Ep 896 | Miss Kay Finally Comes Home, Lisa’s Surgery & a Tornado Nearly Killed Jase’s Son
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I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed.

I'm a, we're spread across the fruited Plains today. Zach's 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, um, 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. Uh, the surgery, uh,

Jace 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, 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, um, the, uh,

I guess part about serving your bride, especially when she needs you. So we're all good. Waiting to hear a few more days till our follow-up visit, and then hopefully we'll be back home. So thanks for all the prayers for everybody. No, 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. And part of the new normal is you do things that you never thought you could do.

When a loved 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, Jace, with Mia and just the toughness that people have. 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 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, when 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 me in a huge way. And then I came back here for Katrina and we planted a couple of churches and help folks. And now here I am again in another phase now, 40 years later, uh, serving my wife. So it's almost like the almighty uses this city, uh,

For what I need in my own personal walk, it's just kind of a weird coincidence. I guess there'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 walks. 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 give him praise for that. You should write a book, Al. New Orleans. I should. Gateway to Heaven. Walking to 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, my woman's down. I need some hands down here. Within 10 minutes, there was two of them out there. I'm walking in. Oh, so you're talking about this guy was down and you. He 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 hold of her wherever 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 patience.

where they'll be happy. So my friends who live up the road, the Redneck crew, I mean, it's a bunch of them. Yeah, what's funny is we... A couple of them get out now, you know, I slipped them about 20 bucks a piece. I said...

Oh, you don't owe nothing. I said, go ahead and take it. They were reaching for it when they said, you don't have to owe me. That man can always use a little cash there. I said, look, I know it's 1 o'clock in the morning, but if I have to call you back, be ready. They said, all you do is call. We'll be there.

It's amazing what people do for 20 bucks, Phil. Yeah. Lifting fee. Yeah, I would say that after watching you over the course of my whole life, and you and mom now have been together 60 years, I mean, how you are in taking care of her is pretty amazing. I mean, you've taught me some life lessons even in the later years. She was having trouble getting up on the bed because most of the time if you walk up on a bed, it's upward somewhat. So...

Jersey Joe said, 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 it and said, yeah, we can lower this where her feet will be on the floor and her buttocks would be... We get the picture. Yeah, I got it. Yeah. So...

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 kept rolling the episodes, but we've had a little sabbatical, Zach. Yeah. A sabbatical where Kay's in the hospital, Lisa gets major surgery with her breast cancer, and Jace's house gets destroyed by a tornado. It was...

It was a great sabbatical, right? It was a pretty amazing sabbatical. Chase tells that story. Well, I got a week off. 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. Yeah, 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.

And what I said, Jace, was you guys were in our favorite place in the world. And so we got to live that out through y'all. So we would have rather y'all done that because you can pray from 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. Actually, Lisa was surprisingly good.

surprisingly the most confident person there. It was kind of, it was very inspirational. And so mom, who's doing a lot better, she was at my house last 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 Miss 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. Because Jeff acts like an old person. He does. He really does. And has for years. He's talking about his ailments, and everything revolves around when's his next bowel movement going to happen, and he's sharing that every day. But before that, we had a week where we were just going to have off. And so wouldn't you know it?

Someone just sends us a random text saying 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 of houses, which you're like, oh, big problems, you know. I mean, one of your houses was destroyed? Yeah. But my son lives there 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 hours after a 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 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.

Because he's in Nashville. And we're like, go check on Cole because 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 hit him. So my son gets on the phone, Reed, as he's searching for our other son.

And this went on for a couple of hours because what was happening is the closer he got to the town in the area where our house is, the worse 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, okay,

are y'all sure, Cole? I mean, when did you talk to Cole? 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 it's out in the yard. The roof's out in the yard. So finally, when he found coal, 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 is incredible that this is one of the few structures still standing. It's basically just 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 uh we had just built a new goat pen and moved our goats and one of the little bitty 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 a 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. Zach, it's 2024.

And the question is, how is your liver? Oh, it's, it is rocking and rolling. Never been better, Al. Never been. I mean, my liver is strong. See, Zach and I had had some liver issues. We had some bad numbers a year or so ago. And what happens is those enzymes get high. You get fatty liver is what they call it, which is not good. In fact, the American Heart Association says,

says that adults with fatty liver are three and a half times more likely to have heart failure than those without. And it affects about 100 million Americans. And so what Zach and I did is we went, we turned to one of our sponsors, Liver Health Formula, because they know that you throw everything at your liver. You got cholesterol, you got toxins, you got Tylenol, a lot of bad habits as well. And this makes you have a sluggish fatty liver.

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and protect your liver. Zach and I both took this product. Our numbers are good. Our liver is healthier. So if you're looking to ignite your fat burning metabolism, boost your energy and transform how you look and feel, try Liver Health Formula and you're going to receive a free bottle of blood sugar formula to reduce sugar cravings when you order today.

Try liver health formula by going to get liver help.com slash unashamed to claim that free bonus gift. That's get liver help.com slash unashamed. So he takes off running and we have a shelter that was not built for us.

a tornado but it was deemed that some guy built a bunker there to hide all his treasures like a couple owners where you record when you're up there yeah that's right 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. Oh, no, they're all big. Yeah, it was a virgin forest that were 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 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, Cole, he'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 mile from our house. But 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 us.

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...

She 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 hit 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 timestamp 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, we had eaten spaghetti. And she's like, I'd 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 prayer's at 550. At 550. And I'm looking at this desk cam at 551. And I thought, you know, I will never take for granted that.

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 happen, 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 protect him. But 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. But what I was going to say is when we got there two days later, I realized that

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 crew. You're going to need bulldozers and all that. Yeah, I need things with big blades and big motors and cranes and

a bulldozer 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 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 in and took it away. But yeah,

Well, yeah, we're obviously blessed for a lot of different reasons. We felt that same thing, Jay, as the prayers were. And I guess you could say that because a lot of people talk about the Unashamed podcast as,

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

A lot of us are 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, you feel that the people are out there and you just, in your spirit, you know, and you're just like, and like Jace 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 a, 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, the week I was actually preaching that Sunday. And, um, the, after, um,

And I had this whole thing in my notes about this line from Tombstone where he

Wyatt Earp sees the temptress and he says, I'm going to deny her. I'm not going to. When Doc Holliday asked, what are you going to do when you see her? She's like, I'm not going to. 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 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 in the movie. He says, Wyatt, you're an oak.

And I had that phrase in my sermon, that story, because I was talking about being firm like an oak. And then that happened, and I saw all the pictures of Jace's property. I'm like, you know, oaks are strong, but the power of a storm is just... Yeah, you don't want to be an oak in 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 once it went behind our house and dropped down, well, then it just continued down through our driveway and then went up the side of that mountain that's out in front of us, which is where the woman that lost her life, you would have thought she was in the safest place ever.

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 wrong.

You're just at the mercy of what happened. 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. A hurricane's a long, sustained wind, but a tornado is just an intense cell that just...

Everything. Just like with that cold experience is so fast, you know, it happens so fast. So we praise God that he's okay. We do pray for those families that 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 the book of Acts. We got our old friend, Larry Bowles in the house is going to join us in our act study. He preached at White's Fair 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.

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And you know what it said was one of the number one contributing causes? Not enough fiber. Lack of fiber and diet. So I hit the balance of nature fiber as well twice a day. And I actually feel a lot better. My gut feels a lot better. Yeah. And that's a great point. I mean, they obviously offer to fill in this gap in nutrition, but also fiber is an important part of that.

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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. You just feel the owls. Owls, owls, yeah. Is that a wisdom reference? Oh, it's an absolute wisdom reference. I'm going to tell you like I tell my wife, Larry, lower your expectations.

The last time I was there, I did my Chick-fil-A stop and they gave me my receipt. And I looked down at 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 at my receipt and it was O W L. Oh,

Good old owl. The old owl. I guess they thought that was the old wise up. Got to get the W in there. So, Larry, we've been kind of catching up on our sabbatical time. We had you on the last time. Yeah.

Uh, remotely you joined us cause we were talking about Corinth and that's your expertise and, uh, and all the temple of Diana and all that stuff. But what, uh, so you were, you were like laid up, but it looks like you're getting around pretty well. So you walk on camera. I was in a straight leg brace for four weeks. Uh, and so, yeah, I had a sabbatical kind of in a recliner for a long time, but, uh, um, the Lord sometimes, uh,

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. 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 when we're all together here. 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. Yeah. But a little birdie told me that,

Last night, was it last night or the 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 Miss Kay. Yeah. Where the information, how it got to her, she brought somebody who was visiting them. And that person was on up in the far north up there.

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 understand coming to Jesus and what that meant, you know, accepting, believing that he died for my sins. And was buried three days later in the Bible, the gospel showing that.

They said, would you please baptize us? And 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 them and his death, burial, resurrection, you live, receiving the Holy Spirit when you come to Jesus.

And so then 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. And I told them, I gave her a 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

or walking that way like y'all are right now. Yeah, that would have been a good time-lapse CCTV, just the road to Phil'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 and getting them up. 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, go into 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. Yeah. I take that seriously. Yeah. That's, that's,

It's my job. I'm the 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 maintain the Holy Spirit of God. Now, it's a valid point, Phil, because that's what the book of Acts is all about. Yeah.

Peter gets up and verbalizes what Jesus has been doing for about three years. He started out, he was about 30. That's in Matthew. And so it all works out that he's trying to convince them over and over. You get the mark, same thing. Every one of them, the last two pages, Matthew, Luke, John.

Matthew, Luke, John. Matthew, Luke, John. The 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 up and 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 you follow the yellow, you would say, get me to the water. They made a movie about that, Phil. Follow the yellow brick road. That's it. That's exactly what that is.

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You made a movie about that? No, I was kidding. That was a movie about following the wizard. The wizard of Oz. This is the wizard of Oz. But here's what's interesting. So, 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. If it's 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 to see how many vehicles died.

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, when someone asked you, how come you share Jesus?

with everyone you see. And you said, well, I'm assuming if they wound up here, they must be lost. In more ways than one. Physically, spiritually. That's a lot of truth. Logistically. So, Jace, 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 her, 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, really? Yeah, that's it right there. Okay, good. You're looking at it. Sometimes you 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 hole. 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. 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. We took a three week sabbatical, which I had to go look that word up. Matthew labeled it as the great commission. Now, when you read something in the Bible that says this is great,

One of or any other thing. Yeah. The Great Commission. Yeah. And then you say, well, exactly what do we do? Look, Jesus, the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. This is Matthew 28. Just resurrected from the dead. So they're all thinking, well, no. Well, when they saw him, they worshiped him. And I always make this point. But some doubted.

I said, they've been doubting about this thing for the last 2000 years. What's amazing is from the great commission, Jesus came into the M 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 2,000 years later after that great commission. And it did work. And it was a great commission. Yeah. And it's still working. Still working. Yeah. Jesus is still. So disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 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 go, yeah, yeah, and all that. I said, that's too simple to miss. That is exactly. And I see you see it throughout Scripture. One thing that has always struck me, you know, when I'm presenting Jesus in a Muslim way,

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 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. Yeah.

You know who this 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. I was listening to a sermon, not at our church, at another church on Sunday, and I

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, was about how he kept talking about the kingdom as being this future thing that's not here yet. It's going to come. It's going to come. And he said what keeps the persecuted church alive.

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 king of the kingdom? And can I know him today? And I love that because I was like, if you get off to...

far in these eschatologies and, and all the doctrines and all that, which is, it's important, but, but the key is, is what, what changes people's life and,

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, there wasn't in there. Still looking for that. Well, that's the Greek word for... Jesus I know is death, burial, and resurrection. I know that. I'm just going to keep it there. That's right. He's 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 with, for the rest of us, we're kind of catching up to where we were. But it's interesting that because what you just brought up, I think is a good description of what we're seeing happen here. When Paul makes this transition to, from Corinth to Ephesus, he,

And what happens here, there's a couple of things that we've already talked about on the podcast. There was this situation with Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos where they taught him the way more adequately because remember, we're in this huge transition period now for

from Judaism to this now belief system in Christ. And so, you know, you just don't snap your fingers and 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

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 right 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 acts 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 handkerchiefs 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 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 of

with what they're teaching. And so then we get this little story, which is interesting. It says some Jews 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. We've been seeing this as common. They would say, in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.

So that was how they were doing it. And then verse 14 said, seven sons of Sceva, 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 them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked naked.

And bleeding. I think we just touched on that story in the last time we were together, but it's always, 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 because it, 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 7, 21, is that 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, you know, 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 a demon, it's 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 1, verses 4 and 5,

that the entire Judean countryside was coming out 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, Jesus says, there's a lot of people out there dropping my name.

all over the place. But it's one thing to know Jesus. 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 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

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 and 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. I said that twice. Yeah. This has to be. Our theology becomes our practice. What the hard part about it is, is that you end up because when you when we say that the hard part is, 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 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. Mm-hmm.

He who is coming will baptize you with the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is central to all of this. And so that's why he says 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, but 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 Son, 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 five, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control against such things. There is no law. I think the Holy Spirit is paramount here.

Oh, Zach came ready to preach. 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...

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 say, well, I've heard of Jesus and I heard of Paul.

But who are you? I'm not sure who you are. Yeah, so when you pose yourself as an apostle or Jesus himself, as far as the work in the miracles, that may be a dangerous venture. But be careful. Yeah, that 19, as 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 Christ.

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 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 Undershade.

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