pages, Matthew, Luke, John, Matthew, Luke, John. There's crucifixion, the death of Jesus, the burial of Jesus, the resurrection. I always just tell them, I have the Bible like that, and I stand it up, I said, just follow the yellow. If you see yellow, you're talking about the death of Jesus, his burial and resurrection. So for those listening, he's highlighted every time.

I was in his class Sunday. He's like, just follow the yellow. And I went, oh, he's got everything. If he followed the yellow, you would say, get me to the water. You know, they made a movie about that. Follow the yellow brick road. That's it. That's exactly what that is.

You made a movie about that? No, I was kidding. That was a movie. Talking about following the yellow. Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz. This is the Wizard of Oz. But here's what's interesting.

So, Dad, there has been a yellow brick road because we are two years shy of moving out to where you are, where you lived at right on that river from 50 years. We're two years shy of it. 48 years ago, we moved out there. And what was amazing was you sort of were in isolation, seemingly. But it was an isolation because God has been sending people out there. to hear the good news for 48 years. And even you at 78 are still sharing it and still walking them down to that river.

I told those two, I said, if you stood here and watched over the last 35, 40 years, I said, you would be shocked. You see how many vehicles. I said, it would go all the way back to West Monroe. I mean, it just, people just coming from. No, you had a great line one time when someone asked you, how come you share Jesus with everyone you see and you say well I'm assuming if they wound up here they must be lost in more ways than one yeah so physically spiritually that's got a lot of truth

log our our brother-in-law Tony who's an artist took a picture of dad baptizing a woman I think she was from in the Midwest somewhere and it's a beautiful picture just heard like you know coming up out of the water. Just coming out of the water. It's amazing. It's a fantastic image. I think it's behind my head. Oh, it really?

Yeah, that's right there. Okay, good. You're looking at it. Sometimes you've got to read the room, but you're not in the room. Well, I can't see it. From my angle, I only see the duck call. But anyway, so that picture, we bought a print just to show you, Dad, how things keep going. We bought a print of that and had it framed to give to the surgeon that worked on

Lisa for all those hours because I'm so grateful to him and I know he will appreciate it what it means to have a new life. So I told him, I said, you make good investments and you know Jesus, so you're our kind of guy. So let's get to the book of Acts. Well, in a weird world, we were in Acts 18 with Larry, which was a month ago. And so now you show up a month later and we're in Acts 19. You're just in Ephesus.

If you think about it, we took a three week. That was a long tritical, which I had to go look that word up. Matthew labeled it as the Great Commission. Yeah. Now, when you read something in the Bible that says, this is one of or any other thing, the Great Commission. Yeah. And then you say, well, exactly what do we do?

Look, Jesus, the 11 disciples went to Godalide to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. This is Matthew 28. resurrected from the dead, so they're all thinking, well, when they saw him, they worshipped him, and I always make this point, but some doubted. I said, they've been doubting about this thing for the last 2,000 years. What's amazing is from the Great Commission, Jesus came into them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now, whatever he's fixing to say next, you better listen to what.

he's saying because this is where the rubber meets the road here the voice of god right here therefore go and make disciples of all nations and you know what i'm sitting here two thousand years later after the after that great commission and it did work and it was great commission yeah and still working still working yeah jesus is still so disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father's Son, Holy Spirit, and tell them to obey, teach them to obey everything I've commanded you, and I'll be with you to the end of the age. To my frail mind, I just say, let's do that. Yeah, exactly.

I don't know about what everybody said, they're going to go, yeah, yeah, and all that. I said, that's too simple to miss. That it is. Exactly. And you see it throughout Scripture. One thing that has always struck me, you know, when I'm presenting Jesus in a Muslim context, in a Muslim community to Muslims. And what I'm preaching is not doctrine. It's not theology.

It's just Jesus. That's right. And I put a Farsi Bible in their hand and they're reading. And when they come to Christ, they come to me and they've got their finger, you know, somewhere in that Bible. and they come to me and say, I need to be baptized. Because they're reading the words of Christ here. I think it's parallel to Philip and the eunuch in the Book of Acts. And so Philip goes over to this chariot and there's this guy and he's got the scroll of Isaiah

and it's actually open to Isaiah 53, 5 and 6. You know who his man is talking about? Yeah, exactly. Is he talking about somebody else? No. And he explains who Jesus is and what is his response. Here's water. What hinders me from being baptized?

Yep. And immediate, that's the response to the gospel. Yeah. That was so to listening to a sermon, not at our church, at another church on Sunday. And the pastor was talking, well, he was a missionary, actually, he was talking about doing work in the Middle East. And the part that bothered me about the sermon, though,

It was about how he kept talking about the kingdom as being this future thing that is not here yet. It's going to come. It was going to come. And he said what keeps the persecuted church, what he said was that they hang on to this coming kingdom that's coming. But I thought, man, but you're missing something bigger that the kingdom is here now. It is coming. But the key is that who is the guy? Who is the king?

of the kingdom. And can I know him today? And I love that because I was like, if you get off too far in these eschatologies and all the doctrines and all that, which is, it's important. But the key is, is what changes people's life is to come to know the one true God, to know him. I looked for the text that covered the eschatology, but I didn't find one. Yeah, well, the words I'm in there. Still looking for that. Well, that's the Greek word for Jesus, I know. It's death, bail, and resurrection. I know that.

I'm just going to keep it there. That's right. Peace all you need. So in this last segment, we'll try to kind of, for our minds, you guys that are listening out there, you're listening just to the last podcast. We're right there. But for the rest of us, we're kind of catching up to where we were. It's interesting as that, because what you just brought up,

I think is a good description of what we're seeing happened here. when Paul makes this transition from Corinth to Ephesus. And what happens here, there's a couple of things that we've already talked to on the podcast. There was this situation with Priscilla and Akila and Apollos, where they taught him the way more adequately, because remember, we're in this huge transition period now from Judaism to this now belief system in Christ. And so, you know, you just don't snap your fingers than that happens. It's happening now for a series of years.

Right. And so Paul in these journeys, you know, they keep running up on these people who haven't quite understood exactly what's happened. And so they're getting this way more adequately. Same thing happens when he gets to Ephesus, when he runs up on these disciples. And the same thing with them, they only knew of the baptism of John. And they didn't even know about the Holy Spirit. And so we talked about this.

You know, he baptizes them in the name of Jesus. He baptizes them into Christ. And so then we see the Holy Spirit. active in their lives. And so we spent quite a bit of time talking about that in this idea of transition. So obviously there's something really big that's happening in the first century. It's going to transition from the way it's always been in Judaism under now Christ. And so to Zach's point, the king is the king. And he has been since he was established and since he, you know, is now at the right end of the father. So that part gets missed a lot of times, I think, in the current discussion about

this. And I think it's why the study of action. is so important. If I'm not mistaken, we left off right around the time of verse 11 and 12. So I want to read those. And then there's a story that we hadn't gotten to yet. So I want to get to that. It says in verse 11 of Acts 19, God did extraordinary miracles through Paul. So that even handkerches and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. So we're almost seeing in Ephesus, this one of these moments kind of like we saw early in Jerusalem where there's these fantastic miracles and people are being healed and it's creating this like cascade with what they're teaching.

And so then we get this little story, which is interesting, is this some Jews who were, who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. And so now, you see, you've got the Jews kind of stepping back in. and we've been seeing this is common. They would say, in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. That was how they were doing it. And then verse 14 said,

seven sons of Skeva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered him, Jesus, I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on him and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. I think we just touched on that story in the last time we were together. But it's almost funny. I mean, it's kind of, it's really not funny, but that makes me laugh every time I read that.

But it also gives me great caution because, you know, people throw around a lot of things in the name of Jesus. And I'm like, you better make sure you got the right art and the right idea here. This just exactly parallels what Jesus said in Matthew 721 is that all. On that day, on the day that I return on the clouds of heaven in glory and in power, many are going to say to me, Lord, Lord. And it's like we have cast out demons in your name. And in your name, didn't we do all these miracles? And in your name, didn't we do that? And Jesus says, depart from me because I never knew you.

And this is exactly what is happening here. it's like, oh, I know Jesus. Every time Jesus cast out of demons, like, oh, you're the holy one of God. They're hip, and everybody that thinks that they've got something in that, they're not really hip. This is the difference between the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus, is that baptism of John was truly a baptism of despair. And it says in Mark chapter 1, verses 4 and 5, that the entire Judean countryside was coming out to be baptism and to be baptized by him, and that this was a baptism for repentance. And it also says this is a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

And why I'm saying it's a baptism of despair is that they come up out of that water. Their sins are forgiven. they go back to Jerusalem and guess what? They're right back in the same boat that they were in. And so while John's baptism was powerful to forgive my sins, it had zero power on transforming my life. And that blood of Jesus, that continual blood of Jesus. And so you see that happening.

And so this directly parallels that Matthew 7, 21, he said, of people out there dropping my name all over the place. But if we're, if it's one thing to be, to know Jesus, it's a, it's another to be known by Jesus to know and be known. Here am I, you know, that sort of thing. And that's that abiding relationship that we have. If you abide in me, I will abide in you.

And it's his, his life in us. I was kind of preaching on this Sunday is. that, you know, we don't have righteousness. No way. All of our righteousness is nothing but filthy rags. We can never have holiness, but this is the wisdom of God. He has become for us, our righteousness, and our holiness. And so my life in Christ is not an imitation of Christ. You know, we have a tendency to think that, you know, you'll read a book and it's got 12 chapters because there's 12 weeks in a quarter and it's a perfect study. And so how to be like Jesus.

And so Jesus prayed a lot. He was devout. He did this. He did that. And then you're supposed to imitate all of those things. Well, if you could do that, you could have been Jesus. You know, he wouldn't have had to come. Jesus didn't come to show us what we could do.

He came to show us what we could not do. And he said, I am. I'm going to be that very thing for you. It's a big step because that little addition. therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. He said that twice. Yeah. This has to be.

Our theology becomes our practice. Heart's changing. What the hard part about it is is that you end up, because when we say that, the hard part is there is a great deal in scripture about what we're supposed to do. But then it's like, well, but you don't really accomplish anything because our acts are filthy rags. I think that the key to all of it, all of this, and you see it right? right here in the text is when you mentioned the difference between the two baptisms, I love that because John says, I come to baptize you with water.

He who's coming will baptize you with the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is central to all of this. And so when, you know, that's why he says that the spirit was poured out on him. He goes into the synagogue in Acts 19, preaching boldly about the kingdom of God. He's reasoning with him. What does that even mean? What is the kingdom of God? It's the rule and the reign of God.

It's the spirit that came to live in believers. So when you have this casting out of demons, you think, why did it not work for these guys? I mean, they're doing all the right verbiage, but what was the big difference? The big difference was when Jesus cast out demons, he said in Matthew 12, that he did it by the spirit. And he linked that to the coming of the kingdom. He said, if by the spirit, I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. And so they're trying to access this power. without the coming of the spirit that's living in them.

And that's the whole, I mean, that is the whole picture of the scriptures, is that God's going to come live in man now. So now my righteousness is filthy rags. And I also don't produce my fruit, any fruit. But what I can do is I can submit to the spirit through his revelation of righteousness. And then I start to put into practice the things of him. And then I become transformed into the image of the sun, which was what I was predestined to do as a believer.

I'm predestined to be conformed the transformation that you mentioned, Larry. I'm predestined to be transformed into him. How? By submission to the Spirit, as he reveals things to me, he reveals to us truth and righteousness and all of these things. And then the byproduct of that is his fruit, Galatians chapter 5, loves, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control against such things there is no law. So I think the Holy Spirit is paramount here.

Oh, Zach came ready to breathe. Yeah, yeah, he did. I mean, the difference between John's baptism and the baptism in the name of Jesus is one is powerless and one is powerful because of that indwelling. There's power in the name of Jesus, we always say, that indwelling of Jesus coming to live in us. And that's my point is that our life in Christ is not an imitation, but it is the very life of Christ pouring through me. It's exactly Jesus, body, soul, and spirit.

And anything that comes out in my own flesh is just powerless. True. I think we're out of time. But I will say, I do think there's one thing to be said here too about Jesus doing the miracles and the apostles having a special commission to do the miraculous. And that's why even the demons said,

well, I've heard of Jesus and I heard of Paul. but who are you? I'm sure who you are. Yeah, so when you pose yourself as an apostle or Jesus himself, as far as the working, the miracles, that may be a dangerous venture. What spurred to be careful. Yeah, that 19, it's Paul said, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.

They're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. on hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. They spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about 12 men in all. But it was, he had a tough go. I can tell we've been off for a while because we're having a hard time stopping. So we'll pick this up next time on Undershame.

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 blaztv.com slash unashamed.