Caption transcript for The Lobstermen: “Those Pesky Lobsters!” (6/10)

• 00:01 ♪♪♪
• 00:10 ♪♪♪ Joshua Colson: Acts 10:9-13, "Peter went up on the roof
• 00:14 to pray.
• 00:15 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the
• 00:18 meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
• 00:21 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet
• 00:24 being let down to earth by its four corners.
• 00:28 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as
• 00:31 reptiles and birds.
• 00:32 Then a voice told him, 'Get up, Peter.
• 00:35 Kill and eat.'"
• 00:40 Caleb Colson: Hey, Bubba!
• 00:43 Joshua: Gentlemen, wonderful to see you this morning.
• 00:48 Caleb: Long time no see.
• 00:50 Joshua A: Hi, sir. Josh Lee: I'm Josh.
• 00:51 Joshua A: Nice to meet you. Oh, you're Josh.
• 00:53 You're the other Josh. Nice to meet you.
• 00:54 Joshua: And you only need one Bubba.
• 00:57 Caleb: All right, guys, I'm so excited today.
• 00:58 This is the pinnacle episode we have all been waiting for.
• 01:02 Salvation has come to the Gentiles.
• 01:04 Now, it's really cool because Rabbi Shaul, who was Saul as you
• 01:08 know, was the most violent, you know, hateful person against
• 01:12 Christians, and he had this encounter with Yeshua, and now
• 01:15 he's the first to go lobster catching, to catch the unclean.
• 01:19 It's an irony, but it's beautiful.
• 01:20 And now we have Peter who saw a vision of the unclean animals,
• 01:24 and he's gonna jump on the bandwagon, too.
• 01:26 Joshua: Both of them.
• 01:27 Caleb: Both of them, it's pretty cool.
• 01:29 Joshua: It's gonna be an amazing trip today.
• 01:30 Caleb: Let's catch some lobster, let's go.
• 01:34 ♪♪♪
• 01:44 ♪♪♪
• 01:54 ♪♪♪
• 02:04 ♪♪♪
• 02:12 Caleb: Galatians 3:28-29, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there
• 02:17 is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for
• 02:21 you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.
• 02:24 And if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham's seed,
• 02:29 heirs according to the promise."
• 02:35 Joshua: So many layers.
• 02:36 I'm wearing these nice 2024 lobster Spanx, keep it in where
• 02:40 you need it, not where you don't.
• 02:43 Josh: I buy my rain gear to match the colors of my boat
• 02:46 Joshua A: Perfect colors, colors of my other country, lobstah!
• 02:51 Josh: You ready?
• 02:53 Joshua A: I'm not sure what I'm ready for, so I think so.
• 02:57 Yeah, OK.
• 02:59 The word of the day today is lobstah!
• 03:02 male: Look at that.
• 03:04 Joshua A: Let's see if there's some lobstah.
• 03:05 Josh: So, I started pulling this up in my hand
• 03:07 yesterday, and he's like, yeah, that's cool, but check this out.
• 03:12 Joshua A: How long can--do lobsters live?
• 03:14 Josh: They say that they don't die of old age, yeah.
• 03:18 A lot of them are over 100 years old.
• 03:20 Joshua A: Get out of here.
• 03:22 Josh: So, think about this, they they catch a small
• 03:24 lobster, they go, no, not today, right?
• 03:25 He throws it in, his son could come back when he's 30 and catch
• 03:28 that same thing again when he's, like, this big now.
• 03:30 male: When it's too big, because we throw the ones that are too
• 03:33 big back.
• 03:35 Joshua A: Get out of here, why?
• 03:36 Josh: So, this is our--this size right here from
• 03:38 here to here, the length of its shell, we're only
• 03:42 catching that size lobster.
• 03:44 Slide this back on.
• 03:50 Small, we know that one's small.
• 03:56 That one's definitely small.
• 03:58 Joshua A: He's so cute though.
• 04:00 He can clean my beard out.
• 04:01 Too small, come on.
• 04:05 Josh: This one looks big--small.
• 04:07 Joshua A: Oh, come on.
• 04:09 Josh: How's this one?
• 04:10 Joshua A: It's close, come on, come on.
• 04:12 Josh: That one is a keeper.
• 04:13 Joshua A: Yes, okay.
• 04:15 male: There's one keeper.
• 04:16 Josh: Are these females?
• 04:17 You've got to check this flipper, because if they come up
• 04:20 with eggs on them, we take this barber here and we give him a
• 04:25 punch in the tail and throw them back over, so when she lays her
• 04:28 eggs and another fisherman catches her, they know that
• 04:32 she's a good breeder, she's good at having babies, so we'll keep
• 04:36 her in the ocean.
• 04:37 That's a keeper.
• 04:39 That's a male, I'll show you the difference here.
• 04:43 See how the male's little flipper there is thick and this
• 04:47 one is paper thin?
• 04:48 Joshua A: Get out of here, yeah.
• 04:49 Josh: So, that's the difference.
• 04:51 Joshua A: Gotta keep kosher.
• 04:52 It's just awkward that I'm on a ship right now that's calling
• 04:55 out lobster--I don't know if you knew that.
• 04:57 Joshua A: I don't do lobstah, you know,
• 04:59 as they say it up here.
• 05:01 Joshua A: I call it biblical kosher because right now we have
• 05:04 the kashrut, the kosher laws, it's rabbinic,
• 05:07 which has changed throughout the years.
• 05:09 They add, like, a thousand more rules to keep you from
• 05:12 the one rule, you know?
• 05:13 Caleb: Don't boil the kid in its mother's milk, and from
• 05:16 that, you get all these crazy things that was
• 05:18 not God intended.
• 05:20 Joshua A: Yeah, so I just felt this calling to keep biblical
• 05:22 kosher about 15 years.
• 05:24 I grew up not keeping kosher, my dad's
• 05:25 not Jewish, my dad was raised Catholic.
• 05:27 My mom was raised Orthodox Jewish from Israel.
• 05:29 I just felt this calling to reach my people, and I remember
• 05:33 reading where Paul said I had--Timothy was a half a Jew
• 05:38 like me.
• 05:39 Paul said I had Timothy circumcised because of the work
• 05:43 he was in.
• 05:44 So, I just felt, like, this calling, like, the work I'm
• 05:47 going to be in in the Jewish world, and also I just felt like
• 05:50 this what we call the shomer, which is the keeper.
• 05:52 I felt like I needed to be a shomer and to be, you know,
• 05:56 really own what God has called me to do.
• 05:58 So, for me it's hard, especially I travel a lot in the South, you
• 06:01 know, like, you can't not eat.
• 06:03 I'm in Maine, you can't not eat lobstah, you know?
• 06:05 You could find out if the Jews were the real back in the
• 06:07 old days.
• 06:08 The Christians would be like, hey, you want to eat this?
• 06:10 And they're like, no.
• 06:11 Caleb: We got this ham sandwich on rye with mayo.
• 06:15 Joshua: Should I leave this here if anybody wants it?
• 06:17 Ryan Economy: Josh, you ever get pinched by them?
• 06:19 Josh: Yep, Ryan, come here.
• 06:21 Ryan: All right, oh, no.
• 06:24 Josh: Getting pinched by him, everyone's worried about
• 06:25 it, but, like, it's a pinch.
• 06:29 Joshua: I feel like this is one of those traps.
• 06:30 Josh: It's not gonna hurt.
• 06:33 Ryan: No, oh, no.
• 06:37 Joshua A: No lobster water got in my mouth.
• 06:39 Joshua: It's the first time I ever stuck my
• 06:41 tongue in a lobster.
• 06:42 Josh: Ryan, you push yours. Ryan: Right now?
• 06:46 Josh: I was deciding on building this boat, hemming and hawing
• 06:49 because it's a huge financial weight, and I prayed about it
• 06:53 and talked it over with my wife and she was fully supportive the
• 06:56 whole time, but I was like, I'm gonna build the boat, but God,
• 07:00 if there's anything that we can do to serve you with it, that's
• 07:05 what I want to do.
• 07:06 And just doors have opened and it's been a blessing.
• 07:08 Caleb: In fact, God moved on the hearts of Josh Lee and his
• 07:12 father, Bubba, to donate their time, their boats, the fuel for
• 07:16 their boats, even the lobsters for the filming of this series.
• 07:19 There would be no "Lobstermen" without them.
• 07:22 Josh: It's my boat but it's not my boat.
• 07:24 God just lets me drive it.
• 07:26 Joshua: That's awesome.
• 07:27 Israel Hanna: God's a pretty good bookkeeper, I've
• 07:29 discovered, and he tallies it up, and we get a lot more back
• 07:33 than we gave out.
• 07:34 Joshua: Romans 11:11-15, "But through their [Israel's] fall,
• 07:39 to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to
• 07:41 the Gentiles.
• 07:43 Now if their fall is riches for the world and their failure
• 07:45 riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
• 07:48 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to
• 07:52 the Gentiles.
• 07:53 For if [Israel's] being cast away is reconciling of the
• 07:56 world, what will their acceptance be
• 07:58 but life from the dead?"
• 08:04 Joshua: You all right there, short stuff?
• 08:06 Ryan: Barely.
• 08:11 Joshua: Most people don't know this, but the reason why
• 08:13 lobsters are red is because they tan on docks like this.
• 08:17 Now, that white stuff is zinc oxide, it helps them not get too
• 08:20 cooked before we get them.
• 08:21 Caleb: I don't think that's entirely accurate.
• 08:23 You're a Mainer, Ryan, is that true?
• 08:25 Ryan: A hundred-- percent not true.
• 08:29 Caleb: Totally encouraging him here.
• 08:32 Israel: They actually bring the lobsters here to dry out.
• 08:36 Joshua: This is where they dry the traps, okay.
• 08:38 Ryan: I see the confusion.
• 08:39 While we're out here, I wanna talk a little bit about
• 08:41 a sea story.
• 08:42 So, way back in the day, there was a gentleman by the name
• 08:46 of Jonah.
• 08:47 God gave him a mission.
• 08:48 His mission was to go to Nineveh and preach to the Ninevites
• 08:52 about God.
• 08:53 Jonah's like, no way, I'm not going there.
• 08:56 In fact, he was so scared he gets on a ship and leaves.
• 09:00 As the story goes, the ship gets really crazy, the weather gets
• 09:04 crazy, and the people on the ship are like what's going on?
• 09:08 And Jonah kind of explains himself, like, I'm running away
• 09:10 from God and he gets voluntold, pretty much, or volunteered to
• 09:13 get into the ocean, and he gets taken up by what they say in the
• 09:18 Bible a giant fish, which I think was probably a Mosasaurus
• 09:21 back in the day.
• 09:22 Caleb: That's what I've been saying.
• 09:24 It's like a Mosasaurus or Plesiosaurus.
• 09:25 Ryan: Yeah, so he gets taken out and then he goes to Nineveh and
• 09:29 he gives a little message, and I actually have the message
• 09:33 right here.
• 09:34 "In 40 days Nineveh will be demolished."
• 09:37 That's his message.
• 09:39 Joshua: I've been through so much, you're going to die.
• 09:41 Ryan: But the crazy thing is that God's message through
• 09:45 Jonah, even though it was minimal, worked.
• 09:47 Caleb: The king of Nineveh said let us repent before this God,
• 09:51 perhaps he will give us a second chance.
• 09:54 They had no understanding that God would be merciful.
• 09:57 Joshua: Why would you not give them that opportunity though?
• 10:00 Why would he not say you can repent?
• 10:01 Caleb: Well, maybe it wasn't God's message for them, maybe he
• 10:04 just wanted to test their hearts.
• 10:06 But here we have Jonah, who's literally the first lobsterman,
• 10:10 and he was going to a people that annihilated his people,
• 10:14 that were constantly raiding, you know, Hebrew villages and
• 10:18 murdering and ransacking.
• 10:21 The Assyrians were known as the most violent group.
• 10:25 They tore pregnant women open, they filleted people's skin off,
• 10:28 you know, they put a spike through their bodies and hung
• 10:32 them out to die in a slow death.
• 10:34 And here God said go give this message, and afterward, when
• 10:39 they did repent, that was the greatest lobsterman message,
• 10:41 400,000 people repented.
• 10:43 He said, "Look, God, I told you, I knew you were merciful.
• 10:47 I knew you were gonna give them a second chance,"
• 10:49 but isn't that like our God?
• 10:50 God gave mercy to the Gentiles all the way back 'cause that's
• 10:54 always been his heart, for the Jews to bring a message of
• 10:57 salvation to the Gentiles, to be a light to the Gentiles.
• 11:00 It was prophesied.
• 11:01 Josh: Hey, let's catch some more lobstah.
• 11:04 Caleb: Okay, let's head back in.
• 11:06 Caleb: Galatians 3:6-9, "Just as Abraham 'believed God and it was
• 11:11 credited to him as righteousness,' know then that
• 11:14 those who have faith are children of Abraham.
• 11:17 The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
• 11:20 by faith, proclaimed the Good News to Abraham in advance,
• 11:24 saying, 'All the nations shall be blessed through you.'
• 11:28 So then, the faithful are blessed along with Abraham, the
• 11:31 faithful one."
• 11:33 Joshua: Hw you doin', Josh?
• 11:35 Is this some kind of Israeli morning
• 11:37 stretching program here?
• 11:39 Joshua A: Blessing the cameras.
• 11:40 Joshua: I like that.
• 11:42 Caleb: Wouldn't you like to stop blowing monthly fees on
• 11:43 pagan entertainment?
• 11:45 Joshua: Yeah.
• 11:46 Caleb: Well, how about spreading the gospel of Yeshua while
• 11:48 getting a bunch of cool stuff?
• 11:50 Joshua: Yeah.
• 11:51 Caleb: Then join the "Bearded Bible Bonanza" on Patreon where
• 11:53 you'll see the brothers continue their teachings
• 11:55 with never-before-aired content that pagans
• 11:58 don't want you to see--
• 11:59 God bless their souls.
• 12:01 ♪♪♪
• 12:04 Mike Ferland: Is that honey?
• 12:05 Joshua: Where?
• 12:06 Mike: Red kettle, or is it kimchi?
• 12:09 Joshua: Let's have a look. Mike: Let's find out.
• 12:11 Joshua: Since we've been getting pretty good at catching
• 12:13 lobsters, it's time to go back to Rockland and catch
• 12:16 some souls.
• 12:17 Joshua: It is kimchi. Mike: It is kimchi.
• 12:19 Mike: My daughter goes to UMO, loves, loves kimchi.
• 12:25 Israel: One of the prayers we pray, are you looking for work
• 12:27 or intending to work or are you not?
• 12:29 Samuel: Sure, I am an American, after all.
• 12:33 Israel: Yeah, but nobody wants to work anymore.
• 12:34 Samuel: You gotta work.
• 12:36 Right now, my job's taking care of this sweet thing.
• 12:37 Caleb: Well, how old is she?
• 12:39 Samuel: Eleven months, yeah, Sophie.
• 12:41 Israel: Sophia.
• 12:43 Samuel: Just Sophie, you and my iPhone auto correcting it
• 12:46 to Sophia.
• 12:49 So, wait, so you're going on a boat with lobstermen
• 12:53 and talking about Jesus.
• 12:56 Caleb: 'Cause Jesus, one of his things he talked to his
• 12:58 disciples where you're gonna be fishers of men.
• 13:00 Samuel: Yeah, not just fishermen.
• 13:01 Caleb: Yeah, you're gonna catch fishes, so we thought it would
• 13:04 be funny, because we're actually Jewish, to go and catch
• 13:07 lobsters, 'cause Jews aren't supposed to touch lobsters, so
• 13:10 we're like, okay, if Jesus was a Jew and he told him to catch
• 13:12 fish, let's go catch lobsters 'cause it's completely unclean.
• 13:16 So, that's kind of our shtick because we're believers in Jesus
• 13:19 too, which is a dichotomy for most Jewish people.
• 13:22 Samuel: You're looking for an oxymoronic.
• 13:23 Caleb: Yes, that doesn't doesn't fit together.
• 13:28 Samuel: Well, at least you can believe in Jesus, just not, you
• 13:30 know as a God thing, or just a prophet, not the Son of God.
• 13:34 Caleb: Well, yeah, a lot of them do that, but we believe he's the
• 13:37 Son of God, too, yeah.
• 13:38 Samuel: How can this little subset like, Southern--you
• 13:41 know, whatever subset you are, how could that be the right one
• 13:44 and all the rest of them all across the world, all time,
• 13:47 they're all wrong?
• 13:48 Caleb: Only we're right and you guys are wrong.
• 13:51 Samuel: Only this version of the Bible right now.
• 13:53 Israel: It's not about the church, it's about knowing that
• 13:56 we are created by God and we love him and he loves us.
• 13:59 He loves you, Samuel, and your baby.
• 14:03 You know, that's shouldn't be rocket scientist stuff.
• 14:04 Samuel: You know, I just feel like God's love should be
• 14:07 more visible.
• 14:08 I feel like the world hasn't seen any of that stuff in a
• 14:10 while, you know,
• 14:11 there's miracles every day, sure, but man, we could
• 14:15 use some.
• 14:17 Israel: Yeah, some real stuff.
• 14:19 Caleb: Isn't that interesting that Samuel had enough
• 14:21 discernment to see that the infighting within Christian
• 14:24 denominations does not properly represent the love of
• 14:27 Father God?
• 14:29 He wanted to see love just manifest, exhibited in a
• 14:32 tangible way, and I hope that we were able to do that for him.
• 14:36 Israel: Here's where the real life is right here.
• 14:38 Caleb: We go to Israel a lot, like, we film in Israel in the
• 14:41 places where Jesus was, and because of the war, I mean, we
• 14:44 were there in the middle of the war when it broke out, and we
• 14:46 keep going back, but we've been trying to help rebuilding
• 14:50 communities that were destroyed and help giving food banks, so
• 14:54 we try to do our part, obviously we're not very big, but it's
• 14:58 definitely needed.
• 14:59 You can't show--you gotta show love, you know, it's gotta
• 15:02 be visible.
• 15:03 Israel: Thank you for saying that, Samuel, right back at you,
• 15:06 you and the baby.
• 15:07 Samuel: You and my mother.
• 15:09 [laughing]
• 15:10 ♪♪♪
• 15:14 Caleb: This is what it was all about, guys, the Jews going out
• 15:17 and being a light unto the Gentiles.
• 15:18 We caught us some lobsters and you Gentiles helped out,
• 15:21 that's cool.
• 15:22 Hey, we're all the same, line of demarcation removed.
• 15:24 Jew and Gentile, one together.
• 15:27 Mike: Yes, but from the Gentile perspective, if I could, in my
• 15:31 experience, what I've come across is that, you know the
• 15:33 story of the prodigal son, right?
• 15:36 Exactly, you know, you heard.
• 15:37 In my experience, the Jews have acted a lot like the other
• 15:41 brother in that story.
• 15:43 Remember when the prodigal son comes back after he had, you
• 15:49 know, kind of squandered everything, Gentiles, and what
• 15:51 did that father do?
• 15:53 He threw a big party.
• 15:55 How did the older brother respond to that?
• 15:58 Joshua: He was like, oh, this is so awesome, you're my brother,
• 16:00 I'm happy for you--nope.
• 16:01 Mike: No, he didn't. Joshua: No, he did not.
• 16:03 Mike: No, in fact, he was kind of mad and jealous, and he was
• 16:08 angry with the father for throwing that party for
• 16:10 celebrating his brother who had messed everything up, and what
• 16:15 did the father say to him?
• 16:17 He said, son, you have been with me always.
• 16:20 Everything that I have is yours, but it's right that we should
• 16:25 celebrate your brother because he was lost but now is found.
• 16:31 And that's kind of how I see us Gentiles, is we're that prodigal
• 16:36 son, we've been off, we run off, we've done all those things, but
• 16:40 the Father is the one who ran to us and brought us in, back into
• 16:45 that family 'cause we were lost.
• 16:47 Joshua: I think it's safe to say that anybody can be a prodigal.
• 16:51 Mike: Absolutely.
• 16:52 Joshua: Even the Jews by not choosing their birthright, and I
• 16:56 think that your point you're bringing up is so incredible,
• 16:58 that no matter what was done, the father said we celebrate him
• 17:02 because he's part of our family.
• 17:03 Mike: Yes, exactly.
• 17:04 Joshua: God celebrates us even in the height of our mistakes,
• 17:10 when we've run away and squandered everything, when we
• 17:13 should be doing what's right.
• 17:16 He celebrates us because we're his kids, and too many people on
• 17:20 this earth don't have a representation of what a good
• 17:23 father was supposed to be, so they don't understand that.
• 17:25 They had a father that didn't care, a father that wasn't
• 17:27 there, a father that was not loving.
• 17:30 But that father, the way that we're supposed to look at our
• 17:33 father says it doesn't matter what you did, you're my son and
• 17:36 always will be.
• 17:37 And because of that, I welcome you back with open arms, with a
• 17:40 party, with everything I have, with my robe because I love you.
• 17:44 Israel: Amen, you know, Joshua, it's the very reason I carry
• 17:47 this cross, because my Savior died.
• 17:49 Yeshua Hamashiach died on the cross for my sins.
• 17:52 He saved my life 24 times from near-death experiences, and I
• 17:56 fall on my knees and I lift him up because of how much he
• 18:01 loves me.
• 18:02 And I don't understand why others can't do the same thing,
• 18:04 Joshua, and that's why I try to tell them the shortest verse in
• 18:08 the Bible and the most basic truth is "God is love."
• 18:12 God is love.
• 18:14 He loves you.
• 18:16 Caleb: It's all coming back to that.
• 18:17 What you said, Mike, is absolutely accurate about the
• 18:20 other son being jealous, but Paul said that was by design.
• 18:24 In Romans 11 he said that salvation coming to the Gentiles
• 18:28 would bring the Jews to jealousy to finally accept their Messiah
• 18:32 as Yeshua.
• 18:33 This is all part of his grand plan, and that's how everybody
• 18:36 is going to be welcomed into the kingdom of God.
• 18:38 Israel: Hey, I got an idea.
• 18:40 Can we hug each other?
• 18:43 Caleb: Oh, lobstermen hug.
• 18:45 Israel: Yes, awesome.
• 18:47 Caleb: Let's go find some more lobsters.
• 18:53 Joshua: Acts 26:22-23, "I am saying nothing beyond what the
• 18:57 prophets and Moses said would happen, that the Messiah would
• 19:01 suffer, and as first to rise from the dead would bring the
• 19:04 message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles."
• 19:07 ♪♪♪
• 19:13 Israel: There's Joshua.
• 19:14 Caleb: Oh, here's Josh, just enjoying God's beautiful nature.
• 19:18 What have you been up to? It's beautiful here.
• 19:19 Joshua: I am actually trying to be still and enjoy something as
• 19:23 opposed to always going and going.
• 19:26 Israel: Beautiful place right here.
• 19:27 Joshua: It's so beautiful.
• 19:29 I love this town. I love this time of year.
• 19:32 Caleb: Yeah, look at this.
• 19:34 Joshua: There's so many things in life to be grateful for and
• 19:36 so many things from God's beauty and love.
• 19:39 I keep thinking about Mike was just talking about, the father
• 19:43 giving all of this love to the younger son who had been the
• 19:46 prodigal, and it just really makes me reflect on so many
• 19:49 different years of my life.
• 19:51 It's funny, I'm not that old, technically, but I've crammed a
• 19:55 lot into the--yeah.
• 19:56 I'm not technically old, but I've crammed a lot into those
• 19:59 years and I've been blessed that I've gotten a chance to see a
• 20:03 lot and to meet a lot of people in a short amount of time.
• 20:07 I've been to 45 countries, I've lived in AIDS orphanages in
• 20:10 Africa, I've worked in leper colonies in India, and I've been
• 20:14 shot at in the Gaza Strip.
• 20:15 I've helped rescue girls out of sex trafficking in Burma, I've
• 20:19 pulled dead bodies out of the rubble in Haiti.
• 20:20 I've seen a lot of life, and in fact, when I think about it, I
• 20:25 lived in Zambia.
• 20:26 I had 28-year-old boys who I was in charge of.
• 20:29 Statistically, they're probably all dead at this point because
• 20:32 the life expectancy in the country was less than 30 years
• 20:35 old and the average age of the country was 15.
• 20:38 Israel: Wow, because of war and famine and disease.
• 20:41 Joshua: Disease, because of AIDS, it was the highest
• 20:43 mortality rate of AIDS, fifth highest in the world at
• 20:45 the time.
• 20:47 Israel: That's so sad, man.
• 20:48 Joshua: But I keep thinking about all the things that
• 20:49 reached people versus the things that didn't, and it was
• 20:53 always love.
• 20:54 And I think that's what got me so much when you were talking
• 20:56 earlier, and I think we forget that, even those who've been
• 20:59 raised in the church, we forget that it's not a corporate love
• 21:02 only, it's not an attendance love for showing
• 21:05 up on a Sunday or a Wednesday.
• 21:06 It is an individual, I know you where you are at, I know who you
• 21:11 are, I know what hurts you in the deepest parts of your heart
• 21:14 that you won't say, and I wanna heal you, and I wanna put my
• 21:18 robe on you, and I wanna welcome you back into the family.
• 21:22 And all it takes for us is accepting that and saying yes,
• 21:26 even if it's the fifty-second time you said yes, then come
• 21:29 back and said yes and come back.
• 21:30 In fact, it's only the enemy who wants to condemn us in that.
• 21:33 It's only the enemy who wants to push us away.
• 21:35 God wants us to keep coming back, and yet we so often, even
• 21:39 as believers, are the ones pushing others away, which is
• 21:42 why you start mentioning Jesus and the church, people start
• 21:44 losing their mind.
• 21:46 One thing that was interesting to me is that in all the
• 21:47 countries I've been to and all the people that I've met, nobody
• 21:50 ever had a problem with Jesus, it was the church.
• 21:52 In fact, when I used to look like Jesus, I would dress like
• 21:54 Jesus and I'd go out on Halloween and stuff like that
• 21:56 with the name tag that says, "Hello, my name is Jesus," and I
• 21:58 had drunk people come up confessing their sins and all
• 22:00 this kind of stuff.
• 22:01 People love Jesus, but then they'd tell me what the church
• 22:03 had done to him and it broke my heart to know that that
• 22:07 institution, a building with a sign on it that was supposed to
• 22:09 be there as a position of love had brought so much pain.
• 22:13 And even saying that it's not so much about condemning the church
• 22:16 for what they've done, it's about encouraging us to make the
• 22:18 change so it doesn't happen anymore,
• 22:21 and that's what has to happen today.
• 22:22 We get too caught up on ourselves.
• 22:24 We get caught up in our numbers and our theology and the size of
• 22:27 our congregations.
• 22:29 We get caught up in us and we forget that you exist and were
• 22:33 created and put on this planet for somebody else, and if you
• 22:35 don't stop looking at you, there are people who are literally
• 22:40 suffering and dying and will go to hell because you were
• 22:42 designed to reach them, and all it took was a little
• 22:44 self-sacrifice on your part to find them 'cause God's gonna
• 22:46 put them right in your path on a daily basis.
• 22:48 Israel: That happened right here with the the guy blowing all the
• 22:51 leaves out of the park here.
• 22:53 I talked to Tyler, and I can't tell you, Joshua, how many times
• 22:56 I've had those kind of prayers with people throughout the world
• 22:58 just like you have.
• 23:00 There's no greater joy than sharing that love with these
• 23:02 people that are hurting in so many different ways, because we
• 23:05 have hurt the same way.
• 23:06 We have hurt the same way and hurt as much sometimes, but we
• 23:10 pass that love on to them.
• 23:13 [leaf blower blowing]
• 23:22 Caleb: Acts 10:44-46, "Even as Peter was saying these things,
• 23:27 the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to
• 23:30 the message.
• 23:31 The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the
• 23:34 gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too.
• 23:38 For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God."
• 23:44 Caleb: I thought it was pretty cool that Gentiles being filled
• 23:46 with the Holy Spirit was the only visible sign that Jews had
• 23:50 to believe that Gentiles could be saved, that they could be
• 23:54 grafted in.
• 23:55 It was in Acts 19:1-6, Paul, Shaul, Rabbi is going around and
• 23:59 he meets these Gentile disciples, and he says, hey,
• 24:03 have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?
• 24:05 They're like, we don't even know what a Holy Spirit is.
• 24:07 He goes, oh, I'm gonna baptize you, they are filled with the
• 24:10 Holy Spirit, start speaking in tongues and prophesying, then
• 24:14 they're all like, yeah, Gentiles can come to faith.
• 24:17 And so, we get to this moment where so many Gentiles are
• 24:20 coming to faith in Yeshua that now the Jews don't know what to
• 24:23 do with them.
• 24:24 I mean, do we get them circumcised?
• 24:26 Do they have to keep kosher?
• 24:28 You know, going under the knife at 40 is probably a
• 24:29 terrible thing, you don't want to do that.
• 24:31 And so, they gather in Jerusalem, Jerusalem is
• 24:34 the capital.
• 24:36 If you see right here, guys, this is the capital of Maine.
• 24:41 This is Augusta, guys.
• 24:43 Joshua: Yeah, it is.
• 24:44 Caleb: So, the Jews came to the capital of the Jewish people,
• 24:47 which is Jerusalem.
• 24:49 They all got together and they said what are we gonna do about
• 24:53 these crazy Gentiles?
• 24:54 It wasn't mean, they weren't mean about, but it was
• 24:56 a quandary, there was lots of arguing, it says.
• 24:58 Joshua: I think they made the right choice to choose, you
• 25:00 know what?
• 25:01 We're gonna go ahead and leave them as they are right now
• 25:03 physically and not choose to judge them in that way, and I
• 25:07 think that was the right choice.
• 25:09 Joshua: When they realized they got to keep all their
• 25:10 standard-issued parts, I guarantee you there was a sigh
• 25:13 of relief heard around the world.
• 25:15 Things were good for Gentiles.
• 25:17 Caleb: Well, there was some protocols that the Holy Spirit
• 25:20 spoke to them in Acts 15 what to do.
• 25:22 Joshua: I've got a verse I want to read, Acts 15:28.
• 25:24 "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon
• 25:28 you no greater burden than these essentials, that you abstained
• 25:32 from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things
• 25:36 strangled, and from fornication.
• 25:38 If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will fare
• 25:41 well," it says at the end.
• 25:43 Caleb: That was pretty simple, yeah.
• 25:45 Joshua: So, for me I don't keep kosher out of obligation, I do
• 25:49 keep kosher out of calling, and really just what I feel like I'm
• 25:53 called to represent.
• 25:55 I'm always careful not to preach, put a burden like it
• 25:57 says, put a burden on yourself that you don't have to care,
• 25:59 you know?
• 26:01 Caleb: Yeah, the Holy Spirit speaks to each of us, and he
• 26:02 tells Joshua Aaron keep kosher 'cause he's a witness to our
• 26:05 people, and it would be an offense if they see him eating
• 26:08 bacon burgers around them, so he doesn't do that.
• 26:10 But for each of us in the way that we minister, God has
• 26:13 different convictions to us.
• 26:14 It's not about like, oh, I can murder this person, but
• 26:17 you can't.
• 26:18 No, it's just the way that we live, the lifestyle that
• 26:20 we live.
• 26:22 We want to do what's pleasing and honorable to God.
• 26:23 Joshua: Yeah, but always being, in some way, set apart, holy,
• 26:28 set apart.
• 26:29 Caleb: We are a chosen generation.
• 26:31 Joshua: And I think that having that baseline, you know, kind of
• 26:33 established that, right?
• 26:34 It's not just a free-for-all grace party,
• 26:36 like a lot of the churches.
• 26:37 Like, do whatever you want, you got forgiveness, it's okay.
• 26:39 No, they laid down a foundation of rules, like
• 26:41 fornication right off.
• 26:43 Like, fornication parties at church, not gonna happen.
• 26:46 Joshua: And yet they still do.
• 26:51 Mike: God isn't telling us to exchange our dirty shackles of
• 26:54 sin and put on shiny shackles of law, he's saying take those
• 27:00 shackles off and I'm gonna give you boundaries,
• 27:02 and what are boundaries for?
• 27:04 Boundaries are to keep you safe, to keep you going.
• 27:06 Like, the boundaries on the road are not to harm you or hurt you
• 27:10 or to restrict you, it's to keep you safe.
• 27:13 And I think that's what God is trying to do, is doing for us
• 27:17 with those things that you would share, Josh, about that.
• 27:21 It's that mindset of knowing that the Holy Spirit is there as
• 27:24 a guide, not as the issuer of handcuffs.
• 27:30 Joshua: I know it's not a very godly region of America, so
• 27:34 we're just so thankful that you're here as a light here in
• 27:36 Maine, Pastor Mike, and we wanna be praying for this state, this
• 27:41 beautiful state of Maine, that God would redeem it
• 27:44 and draw men to him.
• 27:45 Caleb: So, can I go meet the governor
• 27:47 and tell them about Yeshua?
• 27:48 Mike: I don't know that she's taking any calls right now.
• 27:51 Caleb: Can I knock on the door at least?
• 27:52 Mike: Talk about shackles? Sure.
• 27:53 Caleb: Let's go, guys.
• 27:55 Israel: Here we go again.
• 28:00 Joshua: Did you know the "Bearded Bible Brothers" is an
• 28:01 outreach of Zola Levitt Ministries?
• 28:03 That means we are entirely donor funded.
• 28:06 Consider giving at Levitt.com.
• 28:07 You can also join the "Bearded Bible Bonanza" to access
• 28:10 additional content at patreon.com/beardedbiblebonanza.
• 28:14 Please support our mission to spread the gospel of Yeshua by
• 28:17 subscribing to our social media and sharing our online messages.
• 28:21 Join the Bearded Brothers in person on a study tour of
• 28:24 Israel, Greece, and Petra, and see the Bible come alive,
• 28:27 and as always, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.