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Oh, there he is. Yeah, I see him. He's joining. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. He still doesn't have his ears on, but we'll pull him in. He's a wheeler and a dealer, Al. I know. I mean, we're just...
We're blessed that he just gives us his presence. Right. Well, that's what he does. He likes to just remove himself from time to time to make him more valuable. And then he'll just pop back in. Welcome back, Zach. Welcome back, Zach. Did you have a nice podcast, all doing some of your wheeling and dealing? You know what I was doing? I'd love to know. I was laying on the floor trying to stretch my back out.
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I thought you were making some kind of deal.
I figured you were looking at the alternate pronunciations of the word propitiate. Yeah. Well, we don't use big words anymore. I've been reprimanded, rebuked, ridiculed. Joe tried to step into your role, Joe. I tried, but I got hammered and I got the crickets. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you got to be careful where I'm going. Joe brought up the, oh, it's 10 of 8, and it was a cricket sound in the duck blind. Oh, here we go.
He was referring to the time. Zach, if I tell you it's 10 of 8, what does that mean? It's 10 of 8? Yep.
It's 10 till 8. If I say 10 of 8, what does that mean to you? See, Zach already put it in. Zach just said it was 10 till 8. Why not just say 10 till 8? 10 of 8. Yeah, 10 of 8. 10 of 8? You mean that's 10 till 8? 10 minutes? That's what it means. These are the same people that say when there's a line at Potluck and they say, you better go get online. Have you never said, hey, what time is it? And someone says, oh, it's quarter of.
Well, what is the difference of inline and online? Are you inline or are you online? If you're online, you're standing on top of it. If you're inline, you're in the line. No, if you're online, you're on the computer. If you're inline, you're fixed to get a sandwich. What is 10 of 8? I still haven't figured it out. 10 minutes to 8. You proved our point, Zach. There's no other. You're welcome aboard. You're on our team.
Because if I'm hearing 10 of 8, I'm thinking it's 10 after 8 because it's 10 minutes. Today you get to be the good guys and Joe will be the bad guys. No one has never said quarter of. It's quarter of. Quarter of. It would say quarter till. It's a quarter of. So is that. Or quarter after. I thought of you yesterday when the preacher said Jesus was the, how did he use the phrase? I should have written this down.
But he used your word propitiate. Jesus propitiated himself for our sins. Did I use that correctly? Propitiate. Yes, he was the propitiation. Propitiation. I think the verse is he is the propitiation of our sin. That's what the...
So tell everybody what that means, because then I want to give you the rest of his phrase. It's appeasing God. It's like atonement. Yeah, payment. So he said Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. He read that verse and he said, now we as spirit filled people are the propagation of Jesus.
I thought you'd appreciate that. Propagation. Who was the preacher? It was a guy from New York City. So I realized that I'm getting... No, it was online. I was watching this. So you got propitiate and then propagate. I loved it. Propagation has multiple definitions, including...
The process of increasing the number of organisms, spreading something, extending something. Yeah, I like that. I like it. Was it Tim Keller? Nope. Can't think of his name, but I'll... John Tyson? Yeah.
Zach, do you realize there's 9 billion people? Zach's going to mention every preacher he knows. I will look to God. So we are participating, by us wearing our gospel symbols, and we talked about the guy on the last podcast that tattooed on his arm. We are propagating the gospel. There you go. That's what I was trying to get at. See, I tried to use something that was an argument that people probably were frustrated with, and then I heard this preacher say that, and I thought, yes!
I like big words once I look them up. I like big words and they cannot lie. I mean, Zach, it didn't even take six weeks to get back to You Were Right. It was only three podcasts. No, well...
I got a bonus. That I used a word. In six weeks, it would be your idea that big words were good. I was a little frustrated by it. I told Jill. But he was making fun of the big word by using another big word, which had a very spiritual effect.
Who was making fun of it? The preacher? Well, yeah, he was kind of... It was a... You think it was a tongue-in-cheek. It was a tongue-in-cheek, but then he was saying, yeah, nobody knows what that means. But then when he explained it, he's like, oh, that's good. So he drew attention, caused confusion, people looking up the words.
What I didn't know was a bonus is Zach didn't know what propagate meant. I did know what propagate meant. Well, you acted like you didn't. Well, you know what? I had someone actually use the word in response to...
Richard Dawkins had written. You guys know who Richard Dawkins is? He's a famous atheist. No. What book did he write in the Bible? He didn't write a book in the Bible. He didn't believe in the Bible. He's a famous atheist. But he said, he famously said that the sole purpose of our existence is to propagate one's DNA. It's a purposeless, pitiless indifference of an existence. I'm paraphrasing what he said there. And I'd made the point, well,
a lot of podcasts I was part of a long time ago, that outside, in an atheistic worldview, you just don't have a framework for the value of life. And to Dawkins' point, the only reason we exist is to propagate our own DNA, and that's it. It's a blind evolutionary process. Disagree with that. I think we do have a different reason, and it's what you said. What did the pastor say? To propagate...
No, I found his name. John Tyson. Sorry, John. That's what I said. Did I not say John Tyson? You said John Tyson, yeah. That was my second choice. Well, let me tell you why I'm listening to that, because we've decided to go next to Colossians. Have we announced that? I don't think. I think you just did. I just did. And they're preaching through a series. In Colossians? In Colossians. Ooh. Because we go to Church of the City when we're in Nashville sometimes, and they're
I think Darren Whitehead is the preacher there. Yeah, Darren. And they're going through Colossians. I took it as a sign. So now I'm listening to all their sermons. It wasn't a very exegetical sermon, but it was really good about maturity. And I'm going to use some of his points, especially if you have kids. It was kind of nostalgia-like. Well, here's the goal. Here's the goal for the near future. I want to have John Tyson on the podcast.
He probably doesn't know who we are, but I need to reach out to him. I want to have Tim Mackey so we can answer Phil's question. Who's Mackey? Who's Mackey? And I want to have N.T. Wright. My all-time favorite cold oven. Who's Mackey? These guys are on the same kingdom trajectory that we're on, for sure. Oh, well, good. See, I didn't even know all this. You have the policeman-type tendencies. Thank you, Jace. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't think you meant that as a compliment, but I'm going to receive it as one. That sounded almost sarcastic. Yeah. Which is one of my love. We love you and we need you, Zach. Well, I feel, honestly, I feel encouraged. I left that last argument we had a little. What are you wounded, Zach? I was wounded, emotionally wounded, emotionally.
And I felt like I was ganged up on Al. You did great trying to heal that. I kind of tried to fill in the middle, which is my role. That's what I do. So, Joe, I wanted to ask you about this last time. You have locked in with Coach Bowden, who was the coach at ULM. Oh, yeah. Terry Bowden and Auburn is a famous – I'd say the Bowden family is one of the most famous coaching families in America. Yeah.
And wonderful testimonies, too. I heard Bobby Bowden give his testimony yesterday.
years before he crossed over and it was powerful. It was really, really good. So you're doing like a college football show with him or what? Very, very godly man. You know, and I didn't realize that. So I met him. And he stayed on in our area. How did you get hooked up with him? So he actually, when he got hired at ULM, I was selling my house in Monroe to buy the one that I'm living closer to Phil and
And he actually bought my house in Monroe and we became friends because I realized, you know, he's a Christian man and very godly. And, you know, a lot of IT. Who translated for you? Who translated? Well, I just figure he's from the South also. Oh.
You know, we didn't talk about the time, so we've been pretty good. And we use, you know, top of the hour timing, so we don't have to worry about, you know, 10 of or a quarter of. But, yeah, he...
He approached me once he left ULM. He approached me and said, you know, I know you do your own podcast and you do some stuff with the Robertsons. He goes, you know, my dad was a big follower of Phil. And he goes, I follow Phil now. And he goes, you know, I want to do this podcast, this sports podcast for college ball. He says, would you be interested in going in on it with me? And I was like, sure, I'll help you out. So I didn't even know you watch football.
What? He's an LSU fan now. Are you? He converted when he moved here. Big LSU fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the state school for New Jersey? Probably Rowan or Rutgers. Rutgers. Rutgers. And there's a couple. Depending on where you're at in the state, they consider it to be the best in the state. But...
But yeah, he... Which when Rutgers is your top thing. Yeah. Well, that's what I was wondering. You got to become an assistant. I couldn't think of New Jersey State University. You don't have a lot of powerhouse up in the New Jersey area. Most people in Jersey probably more go to Penn State or something, probably.
Oh, is that in? Well, it's close by. It's close by. You know, James, it's so amazing. You don't realize you go visit the Northeast. Everything's just right there. I thought Penn State would be in Pennsylvania. Well, it is. It is, but it's also. You can't root for another state. Yeah, but they do up there. Because we don't have. But that would be like me saying, oh, boy, Ole Miss is having a good year this year.
I mean, they're right next door. We're back to 10 of 8 here. You had me. What's your state school? Probably Penn State. Well, that's another state over. Ugh.
So New Jersey is a small street. It's the closest team that's won some games. And it's split in the middle, right? So depending on where you are, especially in the NFL side, right? If you're the southern part of the state, you're going to be a Philadelphia Eagles fan. And if you're northern part of the state, you're probably going to be a Giants or a Jets fan, right? Because we don't have an NFL team in New Jersey, right? Well, that I can see. Right. But it's the same thing on the college line. Most of them are probably going to be Penn State fans. Well, they have college football. It's just not anything –
He said Rutgers. You had me there. Right. But for me to pull for Penn State if I lived in New Jersey, I would have to go find the line and take one step over into Pennsylvania and say, all right, come on, Nittly Line. I didn't realize it was that big of a thing. I spent two weeks at Rutgers University when I was in college. They kicked you out?
No, I wasn't a student there. Is that back when you were doing the cheerleading thing or whatever you did? Well, I wasn't doing the cheer. Let's qualify that. I was working at the camp store at the cheerleading camps. I ran the camp store. I knew you were a cheerleader at something. I was not a cheerleader. I worked at the camp store of the cheerleading camps and sold T-shirts. Zach, it's okay. The country's changed now. You can be a cheerleader if you want. You can talk about it openly now. Wow, those guys were...
I never knew that you used to be a cheerleader. I wasn't a cheerleader. I worked at the camp store. See how easy it is to move it away from me. But I will tell you what I, what shocked me about Rutgers. I mean, it was cause I drove all over the country and most of the camps I did were in the Southeast. I did all the sec schools. And then I did that to extent at Rutgers and,
And it was probably about six at, I don't know what time it gets dark in the summer. I guess it'd been about nine at night. And when I tell you, you have never seen more deer than exist on that campus. I mean, hundreds, massive bucks. I mean, just, I've never seen that many deer in my life. And you're just roaming through the campus and I'm driving around. They're everywhere. I've never seen anything like it. I was shocked. They must not eat them.
Well, no, there's a lot of big hunters in New Jersey and they'll come right up to the house and the developments because what's happening is they're building the developments out there in the woods. They're tearing out the woods and they're building the developments and it's pushing all the wildlife into the suburbs.
And, you know, there's rules in certain townships where you literally can't put your trash out at nighttime. It has to be in a container closed up in your garage, and then you push it out in the morning just to keep the deer away. And I guess you can't hunt because there's too many people around. You can't hunt in city limits, but there's still a lot in the Pine Barrens. When you go into Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey, closer to the shore, you've got a lot of hunting out there.
So before we take a break, so what's the name of the thing? It's the Bowden Blitz. You can find it on all social media. We're doing it. And you're the executive producer. I'm the executive producer. We've got, we're doing some. Joe's always got things.
going on. Hey, I'm Zach. You're the Zach of your world. That's exactly right. So Sports Grind on SiriusXM is where we put a lot of our shows up there, and then we also have, like I say, our own YouTube channel. I've seen one. I thought it was really good. I mean, we all love college football. So Joe, when you and Dad are doing your class together, do y'all talk a lot about computers and cell phones? Get into some of your IT world? A little bit. Probably more cell phones.
He struggles with cell phones. You're kind of his expert, though, right? You have to show him how to do things. Well, our good friends at Patriot Mobile are all about us having good cell phone coverage. They're America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. Been doing this for over 10 years. They offer dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks.
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I didn't realize Terry. So Terry lives in Monroe. Yeah. He does. He stayed on even after he left ULM because he loves this area. Has he grown a beard out yet? Has he grown a beard? No. No? Okay. Well, it takes time. Nope. It'll happen at some point.
He's going to ask to come on the podcast one day, and he can give his testimony here because he's got a really good testimony. Good guy. Real good guy. Talk to Zach. Talk to Zach. He'll have to. Zach's our man. He'll have to repent for his stay at Auburn and the FSU connection. There'll need to be some repentance involved.
ball. That is true. That's a, that's a double whammy against Zach. Zach. So there was nothing better than the nineties rivalry between Florida and Florida state Terry, Bobby Bowden versus Steve Spurrier. Both were just hilarious. I mean, that was, they were just showmen and the great coaches. Yeah, that was a great era. I don't know why you're upset. Florida and Florida state have decided to take the year off college football this year. Well, the good news is that they will play at some point. So they're,
One of them's going to win a game because they play each other. Well, no, they actually, they're going to have a bowl game. They said, I read that yesterday. A toilet bowl? No, it's a we don't care bowl.
We love you, Florida. There's always next year. There's always next year. All right, so we're going to get back to Ephesians. Let's do it. I was counting. I was almost like Phil. Well, we're going to get around to that in the Bible. We're just going to talk something else the whole time. Phil said enough small talk.
I thought we were moving on to the end of Ephesians 6. No, there was a few things I didn't get said because I was at the southern layers. But in my mind, I had made the point about Jesus is the armor. Yeah. So I thought we were moving on. No, I still want to talk a little. You did a great job, Al, with the real enemy of the Christian, chapter 6, verse 11 and 12. Yeah.
Well, let Al give his outline. Yeah, so... Satan is real, and that little list. So we talked about this because, and I don't think I mentioned this on the podcast we were talking about this, but there was a poll, which when I wrote it down, it's been a decade ago, so it's probably worse now, about how many people in Christianity, I mean, and I had to break down the poll, just don't think there's a real Satan.
It's just like a... Yeah, I mentioned that. I think the two things that... Like he's a metaphor. There's two things that I think discourage more than any other people from Christianity. One is, we talked about it in the duck blind this morning...
People have a hard time believing that God became a man. Yep. And number two, that there is a real devil. Yeah. Yeah. Because the caricature of him by people make it where it's this, you know, the red horns and the, you know, this whole thing. And so they take away from the idea of this powerful force that's out there at work against you. And I see it so much. I mean, I look at a situation...
And I'm just like, yep, evil one. I mean, you see a trap. You see a situation of accusation. It happens. People fall into it. It's like, why did we do this? Oh, no, our life is ruined. It's like, I know why he did it, because the trap was set, and then you went right into it, and you followed his lead. But just for clarity, he is one being, and he's a spiritual. He's a finite being. So when Al's saying he sees the devil is all over the place,
It's technically not true. The results. Or his entourage. I mean, there's a big list here.
It says the devil's schemes, but then it includes under those schemes rulers, authorities, powers of the dark world, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And we had already mentioned the demonic spirit world referenced by impurities or unclean spirits in the beginning of chapter 5. So here's my outline. Satan is real. Satan had a beginning and he will have an end.
Satan controls the world and the air, according to this text that we just read. Satan is not God.
So he's not everywhere at one time. God is omnipotent, meaning all-powerful. Satan's not. God is omnipresent, which means he's unlimited by space or time. Satan is not. God is omniscient, means he knows everything. Satan does not. He was tricked and fooled. I mean, the Bible says in Corinthians, he didn't even... Two-seven, yeah. None of the rulers or authorities knew that Jesus was, by his crucifixion...
Was going to destroy the powers that they used if they had known that I'm paraphrasing here. They would never have crucified him. I think it's first Corinthians two, seven. It is. So it would not have crucified the Lord of glory. I was going to, let me add this to, uh, I said this in a previous podcast, but I was, I was, I wanted to give a scripture reference for why I said this, which I forgot to do the last podcast I was on.
I made the point that I think Satan actually believes his own lies. I think he thinks that somehow he's going to win this battle. I think he's under his own delusion. And the reason why I think that, one of the primary texts that lead me to that conclusion is in Philippians 2. There's this call for us to have the attitude of Christ Jesus. And then he explains what that means, the laying down yourself. But at the end of it, there's this interesting little phrase
couple sentences that say that there will be a time in the future that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the father. So I think the picture here is that there'll be a point in the future at the second coming that there won't be a, a human, uh,
Believe it or not, an atheist, a Christian, a demon, angel, Satan himself, every being, every one of us, every knee will bow down, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. I think that is the entirety of creation. There will be a moment of revelation from God, but we're going to look at his life.
supremacy and his sovereignty and his glory in that moment. And it will be impossible for anyone to say that he's not the king, that he is not the Lord of glory. It'll be impossible. That's a great reminder and pictures. Those women that were converted, if you look in and you put this down and in your study of him, first Timothy six and 14,
Go back a little bit. In the sight of God who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus who, while testifying before Pontius Pilate, made the good confession, I'm him. I charge you to keep this commandment without spot or blame. Now listen to this. Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is coming back. All we have to do is be patient and wait.
which God will bring about in his own time. You say, when he shows up, God will have decided it for no particular reason, but he says, it's over. God, the blessed and only ruler, not Satan, the king of kings, not Satan, the Lord of lords, not Satan, who alone is immortal.
and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him, the honor, we can see what he's done, but no one has met him, the God we follow, face to face. But that's coming.
To him be honor and might forever. Amen. So if God alone... That's where you started your study. Yeah, if God alone is immortal, that means Satan is not immortal. That is right. Yeah, which is... That's the point you were making there, but I just wanted to throw that in there. No, that's good, Dan. And I wanted to read this, Zach, because you made me think about this, because we're in this idea about the battle, right?
And it's scary because one of the things about Satan, too, is we have to respect him. And, Zach, you talked about this. He gives the impression, Satan working through people, that they know everything. Right. And that you can't beat them. They're, like, too powerful. That's the way people feel about it. But listen to this. This is Romans 8. And this is very clear. Paul said, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So you wonder if you think, well, can we win this?
We're more than conquerors. I'm convinced that neither death nor life, I mean, death's a pretty big deal, neither angels nor demons, there's the satanic factor,
And that's in the here and now. I mean, we recognize that because of Christ's power now. So this idea about wondering, can you win? Oh, you win. Oh.
The idea is you just want to try to win with the best foot forward. Well, even that. You actually have already won it. Exactly. That's why I said praise in our future. So we've done a lot of podcasts. We have almost a thousand. And who knew that focusing on God's family.
Would be such a hit. It's a hit. In fact, Joe, it's how you came to know about us. Yeah, I wouldn't be here without it. Yeah, the podcast literally reached out to you. And so that's what we love about this venue, Unashamed Nation. And we like other podcasts as well. Focus on the Family, as Jace was alluding to with his clever segue. Focus on the Family has a podcast called Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
And Jim's a great guy. We've had him on the podcast before. He has an amazing story himself. I think he relates very well to people because of his upbringing, what he found in Christ. Every episode of his podcast is designed to help you guide your loved ones through unique challenges that your Christian family faces. With decades of trusted, compassionate stories of redemption,
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context of him writing that is, can you imagine writing to a bunch of Romans in their day to perhaps the greatest conquering nation of that time saying those who are in the love of Christ are more than conquerors? Because that was the top of the line as far as power. You know, Caesar is Lord. And if you don't believe that, we will conquer you. And if you don't like it, we'll kill you. That's the whole idea behind the cross. It wasn't so much,
just the way they kill people. It was a public display of their power. We will embarrass you. And I really believe that's why God chose to enter the world in that timeframe because that public disgrace was actually his three days. They had, they had it down, but three, three days later he proved that the whole bunch, uh,
Now what are you going to do? Yeah, the persecution that they experienced, though, it's interesting about it. You can beat death. You can go all the way with it. As I said, the persecution that Jace is talking about, what's interesting about it is I heard one commentator say that it wasn't that they claimed that Jesus was Lord.
It was that they refused to say that Caesar was Lord. So if they would have just added Jesus to the shelf of all the other gods and lords, as long as they would bow down to Caesar, everything would have been good. But something about the Lordship of Christ is different than the Lordship of the other gods, because Christ is claiming authority.
Christ is saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through me. Think about it. When he came back from the dead, it's pretty cool that you say he didn't stay long. Forty days. He stayed there about a month. Adios.
So whatever he did, it worked because it got me 2,000 years later. Well, that's my point, though. When you think of spiritual warfare, how could you make a statement that you're more than a conqueror? Yeah. I mean, I thought that was the end. You conquer everybody and are stronger and more powerful and have greater weapons and
But God flipped it on its head because he didn't do it with muscle or weapons, physical weapons. He did it in weakness. You beat death, but you can do anything. Yeah, that's right. He did it in weakness until the resurrection. But just think about that. That's why it became something more powerful, which I said on the last podcast. He's the only person in history to be gone that long
and still have millions of people following him present day and will give their life for him. You're counting time by him, but he really is not there. I'm like, say what? No, he's here. So you mentioned that it's because of every individual life that has to be submitted. You know, the Romans, you talked about their might. It's interesting because when you get to 300 AD, Constantine, who was the emperor at that time, of course, Rome now is beginning to go into decline.
Well, compared to what they were. What they were, right. That's what I'm saying. But Constantine becomes a Christian, but he was thinking like a Roman. So the first thing he did, he baptized the whole army.
Well, he missed the point. It wasn't each individual has to make a decision to want to follow Christ. You can't take the might of your state and put a blanket on people. It just it won't work. But but that's what that's the thinking that the evil one has put out here. Now, look, Jesus versus Rome modern day. Who's winning? Yeah. Still here.
I mean, Rome is just a shadow of what it once was. Jersey and I went to Rome. We did. Yeah. We did, and it is just a shadow. You know, get him out of my face. I said, you're counting time by him. But I mean, if you look at... What year is it? It's about 2048. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You're counting time by the one you're saying doesn't exist. It obviously happened and it was big enough to mark the calendar by it. So, I mean, it is what it is. But you look at Common Day, what we're seeing now, it's the it's Rome all over again, in a sense. Right. Push Jesus out. I don't believe in Jesus. I'm an atheist. He didn't exist. You know, we were we walked out of the ocean and that was it.
You know, it's it's frightening to see where we're going as a society right now, because, you know, we continue to do what we've done. You know, what's that famous saying? If you don't learn from your mistakes in the past, you're doomed to repeat them again. And, you know, go far back is Rome and look at what happened there. Every empire that ever existed has failed. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's the one constant is the spiritual forces of evil. Because remember when Jesus described the evil one first, he said he was the father of all lies. Remember John eight. So it is a lie. That's Zach's point was correct. A lie that he believes, which we've all been there as humans.
We all justify bad behavior, rationalize, but those are nice words for you're lying to yourself or believing the lies. And then when he got to John 10, talking about Jews and Gentiles coming together as a preview, he says the thief comes to
Steal, kill, and destroy. So just think, lies, killing, stealing, and destroying. That pretty well is the representation of the earthly spiritual forces. And Joe's right. You see it now. It's like a death cult. It's always around death.
whether it's abortion, just whatever you want to throw in there, fentanyl overdoses, all these different, it always comes out in death to people who shouldn't be dying instead of living. I mean, it's just, it's evident. And that's what you saw in the first century. You saw that in the Roman Colosseum. And we visited there, death. Everything was about death.
Killing people. And again, that's when you know the evil ones still kill and destroy. The statues they had bowed down to were lying out on the ground. That's right. Zeus is just a pile of rubble. Just one last pole in it then. I mean, it's interesting what you have on the bottom line of the show notes here. I mean, like Satan must seduce or prompt, not force or make. Yeah.
And, you know, when you think about it, right, you make the choice in your life to follow Jesus. You make the decision in your life to do something evil, to rob, steal, cheat, kill. You make that decision. You're not forced to do it. Yeah. You know, you're not forced to follow the Almighty. Right.
But you make that decision consciously, and you do that, and you decide to follow him. And James was careful to point that out, that the idea of the temptation is then you're dragged away and enticed, but the idea is you make the move. It's interesting because you get that little glimpse in Job where Satan is having this interaction, and then Jesus said the same thing. Remember when he told Peter, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.
And so that lets you know that there's limitations.
on what Satan can do. So he's got to be a trickster. He's got to be an accuser. He's got to set the trap for you to do that. You worded that just right, Al. God is omnipotent, all-powerful. Satan is not. God's omnipresent, unlimited by space. Satan is not. God's omniscient, all-knowing. Satan is not. God alone is immortal. Satan is not. And you could have added, no one's going to be saved unless
Satan to their death. That's right. They're just not going to be here. I would add he's not loving either, as in defined by God. No, and hate is a big thing with him, which is another thing you see, by the way, as I'm working on it.
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Yeah, and I think where this idea of Satan being a liar and believing his own lies, where it comes in Ephesians 6, I don't think it's a coincidence that when Paul instructs us to put on the whole armor of God, if you look at the item he begins with and the item that he ends with, he begins with put on the belt of truth, and then he ends with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And so you think about that passage in John,
well, 14 through 17, that whole section of scripture on the Holy Spirit where he's called the spirit of truth. So there's this connection with, well,
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit revealing to us what is reality and what's not reality. What Satan's doing is he's presenting a counter kingdom, a rival kingdom that's full of lies that's not true. What Satan's doing is he's painting a picture for our imagination of what the good life is, but in the end, it's actually not the good life. Al makes an interesting point after that reading a while ago. Satan must seduce or prompt
Not force or make. And that seduction is based in a lie. That's the thing. He's tricking us. I think where we've lost, the church has lost the battle, is that we've preached a gospel that is only about Jesus died for my sins so I get to heaven one day as opposed to, no, no, no.
The eternal life is not only in the future. Jesus defined it as knowing the one true God in Jesus Christ, the Son whom He sent. Well, that's now. That's today. That's a much better gospel. The problem is that we have a hard time imagining what this is. So we don't have the imagination for the kingdom as a people. We just don't have the imagination for it. And that's why that last verse,
Part of the armor of God, the sword of the spirit is so important because it's the spirit, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, that gives us an imagination from which we can now see the good life that is the kingdom of God. Because he says in 1 Corinthians 2 that it's written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and listen to this part, what no human mind has imagined,
the things that God has prepared for those who love him. But these things, the things that the mind hasn't imagined and can't imagine, these things, verse 10 of chapter 2, God has revealed to us by his Spirit. So the role of the Holy Spirit that Paul is pointing out at the end of that armor of God passage is,
in Ephesians 6 is the key to the whole thing. Because how in the world are you going to stand up against the devil's schemes? How are you going to stand up against his lies? How are you going to see that what he's actually selling is a complete farce that is meant to destroy you? How will you ever see that? You will not see it without the Holy Spirit. And so our role as the church is
is we want to push people into being sensitive to the revelation of the Holy Spirit so that God can reveal to us a new reality, a true reality, which is the real life that's found only in Him. Excellent point Al made in that 613. Therefore, based on what you just said,
Put on the full armor of God. It's a battle so that when the day of evil comes, and it will, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth, buckle around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, which our
Our audience is now hearing, in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith so you can distinguish, extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray to God. Fearlessly I open my mouth, down below in 19, I fearlessly make known
the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. They got me in jail up here, but he's never missed a lick. Pray that I may be declared fearlessly as I should. What a good coach, a good one to take advice from, Al. That's exactly right. I want to mention, Zach, he starts with this belt of truth. And I was looking into the actual different pieces of the armor.
And, you know, the belt, you just think about a belt, we think about it as much decoration as anything. Although the older you get, their belt's pretty critical because if not, your pants go straight to the floor, don't they, Dad? The older you get. Your butt just leaves. So it holds a critical role. But in the Roman armor, the belt held the whole outfit together. It held the breastplate, it held everything. It was a crucial thing, and I don't think it's any accident that he starts with that.
Because when you think about truth, it is the battle of the native language of the evil one, which is who's a liar, right? And so I found this interesting. I didn't realize when I looked up the word truth in the Bible, it's mentioned in the book of John, mostly by Jesus, 23 times. Yeah. Truth. And mostly he's saying it's him.
I am the truth. Exactly. I mean, it's me. It's me. I am the battle. Remember when he had the conversation with Pilot? And Pilot's like, well, what is truth? John also mentions it 19 more times in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. Well, I think that's the ironic nature, though, is Pilot, I've always said, his question, the reason I think he believed the lie is because he was asking what is
what and never considered who. Yeah. Who is the truth? That would have been a better question. Right. But I think your point comes together because I've noticed once I got over 50, I
And I mean, I'm not, you know, heavy as Phil says, but I've noticed the body starts to form a different shape. Yep. And for some reason, pants will not stay on. It's not round anymore. It's just flat. The pants will not stay on, which is embarrassing. Yeah.
Because I've had three or four times I was treasure hunting. Last night I had my belt out and I was tightening it up. I was tightening it up about an inch because my pants were falling off my body. But what I was going to make is a point. The word I thought of was integrity. And if you were out in an actual battle and you're going to make a move with your sword and your pants fall down,
You know, it's going to be hard to be taken seriously is what I was going to say. But my point was, viewing this armor as Jesus himself through the Spirit, there is an integrity about the way he operated in all these different circumstances when you read the Gospels.
that gives weight to him being god i mean even from the getting mad in the temple when you kind of look at that you're like well of course he was because they were putting all their faith in an earthly temple and trying to make money on the side and so he was showing that kind of integrity about there's a right way to go about these things or just the different kinds of people that were uh
prejudices were against them and him going up there and having a conversation, you know, with a woman in the middle of the day where people could see, and it was somebody from a different state line. And, but you're like, but that's the nature of God that we're all people. We should be loving each other. There's an integrity to the way Jesus operated that I think is true and
For a functional society and family and business environment and getting along with people and acts of morality, all those things give God's nature integrity. Once 200 years ago, the reason America became so great was from them first people.
But now it's just dying away. Well, because you lose the anchor. And Zach was so right by tying it into the idea of the Spirit. Because he says in John, listen to this, the Spirit of truth, John 14, 17, when the advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. You create truth.
His people, his body, and his kingdom on this earth, by him, whether he's here physically and we're looking at him or not, by his spirit living in us, you see the idea that the truth never leaves you. So you're always anchored. Well, exactly. But the reason I brought that integrity thing, if you go to the negative, when you have functioning societies that are not acting in line with the integrity of truths that the truth was putting out there in Jesus, you're
So you just look at husbands and wives, you know, staying together. We'll look at the data. If you have a husband and a wife in a home with kids, they're far less likely the kids to go out there and get off into gangs. And that's just a truth. It's facts. And one of the most controversial things Phil ever said, and I'm going to say it and you're like, Oh no, I bet this is going to be earth shattering. Oh yeah, it is. I remember Phil saying,
you know, back in the little duck show time, made a statement that if all people, husbands and wives, kept their sex between each other, then all sexually transmitted diseases would die out in one generation. There would be no, he found the cure for STDs. Absolutely. And look, nightmare of a hailstorm. What in the world? But if you think about it, that's actually true.
When you think about you brought up aborting babies, you're like, would it be better for society? And people are like, well, it's a woman's right to choose. It would be better for those babies. Way better. Yeah. They would have life. I mean, honestly, the truth wins out.
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If you look at the front line of the battle, it is over the concept of truth. And you see it through, I mean, here's a few terms, but like the postmodernism, which is people would argue we're living in a postmodern age now. And I remember thinking about that term.
The first time I really understood it was about 15 years ago. I was standing in an art museum in Chicago, and I was standing there next to this guy. It's a piece of postmodern art, and it's an abstract art. And you know the question you always ask when you're looking at the painting, an abstract painting, is,
what do you see or or what does this mean to you in other words the the painting itself had no inherent meaning the meaning was derived from the person that's looking at it and that that art is mimicking a philosophy that says that truth is determined by us it's not something that necessarily has been revealed it's something that we determine and construct for ourselves but
But when you think about the real historical classical definition of truth, that's not how we define that term until recently. Truth is when your thought life matches up with reality, the way the world really is. And when those things match, the correlation between them is this word we call truth. The relationship between my thought life and
and reality, when that matches up, then I call that true. So, for example, if you say, Zach, it's raining outside.
and I have a thought that it's raining outside and I walk outside and it's not in fact raining. Well, reality is it's not raining. My thought is that it is raining, but guess what? It's not true because those don't match up. However, if I walk outside and it is raining, now all of a sudden my thought life matches up with the way the world really is. And that's called truth. And so the role of the Holy Spirit is,
is he's revealing to us the way that the world really is. And at the core of reality is this.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that's what God's revelation does. He is revealing himself through the things that have been made according to Paul in Romans 1, that God's glory has been made known to us from what has been made. He's screaming out. The glory of God is being screamed out in all of creation. It's being screamed out in our sexuality. It's being screamed out in our relationships with one another, our friendships, our
the things that we make, our businesses, everything is screaming out the character of God. And when our thoughts about the way the world is matches up with who God is, that's called truth. And that's what the Holy Spirit is ultimately revealing to us. And to say that he's lying to us, the word for that in the Bible is called sin.
That's what sin is. See, I think, and I think I can sum it up with one word, naive, right? You talk about the spiritual forces of evil that we fight, right? And naive people...
are influenced very easily with what's going on around them. And I think if, you know, a lot of people were not as naive as they were believing everything that they hear and see, where we talk about, again, the spiritual forces of evil at work there, you know, telling us that it's okay to have sex out of wedlock. It's okay to abort your baby. It's okay to steal as long as it's under $2,000.
Naive. People are naive. I had heard that caveat. Oh, that's in California. Yeah. If it's under a certain amount, you don't go to jail. Yeah, if it's under $1,000, you're good. So, no, you paint the picture beautifully, and you're exactly right. And Jace mentioned, and Dad's saying that, Zach, you remember we were in Washington, D.C. in 2016, and Dad walked down that stage in CPAC, which is a huge conservative political rally, and he
The way the guy put it sitting next to us, it looked like he just walked off the pages of the Bible. And he just went right into STDs and the answer for life. It was really funny looking around at people who were there to cheer on all the presidential nominees in 2016.
And dad was speaking almost like it was another language. Oh, yeah, they didn't get it. They did not get it. I looked over at all the young Republicans with their bow ties and thinking about who they were going to sleep with when they left. It's hard to cheer when you're probably were doing the very things being discussed the night before. Exactly. I mean, that's what happens when True showed up. He had a very visceral...
Thought experiment. Yeah. He says – Don't you want that, though? I mean, you look at – Well, what I'm saying is – You want to be told the way it is. Well, we were sitting there thinking, yes, it's truth. But I thought the other part of the equation is you have to be willing to hear it. That's true, too. You've got to be born –
That's Paul's point in 1 Corinthians 2, that the natural man can't accept the spiritual things. So yes, the Holy Spirit does give us a new imagination, but you have to be born again to receive that kind of revelation. Now, there's an initial revelation, John 16 says, that the Holy Spirit gives where He convicts the world about sin, right? So He does do that, like that initial, hey, you're guilty, you need to turn your life into God. But the
The progressive unfolding of what's called sanctification, which is us actually seeing the world and the beauty of God and developing a new imagination and new desires and wants, that has to be born of the Spirit. But I love what Phil said in that moment because it was such a just – I mean, the example, what he said was, he said –
He gave the stat. I think it was one out of three people had an STD according to the CDC. 120 million Americans. Do you remember what he said next? Yeah. He said, one out of three. He said, look to your right. Look to your left. One of you has got it. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Sorry. I think the way to close, though, is look, you can't, you have. I noticed they quit asking me to come. That was your last. You never got invited back, Phil. We're out of time, but I do want to say. I'll be all right being with y'all. The caveat of moral issues and things of the law and do's and don'ts.
is found in Christ. That is the reason that you put these kind of moral decisions there. And I'll give you the verse for it. You remember Colossians 2 when it says he had nailed the law to the cross, took it away? Yeah. And to your point about truth, in verse 17 of Colossians 2, it says, these were a shadow, talking about law keeping, of the things that were to come. The reality is,
which is there, your truth definition, is found in Christ. That's good. And that is the motivation for making him the standard by which you make decisions. That's it. All right, we got to go. Jersey, thanks for sitting in with us. It's been fun. Good work, Jersey. All right, Zach. Hope that bat gets better. Wow, me too. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed Podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.
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