Ep 897 | Jase Piggybacks on Uncle Si’s ‘Duck Dynasty’ Moment & Phil’s Honesty Derails a Conspiracy
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I am unashamed. What about you?

Welcome back to Unashamed. We're getting our sea legs under us. We just spent about 10 minutes arguing in between podcasts, so that means we're getting back in the proper position. Zach, you said one of these days we're going to have a podcast with nothing but outtakes of the conversations in between. I've got all the footage, but before we do that, I need to... Poor Maddie, they'll have to put it all together. They'll need to be a team of people vetting the content. I

Cause you know that you don't know what's said. I mean, some stuff in there, you know, you like, I don't need to let that. I'm going to tell you right now, you can run, you can run 100% of what I said. No one has to vet that. I am.

I'm comfortable in my own skin. I've caught you in quite a few errors, but that's okay. Just theological errors. All of Zach's catching of UJs happens off camera, I noticed. Never on camera. Well, me and Zach got into it. We teamed up on a theological venture on something I got into. So I was using him, his skill set.

But I learned a lot from that couple of weeks of going back and forth. And a lot of problems that come from the theological world is that they'll make a category of something that's not in the Bible. And they teach out of fear.

of not being labeled into that category that they created. It's usually three or four syllables. Yeah. Oh, it's a five-syllable word minimum usually. And I told him five minutes ago, I don't support things that I can't pronounce.

Because I labeled, just so you know, I labeled Jason something based on what he was saying. I said, well, that's called, and then I gave the term for it. So then I quickly did a quick Bible search and realized that the term he labeled me is not in the Bible. So there you go. Of course it's not. So I do have, we have lots of stories because we've been away. Hold on, Jason. Before you say that, I do want to, you did call me twice.

I did call you twice because I wanted to. And you said something when you called me both times. Do you remember what you said? It was your opening line when you called me twice over the sabbatical. I probably said, what about, and then I said something. No, you said, well, you were right. Oh, yeah, I did say that because... That's halfway to saying I was wrong. Yeah, I did say that because...

It's hard to explain, but Zach— Don't explain it. Let's leave it. I just want to leave it where it is. I just wanted the audience to know that Jace—and then he called me again and said, well, I hate to say it, but you were right again. And I literally—I was like, why did I not record this? But he did say it, and I thought it was— I did, because within this theological—what can we call it? I'm looking at our friend Larry Bowles. He's in the—

He said the wings. Was it an epiphany? Did you have an epiphany about something? No, I was going to say theological manure, but I thought that's not a good phrase. But it's like in the theological... Manutia. Manutia. Manutia. So I was like, what does this mean? And Zach told me, and I was like, no, I don't think he means that. But after further review, no, he was right. Because Zach knows the theological...

minutiae that I don't know. I call it theological pop culture. It's like a pop culture. The danger, though, with theology overall, what I'm saying is a lot of smart people get together, they call themselves scholars, and then they'll say A plus B equals C.

And none of it's in the Bible. And then they'll build a whole doctrine over it and problems start. So we can talk about that on a future podcast. But I have breaking news. I heard a story that Phil doesn't know that involves Phil. Uh-oh. Well, because we already did a podcast. We do two at a time. And Phil hasn't brought this up. Because I was – this is the most –

anxious that I've been to hear a story in years. So Phil knows the story, but he doesn't know that you know the story. Exactly.

Because last night I had my mom, Phil's wife, and we had a Memorial Day celebration. And we do. Look, we just had that, and we don't take that lightly. I mean, guys, women, and men have given their lives for our country. Ultimate sacrifice. We had a small group of people, and mom showed up. Missy planned the whole thing.

But she heard her back, and so she planned a lot of work for me. She said, oh, I'm cooking. We got all these people coming over. It'll be great. You know, we're going to do a Memorial Day. And then she's like, babe, can you help me? Which turned into me cooking everything. So I didn't mind it, but it was a lot of work.

So we had a good time. But I was like, what have y'all been doing? Because I was on vacation. And Kay, she told me the story about you baptizing two women in the middle of the night. Because I said, well, that was a little bit dangerous for Phil to be out there. She's like, oh, yeah, he did it. But then she told me another story. And I was like, well, I can't believe Phil has not told me this story. So I got to hear it. She said that you now have confirmed that.

that Black Panthers are real. So I got to hear this. I'm driving down where they cleared all the timber, the pine timber where they cleared it. What I just drove. Yeah. Yeah. It's curvy and it's out there. And on both sides, it has about a three year since that. So there's scrub brush coming. I'm driving. I look to my left.

And when I tell you this is what it looked like. Now, what time of day was this? This was coming back from meeting with the brothers. It was broad daylight. I baptized six of them up there, and I got in my rig. It's not dark. Not dark. Broad daylight. It's like noon. Was it 1030 in the morning? Was it sunny skies or cloudy? I would say cloudy. Partly cloudy. Okay. But it was plenty. I'd say the distance between this particular animal.

And me, I looked to my left. Yeah, how far was it? Just coming into the ditch. And he was going to come right here. And as I went by, he just went by me. So he went behind your vehicle? Behind the vehicle. So he was close, 20 feet. He came, I mean, he would come from about 20 yards. 20 yards. So this thing...

Just pops up and is coming right toward my truck like this. And I looked back like that and I looked at him. I said, what in the world? It was a cat. No doubt about that. So there's a question, you know, I want to ask really bad right now. Did it have a tail? It had a tail. That's what really...

Really, I glued in on him. How long was the tail? The tail was almost as long as he was, but it was just a tail that came up. He was not bushy at all. He was kind of like a... Slender? Slender. How much, I mean, but, you know, are you saying Black Panther? Or what are you deeming this as? That's exactly where I saw a puma. I saw a cougar.

Right there in almost that same spot, Dad. Long tail, just like you did. See, I wasn't able to ask Kay all these questions because when she said Phil saw a black panther, they're real. So that just ended that argument. That's what she did. It was a cat. Well, what color was it, Phil? What color was it? I would say black, but not jet black. He was...

He was a little darker than brown. He was a little darker. We want to say brownish black? Brownish black, but more black than brownish. And I see the long tail and his ears, you know, and he's coming just. Did you have your glasses on?

No, I just, no, no, no. Dad can still see far away. He can't see up close. Yeah. So dad, did you, did you get a look at the back of his head? Cause when I'm the one I saw was going, now it could have been possible if we, if we, he's not a Panther, a wild cat. This was a wild cat. Now I don't know where he was. Some, some cat that you were somebody raised and he went turned out there and

I couldn't quite tell whether it was a male or a female. Slender, but this was a wild cat, and he was very dark. But not a bobcat. And he had a long tail. Not a bobcat. Not a bobcat. Not a bobcat. I identified mine from behind because mine was going away from me. Again, close. They got kind of splotchy colors. But mine had white tufts behind each ear. Yep.

And when I looked it up on the internet, it said that was a cougar, that a cougar has white tufts. Well, where were you at Al when you saw this? Similar to where dad was. I was in the, right in that turn where you go about halfway out, almost before you get to that last run, before you get to Jimmy Reds. Oh, he was, uh, uh,

You know, he was, I would say, fairly long legs, not short-legged. You're pointing down to the floor like he wasn't very tall. He wasn't very tall. He was, I was trying to think of a dog. You sure it wasn't just a big old tomcat? Huh? Couldn't have been a big old tomcat. Could not have been a big tomcat. Now we're getting somewhere. I'm trying to poke home. I didn't say at first that there's a wildcat. I just said, I've never seen a cat with a big cat. Well, your wife...

She was going to Duck Commander today to buy one of Uncle Si's shirts. It has a picture of a black panther. We're talking, what's the technical word for the black panther? Jaguar. Yeah, he has a picture of a jaguar, and it says two words, I believe.

There is a cat out there that if he ran up now in front of us and we'd all be here.

I mean, I think we would all be, y'all along with me, stunned at that thing. I mean, I thought. Well, I believe for sure because I know what I saw. Yeah, I'm not a believer. 30 years ago is when I saw that. How many pounds are we talking here, Phil? How many pounds do you think it was? I would say this was about 25 or 30 pounds. So it's got to be a baby panther. If it was a panther, it was a baby panther. Yeah.

Boy, those babies. It could have been Bigfoot. I mean, that's what I was going to say. No, it wasn't Bigfoot. It was a cat. Now, I believe it was a cat, but we're just what cat? Oh, it was a cat. All right. No doubt about it. 30-pound black cat. I have seen the largest bobcat on the planet.

on jay's deer cameras that i've ever seen i mean it was about 30 pound bobcat but it had a bob tail it was no doubt about what it was well the size main evidence is when the sighting that he had of the black panther unfortunately was when i was driving the vehicle and he was in the passenger seat because the first thing i did because i'm familiar with all these stories is i looked at his tail and

There was no tail. It was a bobcat. But he was a huge bobcat. This stood out about this one. He had a long tail. Well, at least that's that. Because you can't have a black panther or a whatever we're calling this without a long tail.

But I was so convinced. It was a cat, but I could not. And I've looked up at a lot of cats and seen a lot of cats cross the road and all this going in the woods, squirreling. But this was, I never had seen anything like this. It was tight skinned.

I was so convinced what I saw was what you saw because I went and got you like, cause it was only about three miles from your house. I went down and said, you got to come back up here and let's see if we can find some prints. Yeah. You know, and by that we did. And we did. And so it was like, I know this, I know what I saw, you know? So I was very convinced. I think mine was a, was a Cougar or a mountain lion.

is what i think it was which they do it's quite the controversy online though i'm looking it up here so there there's uh there's a lot of people say isn't there do not exist in our area oh we did a uh you know we did a bit on our treasure hunting show about this argument because i had had a recent sighting and uh

It was so funny because since I worked on the production side, all the producers, they were like, well, it'd be nice to get some validation for people who believe this. And I said, do you think we're making this up? I said, just send out a social media post that Cy just claims to have seen a panther. And I said, and if you want to validate that, I said, tell them to come to Duck Commander.

I said, they're going to show up. She's like, they're not going to show up for that. I was like, then you can film it, interview them, whatever you want to do. An hour later, they had to start running people off. Traffic jams started. Now, some of that was people like, hey, let's go be on a show. But it's amazing. They had signs. I mean, these people read something on social media, went to Dollar General, bought some markers, and made a sign, I believe.

So I'm saying the thought is real. I'm just going to tell you, I'm looking at a video of a feline found in Louisiana in Acadia Parish. And I mean, this thing looks like a black panther. I'm watching the video. And of course, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, I think they say that's not possible. Yeah, well, they also said there's no such thing as UFOs.

Zach, there's a lot of podcasts out there. We do quite a few. How many podcasts do we do now associated with what you're doing at Tread Lively? Probably about 10. About 10? So we see a lot more really good content out there. And one of the ones we want to let you know about is our good friends from Focus on the Family. They have a podcast out. It's called Refocus with Jim Daly.

Um, and look, we realized that sometimes in our culture, you know, we need to be able to talk about these things because they're not being talked about in any sort of media way. And so it's going to be up to us. That's what Unshamed is all about. It can be hard to share God's truth. And now more than ever, we need to hear that. And Jim Daly is one of those kinds of guys. We love Jim. We've had him on the podcast before. Uh,

We've been on his radio show as well. He talks to experts about important issues that we're all hearing about. He's got a lot of good stuff there, very interesting, heavy stuff. I think our Unashamed audience would love it. He does it in a way that encourages you to share Christ's truth

with others he discussed evangelism with an oxford professor who debated richard dawkins twice so you've got a lot of good insight on what happens how to make a difference in our culture check out refocus with jim daly you can listen to that refocus with jimdaily.com that's refocus with jimdaily.com check him out so so what's interesting jace is that mom

Was immediately what I love about this story is that mom immediately goes in with Cy, which kind of started this conversation when you call Zach and said, well, you were right. Now she's expecting someone to call Cy and say, you were right. Yeah. My guess, my guess on this is that this is what, according to, uh, the wildlife and fisheries bonafide cougar sightings.

where they are perceived to be black are likely darker, tawny animals and low light, which makes them appear black. You know where they got that? That's what this was. You know where they got that? That's what I think mine was. Where'd they get that? They got that from a little show called Duck Dynasty. We proved that on that show. Now, when you think our duck show, you're not thinking some grand revelation, right?

But I proved that because Si's biggest hang-up the day he saw that, he was like, no, it was black. Well, it was black because we saw it way down the road. It was dark. And I said, everything looks dark from a distance. And he said, no. And so we proved that when John, look, Phil, when we got John Godwin, who at that time was

was a couple hundred pounds heavier than he is now. He's a skinny fellow now. He's gotten skinny, yeah. And he agreed to take his shirt off, and his flesh had not seen the sun in years. You could not have gotten any brighter than he was. It was blinding. But when we sent him off to prove this theory, there was a distance he reached where even John Gawain, in all his glory, looked dark.

So I said, case closed. And now somebody in the government wrote a blurb about that saying objects may appear darker than they appear at a distance. They were watching the show, Jase. They took your theory. And now it's official government theory. Yep. That's funny. I'm glad I can hear you. That's interesting what he said, Bolligal, because this thing was a

No doubt, a dark animal. There was no splotches on him, like, you know, up around his head and his ears. Yeah. He was one color. How long did this encounter last? Seconds-wise. It was just, I'm just driving along like this, and I look to my left, and coming out of the ditch, he's in the ditch, I'm in the right hand side over here, I'm coming right here. Ten seconds? Yes.

Five seconds? Five seconds. Five seconds. But the thing is, though, here's the thing. This could have been a wild house cat. I mean, it turned wild. It's pretty big for a house cat. That's big. I'm not saying that. Yeah. Well, I like that at least we have a little doubt because that makes the alleging. What's so sad is, is that...

I was, this happened. I saw the one I saw before cell phones were popular and you had one, right? I said, I had one to take a picture of it. Cause that's how close it was to me. And the second sad thing is that it dad saw and he has no phone.

I mean, dad's in an era, all you need is a phone, you just take a picture of it. So to wrap this up, I have seen a few pictures that I didn't think were doctored, because you can't go by what you see on the internet, because they have AI and Photoshop. That's true. But there's been a few pictures I think were legitimately these mountain lions.

Because that has been proven that they've seen that. They range over, yep. But I keep going back to when I was in Mexico and I walked up, they had two Jaguars in a big pen. And I'm like, there's no doubt.

that this was a black panther it was a jaguar this thing these things were a couple hundred pounds they're huge and they were their paws were that big around i mean it wasn't like oh i think maybe i'm like people haven't seen that or they would have taken a picture of it has a giant head too those the real the real ones

Zach, aren't those in Florida? The Black Panther? Yeah, Black Panther. I always heard the Florida Panther, but that's more like a cougar. Well, anyway, so there's something for you guys to chew on. I know you love controversies and conspiracies, Unashamed Nation, so...

I'm sure we'll hear. Tell us your stories of what you've seen and react to this, because I know you I know you got a lot of stories to tell with that. Jace, thank you for that story. That was amazing. I had not heard this either because I hadn't been home. Well, I didn't really get to hear it because the guy sitting on the couch who is married to a woman who helps Miss Kay out.

Well, he interrupted and then told his Panther story. So I couldn't even interrogate my mom because he was telling me, and it was about like yours. I was like, do we have any proof? No. But he just said, oh, I'm telling you, they're real. I looked at him right in the eyes. But I'm a believer that if it really was a Jaguar and you look at him in the eyes, you wouldn't be able to report that.

No. Because he'd take you out. So if this was a cat, a wild cat, I mean, like cougars or whatever. Yeah, cougar or mountain lion. He was too small for that. This was not a big thing. Yeah. Well, see, you're being honest, which is not. 25, 30 pounds. I mean. Is not really recommended in the conspiracy of big cats. Yeah.

But I've never seen anything like that in the woods. I've never seen that. Yeah. At that distance. Cause I mean, it was like, I looked to my left and he was right there coming down that coming into the ditch. And I was just like shocked.

I was the same way, Dad. I've seen a lot of bobcats in the woods. This is not a bobcat. Long tail. This is not a bobcat. He's got a tail on him. Long tail. What I saw was not a bobcat. All right, so we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll have our old friend LB, Larry Bowles, join us, and we'll get back into action. So one of the things that we always try to accomplish is balance. Jace, would you say balance is important?

Balance in life is one of the key ingredients, whether you're trying to walk to the mailbox or just your priorities, keeping them in line. Yeah, we could have dad probably do a whole segment on balance and talking about with mom, you know, trying to keep her balance. Another thing we try to do is balance.

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Welcome back. We got our old friend Larry Bowles is still in town. So we're going to always love your expertise, Larry. And before we get into the text, since you were listening to the last conversation we had. Oh, yeah.

about, uh, the, the big cats. Cause that's a big thing in our family and it's been going since the show. So I got to ask you, uh, now you guys have them in Oklahoma, right? Well, we've got big cats. We got cougars and I've even heard tails, tails of, uh, ocelots.

Ocelot? An ocelot. Is that a cat? Oh, yeah. Look that up, Zach. What is an ocelot? I haven't heard the term ocelot. Yeah, I've seen those before. Yeah. Those are scary. They're not, like, what are they, about 30 pounds, 40 pounds? I'd say probably closer to 50. Oh, I see it. Yeah. Yeah.

That looks like, oh, it has a tail. Phil, is that what you saw, an ocelot? Nope. Okay. See how splotchy all that is? Yeah. This thing here was solid like their tail. Maddie, pull up a cougar and show them a cougar on there. It's got the little white tufts behind his ear. I guarantee you that's what he saw because that's what I saw was a cougar.

Yeah. I was convinced once I saw it. The color is... Not a cougar. All right. Do you have any other? Not mine. Jaguar. This thing, what I saw, was not that big and...

And the head wasn't that big. I mean, he was a tight-haired vehicle. I mean, a farmer. Well, there's the Jaguar. I thought they were black. Well, the cars are black under a car.

Put it in black. Now. Now what about this? Now you're getting into the color I saw yesterday. Oh, boy. Look out. Jaguar. This is like the perp walk right here. But see that tubular tail? There's no bush. So, Larry, let me ask you this because you're from Oklahoma. I went to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and stayed on the lake there. That's central for what we're talking about.

So there was every third house, there was a...

someone had put out in their front yard a a sasquatch statue or outline or whatever and so then i was asking what's the deal and they said oh well this is where people have spotted this is bigfoot central yeah yeah so so what's the is that an oklahoma thing the bigfoot i mean it's a thing in missouri it's a thing in in northwest arkansas as well so have you seen i've not seen one but uh i'd

I've seen a lot of pictures like this. Have you ever seen Dame Burley Jennings? I thought I had had a Bigfoot sighting. Actually, Dame, I went to a Bible camp with him. He was my bunk mate, and he came in the cabin, and I was like...

Yeah. So this would be a perfect lead in back to our text. Cause what did you say? I was earlier, Zach, uh, you, you accused me of cessationist. Uh, Oh yeah. I said, you're, I wasn't, I wasn't accusing you. You make it sound like, uh, you said, I, cause I had in between, I was defining your position is called cessationism, which I disagreed with. And, uh, miraculous. We were talking about, you know, the seven sons of Skiva. Mm. They, they,

they tried to have this authority and drive out these demons and exactly what they said i command you yeah they they were posing as someone who had authority and i made the point in between the podcast that i said all y'all's points were great and i didn't mean that frivolously i agreed i said but i don't think that's what it was talking about they they

They were trying to pose themselves as one who had authority to do the miraculous acts of God without giving their heart to Jesus or being one of the apostles. And so, because in the book of Acts, everywhere I see a miraculous, I would say it would be miraculous to be able to cast out an evil spirit. And so I said, all the miracles that I see either happen

at Jesus's command in the gospels or the apostles who were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Lord, Paul being a special apostle because he had the appearance on the road. Right. Or they laid their hands on people and gave them that power. Right. So, and you said, well, you're a sensationalist. And I was like. They're not sensationalists.

Not sensationalist, but cessationist. Well, I think I'm sensational. Cessation. But I wanted to say this. I am a cessationist when it comes to Bigfoot and Black Panthers. I am that. I believe that ceased to exist at some point in history.

But as far as miracles, I said, no, I'm not going to invent a category and say, well, therefore, God would never do a miracle. Because who am I? I'm saying in the book of Acts, these miracles were happening either at the apostles who were chosen as eyewitnesses of the resurrection. That's 1 Corinthians 9. He said, am I not an apostle? Have I not witnessed the resurrected Lord?

1 Corinthians 15 says the same thing. Or they laid their hands on them. I'm like, in the book of Acts, that's what happened. And Jace, to your point, you remember we had some situations earlier in Acts where people were trying to get the gift of the miraculous for their own well-being, to make money. How can I buy this? Yeah. That was Simon. Yeah, I think that's the part that –

they asked the question, or he saw that these gifts were given at the laying on of the hands of the apostles. Right. So I think the reason that the limitations are there that Jace is talking about is because it only needed to be in the hands of those who would point people to Jesus, which brings us to the point here of the sons of Sceva. I think the reason Luke included, because he didn't have to include that in the story, but he did. And I think the reason he did is because this whole thing

is about the Jews trying to hold on to what they've always known. I mean, they got their heels dug in because it's like, we can't accept Jesus as Lord, but we've still got to be relevant. And I see this as a pretty desperate act on the part of these sons of the chief priests. They're trying to do something in the power of the flesh and not in the power of Christ. And another thing, another angle to this, I remember Peter and John, they're on the way to the temple and there's this lame guy.

And he comes up and asks for money. And he said, silver and gold I don't have, but what I've got I give you in the name of Jesus. Get up and walk. They did not know that they're about to do a miracle. It's like, hey, there's a lame guy. Let's go over there and heal that guy. I mean, so many of these miracles happen really kind of randomly.

not in their own thinking, in their own actions, but it's something Jesus is doing in that moment. I didn't know we were going to heal a lame guy today, but this is what... And they wouldn't say that they healed him. They would say, in the name of Jesus, get up and walk. This is Jesus doing this. My point is, even in modern day, if we call things where God works miracles, I mean, I'm okay with that.

Because it's a supernatural thing that's happened. I mean, if you pray and you have doctors giving one diagnosis and something happens, if someone wants to call it a miracle, okay. But it seems like in the book of Acts, when they did a miracle, it was defying the law of nature, physics, gravity. It was something that was used as a sign to...

support what they were saying. Right. Well, they were, yeah, it gives validation. Validation. These signs and miracles are validation of the message. Yeah, I think it was primarily apostolic power was given as validation for the establishment of this concept that the kingdom is now

been inaugurated. The inauguration of the kingdom came in Jesus. And so, because I think it's like what I think what that's happening here is that they wanted, the way I would say it is they wanted the benefits of the kingdom without the king. So they were saying, I mean, I mean, they were high, high priests. I don't, I mean, I don't think these people were Christians. They weren't following Jesus. You know what I mean? But they're saying, man, well, we want his stuff.

But we don't want him. Well, the same is true when people come to Christ. I want the life that Jesus has for me, but I don't want to lose my life to get it. Yeah, I don't want the sacrifice. I don't want, yeah, which is, that is the, honestly, where I think we're in our cultural moment is, you see it with like kind of like the secular utopia vision that is being promised right now to the world. And it's cracking, it's falling apart because they're saying, we want the kingdom,

but we don't want the king. And I realized this recently when we had, we just had a ton of people come into our church from all kinds of crazy backgrounds, new age, mysticism, Buddhism, all these different backgrounds. And one of the guys, Jordan Hall, he's gone all over the world, tried to find utopia. He came out of Silicon Valley, made his money and has spent the last, I don't know how many years, just trying to find utopia and

And then when we started meeting together, he after several months, he said, you know, it's funny. My wife and I realize that we've been looking for the kingdom all this time and we didn't know it because we didn't know about the king. And it was like it just hit me like you're there. They want they see the goodness of it, but like you can't establish it. So these guys are coming in saying we want to borrow Jesus's name.

Like a name only, right? Not really what all that means. We say in the name of Jesus. When the apostles were doing it in the name of Jesus, they were doing it under the authority of Jesus. They were doing it under the commission of Jesus. They were doing it under the rule and the reign and the proclamation that Jesus is the king. And they're just saying, no, we just want the actual word. We'll take the word, the name, the way it sounds, and then hope that we can get all the stuff that comes with it. That's Matthew 7. Completely miss it all. Yeah, Matthew 7, 21. Exactly. Exactly.

What's the Matthew 721? Not everyone who says the Lord. Didn't we cast out demons in your name and in your name? And people don't want

They don't, they're not seeking the glory of Christ in that moment. What they want is authority for themselves. And so let me show you, let me read this next three verses because the results of what happens is exactly what you guys have been talking about. In verse 17, it says, when this became known to the Jews and the Greeks living in Ephesus. So everything that we just said, the stuff with the sons of Sceva, the stuff that had been happening with Paul, when this became known,

all Jews and Greeks were seized with fear of

And the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Amen. So that was the results of this thing that happened. Jesus' name is elevated. Exactly. And is glorified by this epic failure of these men. Many of those who believe, now look at the transformation power. Many of those who believe now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery. Oh.

This will be right up their alley, right? Brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. And basically that's a drachma is a day's wages. So that's 50,000 days. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And it says in this way, the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. So what in essence has brought revival, right?

into this city and we didn't even get into the temple of artemis and all that because that's fixing to come up in the next segment right and in terms of the implications of economics and all that but there's a revival now that's broken out and it's because of the name of the lord jesus i mean that's what's brought that the name that is above every other name and uh you know jesus is like like back to that matthew 7 a lot of people out there using my name

And he's like, you don't mess with my name. He's teaching the disciples how to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. I mean, your name is so holy.

that the Jews didn't even say it, you know? And so they came up with all of these other names except for this I am. And then Jesus gets there and he drops the I am before Abraham was born, I am. And that's, I mean, that's the thing is like, what other proof do you need? He's claiming to be God in the flesh, which is exactly his point. Yeah, it's like, I think we tend to interpret this in,

And we should wrongly interpret this as like a magic password that we get. Right. Got to ask in Jesus' name and I'll give it to you. Right. Like the password is, what's the password? Jesus. Okay, here you are. His name is not a password. Like his person is the way, the truth, and the life. And nobody comes to the Father except through him. So when the Bible talks about casting out demons in the name of Jesus or doing anything in the name of Jesus, it is a proclamation. Right.

of his kingship over us. It's also a proclamation that it has nothing to do with me. And every time we see the apostles do that, it is, I've got nothing. I don't have anything, but what I've got is the name of Jesus.

And that's what it's what Francis Schaeffer called active passivity. Like we don't do anything but yield. You know, I think that's that you yield under the supremacy of Christ and under the power of Christ, under the rule and the reign of Christ. And then through that, then we try to become like him. And so that's the hard thing, because our works, we know we don't work to be saved. I mean, that's very clear in Scripture that your works don't save you. But there is all this stuff about doing stuff.

But the motivation for doing stuff is so that we will become like him and experience the transformation that happens through our submission to him and our yielding to him. And then we look back over what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction over a 20-year span of your life. You're like, man, I'm not the same guy. Yeah.

I can speak to that. In the last 10 years in our ministry to Muslims overseas, I mean, you know, it's amazing. My view of what Jesus will actually do, you know, he came to seek and save the lost. Guess what he's still doing? He's still seeking and saving. I've never led anybody to Christ that he hadn't found and brought to me.

And so I'm a missionary that doesn't do any evangelism. All I do is, you know, wait for the next person to come through the door because he is knocking on those doors. He's making himself known.

And it's just, you know, and so we'll begin to study the Bible together. These people have never held a Bible in their hands. And they're looking at this and they're reading all of this. And yeah, Jesus is God in the flesh. And, you know, weeks go by and they understand this. And they're like, I just, there's something that just, I can't really step over that line.

And I will say, just go home and ask him to show himself to you, because that's exactly what he said in John 15. I'm going to come and I'm going to show myself to you. And it is not the fact that he does. It is the speed at which he does it. They'll come back to me the next morning. Guess what? I've had a dream. I've had a vision. I'm ready. I'm ready to confess Christ and be baptized.

And so I'll walk in American churches and tell these stories. And it's like, brother, I don't know if I believe that. And I'm like, friend, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just telling you what I'm seeing. And so, yeah, he's living and moving. He's active. He's alive. He's seeking. He's knocking. And everybody we meet knows of him. Well, Larry, what amazes me is in the people that you're witnessing today,

Life change and transformation is a lot like what we're reading about in this text. It's a point of no return because when they make this decision to Christ, they're cutting off all family ties. They're cutting off many of them going back home. They're burning the scrolls. They're burning the scrolls. Yeah, they are burning the scrolls. It costs them absolutely everything.

Which I think that's what's so interesting about your ministry. And the first time I heard you speak, you know, I felt this. I mean, you what you're doing that I think is a lesson even outside because I'm doing the same kind of, I guess, tactic in a different culture, not a not a culture of Islam, but a culture of kind of the new age mysticism culture.

But it's the same thing. I want to just show them who God is and who is the triune God. Your heavy emphasis on the inner life of the Trinity, I think, is paramount here because they but but when we get to that place.

where, and everybody gets to that place where they can't get over the hump. And I think we're afraid to tell people what you, what you're telling those people, because we're afraid that what if Jesus doesn't show up? You know what I mean? But if somebody earnestly is seeking him and ask God, show me yourself.

Yeah. I'm with you. He's going to do that. This is Revelation 3.20. Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. Whoever would open that door, I'm coming in. Yeah. What we're trying to do is we're trying to say, no, I want to make sure we can explain it adequately so that you can get it. And we think that the power is in our explanation of it or our presentation of it. When the truth is, it's not in our presentation. It's in his revelation. So if we ask God to reveal himself to us, he is a loving father. He will reveal himself to us.

That's why when you remember when Paul said, Peter said in Acts 4, there's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved. When you read about this and the power of his name and the setting of where we are way now moving forward all the way in Ephesus, you're still seeing that the power of salvation and change relies in Jesus and it transforms people. And I love it because don't you love this public perspective?

proclamation that these guys are doing. It took me back to Mac Owen's story. When Mac tells his story about the morning, the Sunday morning, when he recognized that his life was, could go no further and he had to turn to Christ. The first thing he did was he took all of his drug paraphernalia that he had hidden in little places all around his house and property. And he gathered it all together and he burned it.

in his trash barrel. And then the next thing he did was he picked up the phone and he called Ray Melton and said, I need to come talk to you. And that began his road of transformation. This is the guy now who is over all of the Celebrate Recoveries in North America.

And the reason that happened is because he was willing to publicly burn that which the evil one had had hooked to him and then call on the name of Jesus, which is very powerful. And I do want to mention, because while we have Larry here, because I always forget to do it, acrocenter.org is where you can go if you want to support Larry's ministry, because it's a fantastic. My dad told me the same thing when I came to know Christ and Jesus.

And you guys are a big part of that story. I think we've talked about on here before when Jeff and I both living together in the wilderness, not living for Christ for sure. And I had repented, but the problem I had was that I was still kind of falling back into the same stuff like over and over again, like repeatedly. And my dad told me something that stuck with me all these years. And it really fits into this text. He said, you don't understand the point of temptation.

You think temptation is when you're at a bar with all your friends and someone says, hey, you want a beer? And he said, that's not the point of temptation for you.

The point of temptation for you is when those old friends that you've been acting this way with say, hey, what are you doing tonight? And he said, that's the point when you when you have to decide which way am I going to go? I'm going to go back to these old relationships that were leading me into a lot of evil. Or am I going to cut that off and burn all that? And that's what was happening here. These guys, you got to burn the scroll sometimes. Sometimes you got to you got to put everything behind you that we don't I don't have the

power to go into these situations and face this temptation when I'm right at the end of the temptation. It starts way before that. And so these guys were willing to abandon that. And I think there's a lesson here for how we deal with temptation, how we deal with idols in our own life. You know, I want to be the kind of person that's going to burn the scrolls over and over and over again as the Holy Spirit reveals to me these things that are taking the place of God in my life. I want to be that guy that burns them and progressively, you

I think that's what the walk looks like. It's more and more uncovering of those and then destroying those idols, those things that take us away from him. I made a point in the sermon Sunday is that Satan did not walk into the Garden of Eden with a weapon of mass destruction.

He came in simply with an idea, a little piece of false theology about God. God's not enough. You need something more than that. And Paul urges us to just...

demolish arguments that set themselves up against the authority of God and to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. And it's that point of temptation you're talking about, Zach. That's when that happens. Here comes this idea, just an idea. Yeah.

And what am I going to do with it? The ideas are coming. You can't ever stop the ideas. And so it's, I want to, I'm a, I kind of, I'm a visual kind of learner. If you ever talk to somebody through a screen door, you know, you're talking, you can see them, you're talking, but it's kind of a filter. I want that filter in front of me and the world that is Christ.

Everything is going to come through that filter, and any piece of theology, any temptation, anything that penetrates that, I want to immediately stop and make it obedient to the person of Jesus Christ. And that's the only defense that we have against that point of temptation or that temptation

The little pieces of theology that get stuck to us. I'm driving down the road the other day and I'm listening to Christian radio and I'm singing along with a song and a line comes out of one of the songs and I'm like, wait a minute.

I'm not sure I believe that or not. Oh, I did that all the time. That was my whole point about bringing up the cessation-ism. There you go. He's not letting it die. No, I'm not letting it die because people will hear me talk and they'll say, oh, well, Jay doesn't believe in, he's limiting God, he's putting God in the box. I'm like, no, I just made an observation.

That it seems like when these miracles were happening, it was either Jesus, the apostles, or somebody, the apostles that laid their hands on. They're like, well, you're a cessationism. I'm like, hang on, let me go look that up. And by they, he means me. And then you'll read the definitions and it's like, well, God no longer works supernaturally in the world. I'm like, well, I don't believe that. Yeah. That's the problem I have. It's kind of goes back to the Black Panther thing. You hear a story, you analyze it.

Yeah. And you're trying to make truths based on, you know, what happened here. And I just think that's a dangerous. It is. And that's exactly what I articulated. You grow up with a lifetime of that kind of teaching. And then you go into a mission field like this and you see Jesus doing what he's doing.

No, I totally believe in the miraculous power of God, but I haven't got anything to do with it. Well, why were they doing the miracle? What was the point of it? They were saying, you can't have this kind of power without Jesus the King. I mean, that goes back to Matthew 16 when Peter said,

When Jesus said, who do people say the Son of Man is? And he eventually said, you're the Christ, the Son of living God. But Jesus' response, very interesting, because he said, this wasn't revealed to you by the flesh, by man. It was revealed to you by my Father in heaven. And so then he tells him this great news. You'd think everybody's happy. I'm going to build my church here.

And I'll give you the keys to the kingdom. So everybody's happy. And then Jesus begins explaining that he had to suffer and die and be killed. And on the third day, be raised. And then Peter, I mean, this is the next paragraph. Right.

He takes Jesus to the side and says, not just, I don't agree with you, rebukes Jesus. Right. And it's like, no. And you remember what Jesus said, this is satanic. Get behind me, son. You're not, you recognize me as the son of God, but you don't like me.

The plan for the Son of God, which is to die, because he wants to go right in with weapons and take over and lift the oppression against the Jewish people.

Hold on. I can't hear Phil. He's out of here. Well, so we're out of time and dad's left the building. So I guess he was letting us know we're out of time. Larry is, it's always a blessing. It's always a blessing for me to be here. Thank you. So I'll leave you with two sermon titles. I got out of our discussion today. One, have you burned the scrolls? Oh yeah. That's going to be a sermon I got to preach one day. And the second one is, which will lead us into the next podcast from revival to riot in three verses. Wow.

because that's what's about to happen next. So we'll talk about that too. Larry, a blessing having you, brother. We'll see you next time on Unashamed. What did Phil say? He says, I got to take a leak. I don't know. Maybe he should leave it there. That might have hit the mic. I couldn't hear it. Let's just make this the end, right? This could be the end, Matty. Play it to the end. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes.

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