Ep 901 | Phil Went for Two Years Without Shoes & What Does the Bible Say about Dinosaurs?
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I am unashamed. What about you? It's close enough for I could get a good look at him. I wanted to revisit this because we brought up in a previous podcast kind of the old Black Panther argument. His dad has seen some kind of wildcat, big cat. It's a conversion of sorts. He has now joined. Because I've been there for 20 plus years because I know what I saw. But Phil, you've got to remember, you've now teamed up with your brother.

as being the spokesman for Wildcat. Which that's what mom, I asked mom about it, dad, and she said, oh, Si's been validated. Like, he's been maligned all these years, but now it's all true because your daddy saw that. So I said, well, mom, no, we may be going a bit far because none of us are saying we saw a black panther. We just saw a big cat. There's a difference in the two. Bigger than your normal house cat. Solid black, but not

Not black-black, more of a dark, dark brown. I've noticed a pattern, though, that these sightings usually occur that these cats, although bigger than, they say, a wild, I mean, a domestic cat or a bobcat,

They're always on the smaller side. They're always younger wildcats. And I noticed, secondly, that they're usually viewed by more mature individuals. Yeah, I was young when I saw mine. Were you? Yeah, I was in my 30s. So I'm convinced. I was a little bit younger. But yeah, you're right, Jase. And a lot of times we see things we're not sure about, and then we're convinced of something else. See, that's a mystery. But that mystery doesn't have to be solved.

No, it was what it was. Well, my thing is I've always known. It was a cat. I've always known that eventually there'd be some more of them show up. And so somebody's going to get it on a deer camera or something where we get a good. I mean, he ran. I had to slow down or I had to run over him. Yeah. Coming out of the ditch. And he was coming up out of the ditch. And I was looking at tail. I mean, I was just looking at him. I said.

What in the world kind of cat is that? Yeah. It would have been unfortunate if you would have ran over him, but it would have provided some evidence, some actual evidence. Right.

Well, I don't want to be more. He didn't have a collar around his neck. No collar. So he was wild. We've established he at least was wild. He was a wild cat. Now, I don't know. He might have escaped from somebody that raised his cats. And Dan has cats run out there. You can't even get close to them. Oh, yeah. Wild cats. They're feral. Oh, yeah. Feral cats. Dad, I did have a conversation yesterday with our good friend, Jersey Joe.

And I had not talked to Joe since, because we all went to Europe together and did a cruise, but then Lisa had to come back for her surgery. So he went to Rome for three days without us. And he was so excited because Joe's a cook. In fact, we're working on having him on one of our future Cooking with the Roberson's episodes. And he's good. He cooks Italian food, Italian from New Jersey. His grandmother told him, he doesn't even call it sauce. He calls it gravy, Italian gravy.

So he has this thing built up in his mind that when he goes to the motherland, you know, he goes to Italy, which is where his heritage is from. He's just going to be blown away, you know, when he gets to Rome and he's in there eating these dishes that he grew up hearing about. So I asked him, I said, well, Joe, tell me, because I hadn't talked to you since then, because he was going to film some episode stuff over there for his YouTube stuff.

And I said, what about it? How was the food in Italy? Were you just blown away? He said, I was disappointed. I said, you were? And he said, yeah. He said, we put way more spices than things in America. And so when I ate it, it just tasted bland to me.

You know, compared to what he cooks and the way American Italians cook. And so it was really funny because, you know, you build something up in your mind. He's never been back to Italy and, you know, we had a great time on the trip, but he was like deflated, you know, because he was like, I was expecting so much more. And I said, well, that shows you that sometimes you can build something up in your mind and have an expectation.

of what it's going to be like. But really what you're doing in your own kitchen is pretty good. So I was like, you know, don't let it deflate you and depress you, Joe. Just keep cooking good Italian food. Okay. For humor purposes, what are the two mystical animals of the Bible? And I happen to know this. The two mystical animals of the Bible? Yeah. Oh, I done stumped the scholar here. Well, there's the, what's the one they say is a...

A dinosaur. The Leviathan. Leviathan? That's one, Al. That's Psalm 74. Also Job is mentioned in Job. 14, it says, it was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert. Some people have said it's a dragon, it's a dinosaur, it's a giant crocodile. In our world of technology, I'm going to read the AI book

definition of Leviathan. You know what AI is, Phil? No. Artificial intelligence. Yeah, I've heard that. So this will be fun. The Leviathan is a primordial sea serpent and mystical creature in Jewish mythology and the Bible.

The word Leviathan comes from the Hebrew word, I can't pronounce that, which means great sea serpent or sea monster in the Bible. Okay. Leviathan appears in several books, including Psalms, Isaiah, Job, and Revelation. So what is the other one? I'm going to say Nephilim. What?

No. The Bethelum? Animal. Those were... That's like a hybrid. I said mystical creature as in... We're talking about a wild cat. Yeah. It's a Leviathan. I can't believe you don't know this. I don't... And why do I know it? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to look it up, but I don't know how to spell it. I'll go ahead and give it to you. The Behemoth. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Wow.

Yeah, I remember that. All right. AI overview. We're only reading this for fun, for Phil. Is a beast in the Bible's book of Job that is a form of the chaos monster created by God at the beginning of creation.

The behemoth. Behemoth is described as a powerful grass-eating animal that lives in the marsh and is not afraid of the Jordan River. And again, people have assumed that was maybe the woolly mammoth or some things that were kind of more ancient. Behemoth. Yes, behemoth. Behemoth is what most people say. But Jace usually puts his own twist. That is a twist because I used to, when we played ball years ago, which is why I remember these things, and we would face...

a human creature of ginormous proportions, I would say, look at this behemoth that we got to face, you know, like on the map. And people would say, what? And I say, read your Bible.

Well, it was like there were two women. I can't remember the exact context, but you brought this up now from the Old Testament. And their names were Big Thonna and Teresh. That was their names. And so when we'd see a couple of gals come by, I'd say, yeah, there's old Big Thonna and Teresh right there. That's nice.

I've always said, I've done the same thing. I just call it behemoth. That's a behemoth of a man or that's this big behemoth. I like the Beelmont version. But what I was going to say is I do think it does answer some of the questions that people who are, who I think are trying to poke fun at the Bible and they're like, Oh, what about the dinosaurs? And I mean, there's a couple of references to mystical animals that probably would fall in the

The lines of the dinosaur world. Yep. But interesting, and it's okay if you think you see something that's not conducive to our habitat. But we're all so fascinated by it because it's such a family story. It's funny, Jase, because I asked Alex because she works for us and interacts a lot with our people that listen to podcasts, and I said –

Do people like, are they, you know, into this discussion we're having about the Black Panther and all that? She said, no, they don't care. That's just y'all.

So I was like... Moving on. Moving on, I guess. It really is interesting that no one else cares about the Black Panther, but we do keep talking about it. I know. It's a family story. It's not a family. There's people... Look, every time I'm around people... But you're right. Remember when you said that about the show? All the people that showed up? They all showed up. I was telling you that. People, they think they see strange creatures. But you got to remember, in our culture of...

A lot of alcohol abuse and drugs. And you throw all that, old age, and just the fear of man, eyesight. We're seeing things all the time. There's a reason they make jokes about people seeing pink elephants outside their window. Think about that. Was it Nessie, the Loch Ness monster over in that? We were at that pond filming for our show. And there are people that travel there looking for that mythical sea creature. I know.

I mean, the bottom line is to tie this with what we were talking about on the last podcast is that, you know, we have a certain amount of fear in us because we are mortal. Yeah. And as people of the wilderness, because that's what we are. I've often had times when I was walking through the woods and I'm by myself and I hear a strange sound and nobody's looking.

But I'm looking around thinking, I just feel like there's something in here that could get me. And I'd say at least half a dozen times, I just took off running to whatever I drove in. I thought, no, I'm out of here, you know. Well, and when you grow up in the woods like we did, you know, every sound that we would hear at night, you know, was like, I wonder if that's something that's going to get me, you know.

Yeah. It's, it's like, I remember when we were kids, uh, we watched that movie. I think it was called Salem's lot. Yep. Which a lot of people say, well, why did your parents allow you to watch that? No, they were watching it with us. And then I go to bed and some creature was crawling on the window after I just watched some vampires tapping on the window. And,

I was terrified, you know. That picture they had of that vampire in there, you know, it wasn't like the suave Dracula. He was like a monster, and it just had an impact on us. You're right, Jason. I didn't sleep. I mean, we never watched horror. My parents were more responsible parents, and we didn't do that kind of stuff. The problem is my parent is sitting here listening to this. Do you remember that? No, no. When we would come to your house, though, like, I was exposed to things. I mean, there was Friday the 13th. I mean, Jason...

Salem's Lot. Oh, that's the one, yeah. I mean, I was like, whoa, it was always an experience. I was a teenager when those slasher movies started, and we lived out in those settings where all those movies were like the setup. You know, you're out in the way out in the woods and, you know, all of a sudden. Well, my parents were more like, let's just watch it together and deal with it right now.

And so that's why I've told that story. I remember watching Death Wish at your house. Oh, yeah. We went and watched that for Christmas. Phil was there. That was our Christmas Eve movie. And I remember telling my friends there, they were like, well, how did your parents allow you to do that? I said, they took us out.

It's so funny because all these memories I have, you know, being 10 or 12 years old. Look, my mom, in some scenes, she would cover my eyes and in others, she would cover my ears. It was ears, eyes, ears, eyes.

It's like letting me have the Wonder Woman poster and then painting some longer pants on it. Phil would say, if you ever talk like that, I'll whoop your tail. Speaking of feral cats, it was like feral kids running around. It was every man for himself. If you want to see a movie about our childhood, watch the movie, what was it called, War? I told Missy that when I watched that movie, I was a little emotional about it. She's like...

What's wrong with you? I was like, it just reminds me of my childhood. Kevin Costner's movie called The War, and those kids going around, if you ever want to see what my childhood was like, that movie was an exact representation of what we did. Whoever wrote that, I need to find out.

look into it because whoever wrote that lived our childhood i mean there's no doubt about it you just seen it every day you would get up and you would go explore because they just lived in an area right that's what they did that's right and that's what we did we got up in a rural area in the country went out in the woods we just we were exploring i don't i don't remember anything other than that we were always on the stuff we built forts we built all these you know every was an adventure

And it was that way when I was even little, when we were up in Arkansas, Dad, in Junction City. My whole childhood was like an adventure. I went barefoot, barefooted for about two years. But that was before Jesus, right? Yeah. I think I was going to say whiskey was involved. Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't wear shoes. That came on down there when I was fishing out there.

You were barefoot most of my time. Stepping around them fish. Yeah. You know, they got thorns, you know, coming off of them. So you don't want to step on one. Yeah, I never figured that out. I could remember mom having a light. I don't know what that meant at that age. She had a light and a pair of tweezers and a needle.

And she would spend an hour picking things out of your feet. Well, you went barefoot squirrel hunting because it was more quiet. I do remember that. Oh, yeah. We're talking even in the cold, you're out there. You're out there duck hunting barefoot? Well, that's what I remember. When I was a little bitty kid, the first time he took us duck hunting, that was before he came to Jesus. I mean, it was below freezing. Yeah. And Phil was barefoot walking around. Just a pair of jeans. But I didn't understand the concept of whiskey back then.

the woods. You were a man of the woods. Which is why we all revered you so much. It was like nothing can affect this man. I went duck hunting and I won duck season. I remember one season and I just didn't wear shoes. It was right before I repented. Yeah. That's why I brought up whiskey. Everybody jumped out of the boat, you know, walking out in shallow water, shooting in the woods. But some of them would look and say, good night of living. He said, you ain't got any shoes on.

Well, you didn't have money for waiters back then anyway. I think it was more who's a man battle cry. We want you guys to check out NetSuite by Oracle. Jay, so Oracle is a company you know something about. I do. I do own parts of the company in my portfolio, although not very much, but...

I am familiar with that, but I didn't know that they own NetSuite. So you can fill me in on what I'm a part of here. Well, one of the reasons they've been successful is that NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system. They bring accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, all into one platform and one source of truth. With NetSuite, you reduce IT costs because NetSuite lives in the cloud where there's no hardware required. You can access it from anywhere.

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Man, that was a walk down memory lane. Yeah, you never know where you're going to go on this podcast. I just had something pop in my head, too. I remember a light, a blue light that the mosquitoes would fly into. Yeah, that was back when they had the zappers. Zappers.

Yeah, y'all had one of those on your porch. Yeah, because we had a lot of mosquitoes down the river. Well, what happened was so many mosquitoes met their death that it actually fried the machine. Yeah, shorted out the machine and we couldn't afford another one. I've got one on my deck now, but I don't think it's working.

I don't think they do them anymore. I guess the mosquitoes have... No, they still do them, but now they do them more... Kind of just catch them. I think they call it more humanely. Yeah. So overall, the all things that we did, this current process, preaching the gospel to people, it's the best. It is. It's the best. Well, that's the point I was bringing up. You're born into a world that's already here, and you look up and...

At some point, you start asking these questions. How did I get here? What am I supposed to be doing here? You have a sense of being trapped. And when you look at all these humanist versions of how we got here, you know, I'm just going to be honest. If that's all you got, it's just a doomsday scenario. I mean... I was shocked so much that I said...

I'm going to look into what you just told me about this Jesus. I'm going to look into that. And I did. I said, how in the world did I ever miss that? I said, man. It changed you and it changed us. Oh, I'm telling you. So to get us back to our discussion, Zach, at the end of the last podcast, dropped anthropology on us and tried to just, you know, scoot right past it. And so I looked it up, and it's the science of humanity.

which studies human beings and aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history, it's interesting that that's part of the definition, of Homo sapiens, to the features of society culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animals.

Oh, boy. So if you looked it up in Britannica, that's the definition. I think they missed that. Well, my point was that what separates humans from other animals is that's our anthropology, which is at its core, what separates us is that we are made in the image of God.

Genesis 1, 26, 27. And secondly, we're not an animal. Well, we are an animal. We're an animal. I'm an animal if I hit three home runs consecutively. Yeah.

But outside of that illustration, no, I'm different than the animal. Look, when animals start seasoning their food, I will classify myself as an animal. Okay, good point. Good point. But think about this. When animals start feeling bad about something. Well, you share 98% of your DNA with an ape, but yet somehow you're profoundly different because you do season your food. You have creative capacity. You have resources.

rational faculties. You have the ability to appreciate beauty in the world. There's a spiritual side. So we're bodies, but what separates us is that we possess a spirit. Well, what you're saying is, Zach, is that 2% is very important. It's very important. That 2% difference is Genesis 1, 26. I'll give you a definition of what separates us and animals is the word very. Very.

When he created animals, he's like, this is good. This is good. Yeah. This is good. He created humans. He said, this is very good. Yeah, that's good. So, I mean, I think there's the image of God. We were created in the image of God, which is why I would say we're not animals. No, and Zach is right. The soul, that part, because an animal has, they have a spirit. They have an animating force, but they don't have that other element

That appreciates art and music and creation. And like you said, just wants to cook your food and season it. Yeah, it's just instinct only. And we love animals. Which is what makes it so dangerous as humans when the Bible talks about that they invent ways of, we invent ways of doing evil. Animals don't do that. Animals do by instinct things that they do. But what we do and we get into our basement,

And I've actually preached on this a lot is where we occupy a position where we're kind of like the animals that we have hemoglobin. We have DNA. We've got lungs and all that. We got all that stuff. But we also are kind of like God. We're not God, but we're kind of like God because we're made in his image. We have a spirit. We have rational faculties.

the ability to appreciate beauty, all that. But what happens is we try to get outside of our existence and we try to become God. But the problem is, is that we're not God, so we never can. So what we end up doing is going down our basement and then we use our God-given rational faculties to invent ways of maximizing instinctual pleasure.

And that's when you see all the stuff like in the Bible, the Bible talks about this, but like we can go to very dark places, but we have to use our God-given rational faculties and abilities and our spirit, our image bearing properties to do it. And so we like sin perverts that and it twists that and it changes that. But going back to our conversation from the last episode,

The reason why I brought that up was because we were talking about how do we start with when we start talking about our position as a human in the world and in existence? And we have to start not with the fact that we're

We're sinful, although we are sinful. But we start with the fact that God made man in his image. And then we move to the fall and talk about our sinfulness. And then that paves way for redemption that comes through Christ, which then paves way for restoration, which comes through the Holy Spirit, applying salvation to us, which then paves way for what we're hoping for one day, which is the consummation, what we call glorification.

And so that's the process. So I just brought that up because we're going to get into some stuff in Ephesians that we want to set a proper foundation. Well, and then you're right, and Jace brought it up with the idea of flesh, our human flesh, which is inherently good, not bad, because of the beginning. And he was in Romans when he was talking about that. Which, Jace, is interesting you brought up Romans because I've always thought that Romans is like the –

You know, it's the long detail that Paul goes into about all things. And Ephesians is almost like a little bit of a reader's digest of the book of Romans. It's, you know, Paul goes into more detail in the first three chapters, but really the elements that we're reading here in Ephesians are the exact same way he approached the Romans. And it would make sense because, again, of the context of those two situations. Well, that's why I think, I mean, we've gone back to Genesis 2 and 3 here, but...

When you think about it, God gave the first man and woman the power over the animal world and the trees and work in the garden. And he only said one little rule here. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because if you do, you'll die. So are you going to trust him when it comes to good and evil, or are you going to

Take it upon yourself. Well, when they took it upon themselves, now granted there was a spiritual force of evil there that had fallen and also made a choice not to trust God. The evil one is present there. And when they did, well, that's what happened. And then that process has repeated itself since that time. All humans, they're given life from somewhere. It is a gift of God.

Babies are innocent. That's why when you read verses like the acts of the sinful nature, Galatians 5:22, the acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Well, that list there, when you look at a little baby, they don't have any part of that list, none. It also supports why Jesus was so adamant about welcoming children and babies and don't cause them to stumble. I mean, over and over, you see that.

the innocence of their life. But when that commandment came, you know, I'm thinking, where's that verse that says when Paul and Romans... Romans 7. Romans 7, 9 is a very interesting verse. I know this is a deep verse for this early in the podcast, but Paul says, I was alive apart from the law.

But when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. So it's a really good question to say, well, how could you be alive apart from law? Because even if we know Paul was during the time period where the law was, but even if you went back to before the law was given, so Adam to Moses in that time period, well,

Paul addresses that in Romans 1:18-32. He's like, no, there's evidence that there is a God because of his divine nature and eternal power that all men are without excuse. We usually use that in the area of evidence with the creation, but he was just talking about, no, God made it known there is a God.

which is a very practical thing. - And there's two different ways of revealing that. One in just what you see, and then one is the revelation he gave us through Christ, which becomes the Bible, the story, who Jesus is, all of that. Both those are revealed. - I recently saw a video

with our old friend Bill Maher, who was kind of a long-term left-winger, and he was talking about that he was willing to acknowledge that killing a baby, having an abortion, was murder, but that he was okay with it. It was worth it for a person's life, a woman's life, or her ability to choose whatever the thing you want to apply. So it made me think about the term valley of slaughter that's in the Old Testament. You're talking about Molech and children sacrificed there.

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that just because you were created human doesn't mean you were created sinful. You remember in John 9 when they came up there and the guy was born blind and they said, well, who sinned that this happened? Was it the man or did he inherit it from his parents? And he was like, neither, which was an answer that

They didn't know what to do with it. That's right. Because we're like, well. See, he didn't say neither one sinned. He said the consequences you're talking about is not a result of either one. It's not a result. So just because that's true doesn't mean that, yes, once we all reach this age where we understand the law, whether it's your conscience or whether you read it, yes, we're all going to sin, which is incredible that this Bible written so long ago got that right.

There's no one, there's no adult that is perfect. They all sin. And as a result of that, going back to Adam's sin, because you're like, well, why is he bringing up the first Adam? Because when he chose that, not to trust God, then all of a sudden death started raining because you're a mortal being. That's why you also had the other tree in the garden, the tree of life, as long as they were trusting God,

I mean, that tree, I'd love to take a look at whatever was on that because it was keeping them alive. Yeah, there was some property to it that they would have, as long as they were eaten of that, they would have lived forever. Exactly. They would not have aged. They would not have died. So God starts his scheme of redemption, and I mean scheme in a positive way, of redemption.

Bringing people back to him. And he does it through Jesus, which is what the whole first chapter of Ephesians is about. That's why it says in him 10 times. Because at the end of the day, he's going to destroy that mortality aspect of human existence. Yeah. Cleverly, by Jesus dying. That's right. Yeah.

And what adds layers even more to the mystery, Jace, is that, and we just get little glimpses of it throughout all of the Bible, is even our scheme of redemption, which we're about to get into in Ephesians 1, 3 through 14, is somehow tied to another group of beings that rebelled against God and then were cast out.

of that realm into our realm, which back to Genesis 2 and 3 had an effect on us. And we don't even know all that mystery yet. I don't guess we'll know that till we get into the next realm. But even that is mysterious, is that somehow what happened to that race of beings affected human beings and affected our story. So it's really interesting. So I think I'll just read this text.

And then we're going to go back because we're going to be camped out here a little bit because this is really the plan of redemption. And I would say, before I read it, this is probably one of the richest –

deepest sections in the entire New Testament. I would just add it's a plan of redemption, going back to what I said earlier, and restoration and eventually consummation too. I think we'll see. Great point. It's not just what happened. It's also what's happening and what will happen. I wanted to read one other verse, though, because a lot of people, I think, just say, well, God had to do this because of...

you know, punishment or wrath or whatever. But I wanted to read for you, read this. I think this is an interesting verse leading into this. This is John 10, Jesus in verse 14, when he said, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep. My sheep know me just as the father knows me and I know the father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

And then he says, I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. And you see this Jew, Gentile, which is everybody theme being referred to here before he died. And it says, I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. Here's the verse I want to get to. This is John 10, 17. The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life.

Only to take it up again, which we know based on everything we're just saying, that's where he's going to destroy this moral problem of having mortality of sin and death. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. I just thought it's a powerful statement. It's like the reason the Father loves me. I'm doing this by choice. You know, God chose to send Jesus. Jesus chose to die. And then all of a sudden we get to Ephesians and people, and we're made in the image of God. And they're like, but you don't have a choice. Well, no.

You can't have it both ways. If we're created in the image of God and he's choosing to do this because I think the key two words that make sense to this is where he said, that's the reason the Father loves me. But it's a tough sell because one of them, many of them,

Said he's demon possessed, raving mad. Why listen to him when they heard what you just read? Yeah, they made a choice, didn't they? Well, there's two little words right before, you know, because we're going to talk about predestination, which can be scary to some people. But it starts off that phrase in the second part of four saying in love. Never find yourself in a position, though, when we get into conversations about things like predestination. If someone asks you, I remember asking you one time, Jace, do you believe in predestination?

And your response was one of the greatest responses ever. You said, well, I better. It's in the Bible. And I thought, okay. But that's good. I mean, like it is in the Bible. So we can't say, well, I don't, I mean, you have to believe in predestination if you're going to believe in the Bible because it's right here in the scriptures. And it's positive. It's positive. So let's figure out what exactly it means.

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All right, so I've changed my outline heading for myself. Zach has impacted me. It's not just the plan of redemption. It's the plan of redemption, restoration, transformation, and glorification. Now we're on to something. This is the title of this text. That's very good. All right, here we go. Here we go. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Oh, this was a well thought out. Oh, so good. Oh, it makes your head hurt. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will.

I'm not keeping track, but that's at least four already.

to be put into effect when the times would have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory."

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.

who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. Man, what a text. You know, I know we're going to go back and ask the question in just a second. We'll let Jay handle this, but ask the question, who is it that he's talking about, which we'll get to in a second. But I just wanted to point out, you know, last podcast, I mentioned that Galatians 3 passage of the mystery that was being revealed there.

which is the inclusion of the Gentiles, which is, but look at the language here in verse 10, as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him and heaven together.

and things on earth. So you see that the oneness that Phil talked about two Ephesians four coming into play here, there's this, you get that picture that Isaiah two picture of like everything coming together, all types of people coming in. You can see it at the very beginning here of, of Ephesians and, and the people that he's bringing in and uniting are the people that are in the

In him.

When you're talking about this plan, I mean, you have to have all three. And that's, again, you think, oh, yeah, we got that. But again, a lot of people don't get that. They miss that. Right off the bat, he brings all three of the components of who God is into play when we bring in this idea about how we're redeemed, restored, and ultimately glorified. So that was one thing that struck me right off the bat is that's got to be your basis of understanding.

Well, I think you, you know, this is a lot to digest, but you realize God's eternal. He's all knowing. He's all powerful. He's omnipresent. I mean, think of any other qualities you can think of. And so I think we as humans think God created the heavens and the earth and created humans. And then he's like, oh, no.

What am I going to do? This didn't work. That never happened. I made a boo-boo. Yeah, he was never surprised. But we, in our human form, think, oh, I got to do something. What this screams out to me is H-O-E-E, hope. Well, exactly. Yeah, that's good. Hope is outlined right there. Yeah. Well, there's no question that God doesn't know the answer. So when you start getting into...

well how this how why you know how did he predestine us and who were the people i mean zach said he wanted to know who was the audience i mean he says in verse one to the saints in ephesus the faithful in christ jesus but i would say that's human beings yeah this is what god's plan was praise be to god the father lord jesus christ he's blessed us in the heavenly realms

With every spiritual blessing in Christ. Just think about that statement, Jay. He's blessed us in the heavenly realms. So we're talking about all this going on in a place that's not even here. Well, that's what I brought up earlier, though, Al. I think when you read verse 10, when it says to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Well, I think that's going on now. Yeah.

Jesus is king of kings. Here's the problem, and here's why. You say, well, how is there a problem in all this? Because people... For the most stringent atheist, it seems to me, if you just walk behind him, or he has to look around like that, and you look at the date, 2024, still stands.

What year was this? Well, you figure these were... Well, this was about A.D. 60 when he wrote it. A.D. what? 60. A.D. 60. You say it's still here right in front of him. Yeah, but the problem is, Phil, and it's a good point, but the problem is because people look around whether they believe or don't.

And they're like, well, it doesn't look like he's brought everything in heaven and on earth under one heaven, under one head. So you ever heard of somebody called Jesus? You might ought to look into him. Yeah, but they're saying it doesn't look like it. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is God allowing this to happen? Which, you know what I find interesting? When people question God, they never question Jesus.

They always say, why would God have this happen? They never say, why is Jesus? Because they're viewing him as a figure that was here, and he's gone. And we've got to wait on him to come back. We've got to wait on him to come back. He has no emphasis whatsoever. That's a good point. And so I'm saying, if you're only reading the Bible thinking of all these things are going to happen, I think that breeds some misconceptions of what this is saying.

Because when you get to the next chapter, all of a sudden, in chapter 2, and we're going to wait until we get to chapter 2 to get to chapter 2, but I was just going to say, this is what I'm saying. When you read this, your natural inclination is to say, well, it doesn't look like he's blessed us with all these blessings.

It doesn't look like Jesus has all authority. And so then you start realizing that, you know, this wrath has been poured out a lot like Romans one. When you read the first chapter, all of a sudden that seems a little depressing because it's like, well, since people know that there's a God based on creation and his evidence and his divine nature, right?

And here's the story of Jesus, to your point, which is another evidence of God. Yep. How come they're not surrendering to him? Because they're like, well, it looks like everything we see is bad. And I would present to you, based on Ephesians 2, because then he's going to say, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, because he's writing to the saints, in which you used to live.

And when you followed the ways of the world, which I'm making a point to say, these are things that you chose to do once you got old enough to understand good and evil. Like Adam, you started taking to the same tree of saying, I'm going to trust myself in the realm of knowledge of good and evil instead of God. And what do we do? We follow the ruler of the kingdom of the air. First John five says that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

the spirit who is now working in those who are disobedient. All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts like the rest. We were by nature objects of wrath. And then verse four seems to go back to what he's saying in chapter one. But because of his great love, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions.

So my point is that I think when you realize this wrath that's coming out like Romans 1 is revealing what happens when you decide not to live in the image of God. That is the wrath of God being revealed. But you could say, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth.

And it is awesome how many scriptures say this. The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, he's telling them how they are in for the taking here. You were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. He's a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance to the

redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. So he's telling the ones he's writing to, he's talking to us 2,000 years right at it. What was said right there? You say, boy, all that came through all of the years. The wars and the people of this and that. You also were included there.

When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Now, I wanted to, in our last bit of time here, I wanted to revisit that thought you both brought up, Zach and Jay, about the wrath of God. I think that's so poignant for where we are here, especially since he gives us this glimpse even before we were created. And I'll make this statement. I've never really heard it before, but I believe there is no wrath of God

without first there being the wrath of humanity. We're looking at what 2,000 years ago said about Jesus Christ. Right. And you can go back even further. It's a long time. You can go back even further, Dad, because when you go back in Genesis and you see sin enter the world because of a choice, how long did it take for the wrath of humanity to so consume it that everybody who was alive had every inclination of violence and wickedness?

and which brought about the great flood. So the idea is there's no wrath of God without first there being wrath of humanity, which comes about because of choice. Well, that was the point I was going to make about Romans 2 that talks about the Jews under the law. But Romans 1 deals with that time period

From Adam to Moses. And he says in verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godliness, wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. No doubt. For since the creation of the world, same phrase as Ephesians 1. Yep. For since his eternal life.

God's invisible qualities, eternal power, divine nature have been clearly seen so that all men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Their thinking became futile, foolish hearts were darkened, and although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in what they wanted to.

He just allowed them to follow their choice of not acknowledging the truth of God. And then what happens? You fast forward this because I know we're out of time. And it's men exchanged natural relations with men. Women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. And then it says men committed indecent acts. This is verse 27. But notice this phrase and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Well, there's the answer to this. If you decide to chunk God, what's going to happen? I mean, I remember your life before Jesus. I pretty much saw the wrath of God experienced by your own choices. And it was all bad. Ruined, misery, wrecked vehicles, running from the law.

crazed you know 28 years to figure it out and so I think that's what's being depicted let me ask you this real quick I know we're almost out of time but let me ask you this

So is your point here that the inverse of what's going on in Ephesians is the natural blessing that flows out from life in Christ? And then in Romans 1, it's the natural wrath that flows from life. That's what I think. Rejecting Christ. That's the point I see for sure. Exactly. But we are out of time. So we're going to pick up with that thought because that's a big one, Zad. Don't forget this. The next time we're back on Unashamed. So we'll see you next time.

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