This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.
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We are talking about a really good topic, Danny, and so I don't want to steal your thunder by like saying the name of the show, but I don't remember what it is now. We've changed it. Yeah, well, we've changed it several times. We may change it again.
Who knows? Yeah, yeah. It started out as something fishy here, and then we kind of adopted fish and clips.
Fish and clips. That's pretty good. I think that was imposed upon you.
Yeah, it was. Well, yeah, I took the bait on that one. I just, you know, but, you know, talking about a comparison of how fishing resembles how the enemy tries to deceive us and hook us into something, and, you know, I used a lot of analogies in the first show with fly fishing because, you know, something I love to do, and, you know, if you present the fly right, you may get a trout interested in it, and, you know, that's what Satan's trying to do. He's trying to lure us in and trap us to drag us away, and he has ill intentions just as I do with a trout if I catch him. Well, you think about just the whole concept of fishing is you're contemplating, oh, well, there's one setting.
There should be one right there, right, you know, right along that branch or right along the rock bed there. You know, you're profiling them, right, and trying to figure out where they're at, and the enemy does that quite well with us. He knows exactly what's going on in our life.
He knows exactly what we're doing. You know, there for a long time, God is stronger than the enemy, and I know that without a doubt. I know that through God I am stronger than the enemy, but on my own I am not, and so for a long time I didn't like to pray out loud just because I didn't want to give the enemy some place where he could try to dig in. You know, that if he heard me praying over a situation, it's like, oh, maybe he's going to dig in there, and then I realized, okay, God's bigger than all that anyway, and so, but, you know, the enemy is active. The enemy is constantly trying to trip us up to deceive us, to lead us in a direction away from God.
That's where that lure is going to pull us away is away from God. Well, the last time I went to Mitchell River, those trout up there were prayed up because they didn't bite nothing. Yeah, they were pretty safe. Yeah, they were prayed up.
Yeah. I think they've been praying, fasting, and everything. Yeah, they were at least fasting that weekend.
They were fasting that day, yeah. Exactly. Well, Robby, you actually have the first clip of this show, so if you'd like to tell us a little bit about it. It's the old man in the sea if you don't remember what it is. You had a look about your face. I wasn't quite sure. As a fellow old man, I understand the look and the confusion.
Yes, yes, yes. Well, you know, when you said fishing, I couldn't help but think of old man in the sea since, you know, I figured there'd be a lot of river running through it, clips, and I love that movie, you know, and I fly fish as well and love it. But, you know, it's interesting that the whole topic, you know, one of my favorite things is I often get texts from people early in the morning, you know, four, five, six o'clock, asking me about the Hebrew or something.
And so, you know, it was last week, maybe Wednesday or so, I get this text from Danny. You know, Robby would tell me about this in a Bacchic one because, you know, it's interesting. Usually Jesus used the fishers of men idea, but we didn't much think about the idea of Satan also being a fisher, but in a Bacchic one, that's exactly what he describes, you know, the Babylonians as doing is they're angling and they're using nets. But angling is a bit more cruel than a net when you think about it because of what it is. And to a great extent, there was lots of people got a hook in their nose.
You know, in those days that had been following Satan big time and they actually got the literal hook. And so he asked me to look at that in Hebrew. And so I know you're not shocked that I'm going to give you a little, you know, that to me, wonderful understanding of the idea of hook in Hebrew has to do with a desire to unite. So when you eat something, whether you realize it or not, you're actually uniting with it. In other words, that's going to go become part of you, you are what you eat to some extent.
So the idea of bait works perfectly with union. And by the way, you know, it's very cool to think about that. The very first thing that you did in life was, you know, essentially to have a relationship with your mother or your father, whatever. In other words, the very first thing you did before you did anything else was you entered into a relationship.
And you think about how wonderful it is when a baby smiles at you. I mean, it's a big time idea of union and how wonderful that is is some kind of relationship. And so it's not hard to see why, you know, sex is such a bait, because it obviously has to do with relationship.
And it's something that we all started out with, we all started knowing. Well, fascinatingly to me, and I've always thought this wonderful that, you know, if you think about a fish, the very first thing it ate when it came into this world was egg food, right? Egg food, young, really young egg food. Anyway, you know, they were inside this egg and what are they eating?
They're eating the goo that's inside that egg. Well, if you want to catch trout, I mean, try a little salmon egg action because they love, they eat eggs, like boom. I mean, so it's fascinating to me that if you want to catch a human relationships is a lot of way to do it because that first idea of the word hook is a head, which has to do with going into union.
Okay. The second letter in the word hook in Hebrew has to do with desire, right? And so when you have this desire to unite with something, whether that's to eat something or whether that's to actually become one with that person or whatever, you know, it's just fascinating to me that how much of what we take the bait on has to do with food and sex. I mean, just say, and you just watch a few movies and you'll see that, you know, it's just, it's the go-to kind of thing. So however, young men, and certainly not just young men, old men, you know, one of the things that Satan hooked me in was in my career and, you know, in the car business, it was easy to work 20 hours a week. I mean, 20 hours a day.
It was crazy number because you're working six, sometimes seven days a week, and you just not spending any time with your family because you're going to be successful. You're going to make money. You're going to be, you know, someday you could have your own dealership.
You know, they're going to put all these different carrots out there and you go after it with every single thing you have thinking that this is what's going to give you life and see if you can truly be successful, whatever that may be, whatever that may feel like. And so I guess I should put the camera on myself since I've been talking for a while. But anyway, in this clip, Anthony, excuse me, Spencer Tracy is playing the old man in the sea and he has fished his whole life to catch this giant Marlin. And again, in those days, they went out in a little boat that was smaller than the Marlin, you know, even worse than Jaws, and they were catching these fish with a hand line, right? And so he hooks this giant Marlin and he works his fish, if I'm not mistaken, for like three or four days.
It's a story that was written by Ernest Hemingway, right? And so he's been, at the point of this clip, he has been fishing all for like three or four days and nights, you know, trying to bring in this giant fish that's bigger than him and bigger than his boat. And, you know, he can't see well, he's starting to see double, triple, and he's completely worn out trying to bring in this fish.
And so if you play the clip, you'll get a feel of it. Pull, hands. Hold on, legs. I must get him alongside this time, the old man thought. Next time I'll pull him over. He tried it once more and he felt himself going when he turned the fish.
I will try it again, the old man promised, and he could only see well in flashes. Fish, you're going to die anyway. You have to kill me too. He took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and he put it against the fish's agony.
I must get him close, close, close, he thought. I mustn't try for the head, I must get the heart. Now I have killed this fish who was my brother. Now I must do the slave work. Get to work, old man. Yeah, that's a sad, sad thing when I reflect on how much I've taken that bait.
All the hours I could have spent with my kids. Yeah, I got that dealership. But just like the end of that story, if you're not familiar, is he gets this beautiful fish and he finally gets it tied to the side of his little rowboat there and on his way back in, a giant shark eats it. I mean, there goes the trophy.
Well, that's kind of what happened to Robby's dealership. The giant shark ate it, however it worked out. And you know, it's bait. That was what I thought would give me life, what you guys have talked about. And that's what I thought I would be united with, was with my success, you know.
And I would really make a name for myself, whatever that may look like. Oh my goodness. It's a terrible price to pay and that one is something that catches you and you keep going and you keep going and you keep going and it don't let you off the hook so easy, right?
Literally. No, you're ensnared for sure. And Robby, I want to sarcastically thank you for taking one of my favorite things, eating and putting it in a context I may never think about it this way again. Yeah, it definitely is. It can be a snare for many, many, many of us, you know. And I really think that that's why fasting is a wonderful spiritual discipline because, you know, it gives you a chance to really, you know, get into somewhat harmony with what food is meant to be. And interestingly, you know, what I find is that Tammy and I have both been doing these water fasts lately, you know, where you don't have anything but water, just water. But man, the next day, your food will taste 80 zillion times. It's amazing how much better something tastes after, you know.
So not only do you have the opportunity to ask God to feed you, whatever that time is, but then when you go to eat again, you can really, you can really, really appreciate it again and really go, God, man, this was awesome. Like, man, I mean, it really, so anyway. Well, thank you. Stepping on toes there, bud. A little bit, a little bit. Yeah, anyone else want to add anything that you want to do before we get to our next clip? Anyone want to chime in? Anyone?
Bueller? I'll jump in with the second part of the time I took the hook, and this is better in the second half of the show, but I was deceived by a Proverb 7 woman, or at least that's the way I look at it in reverse, but I fell head over heels in lust for a woman that was literally that kind of woman, but you don't see it when you're in the grasp of that hook, and it nearly cost me my marriage, but I got a better hook as I was getting ready to do the physical act that I was already emotionally gone, and at this point I realized, and I had visions in my head of the Brady Bunch. She had three kids. I had three kids.
She leaves her husband. I mean, it was just stupid where my brain went. There's a story. There's the story, stupid, but I fell short of getting stabbed in the liver, or there's a lot of good stuff in Proverbs 7 about the outcome if you go all the way, but at the last instant God reminded me that the only thing I had left in my marriage was physical. There's a good word there, but it went away because I'm an old man in the city. Well, it was actually the intimacy is close enough.
We'll go ahead. I had not done the act even though I had already done the sin, I guess is a good way to put it, but I knew that that would be over the top. God reminded me that I had that. I said, okay, I'll go home, and I'll do it the right way. I'll leave my wife, and then we can have the Brady Bunch, and it didn't take long after telling my wife that I realized. I went home, and I expected her to say, good luck, or good riddance, you jerk, and we were pretty much angry roommates at that point in our marriage, but instead of saying what I expected, she started crying, and she was looking forward to starting over because I had already moved to the town where I was working, and she was still back in Charlotte with our kids, and I went home on weekends but stayed up there during the week. Sadly, a lot of times those situations will bring that bait out for guys and women too, I suspect, but ultimately that reeled me in, and she had my heart back as soon as she said she was looking forward to starting over because we still loved each other. We just didn't like being around each other very much, and that was the beginning of our starting over together instead of with someone else, and it's been uphill ever since, but we also talked before the show about the pride of saying I'll never do that again, and the bait was the same. It was a Proverb 7 woman, but this one I was trying to help her save her marriage, and I've always had the rescuer in me, but I'm not the rescuer God is, and you got to learn that when you have that type of personality, and that one never went anywhere, but my heart was out of my sleeve, and as Lewis Gertzard used to say, and I loved it, he wrote a book.
She took my heart out and stomped that sucker flat, and after that second time, God has provided an out every time, and the bait is a lot less tempting than it ever was. Indy, you have the next clip if you want to. Yes, so we're going back to A River Runs Through It. Danny, tell the rest of the story a little bit. So you have these sons that have grown up that their father, this Presbyterian minister, taught him how to fish. You got Norman, the older son, and Paul, the younger, and they've all gone fishing, and Paul kind of breaks away to find his own rhythm, and he catches a fish, a big one, and you hear kind of that whole thing. I even leave some of the river flow and sound of the reel, but what he says here, I'm just going to let the clip play, and we'll talk about it, but there's really just one part of the clip that I'm really focused on, but play the clip, and we'll go from there. Oh me, oh my, look at that fish.
Unbelievable. At that moment, I knew surely and clearly that I was witnessing perfection. You, you are a fine fisherman. Only need three more years before I can think like a fish.
You're already thinking like a dead stone. Pictures. Mother's pictures. Hurry up. One, two. My brother stood before us, not on a bank of the big Blackfoot River, but suspended above the earth, free from all its laws like a work of art.
Three. And I knew just as surely and just as clearly that life is not a work of art, and that the moment could not last. So it was, that was the highlight of the movie, and it kind of went downhill from there. That was really a sad ending.
Thanks, Andy. I was really focused on where he says it only takes, only take another three years to think like a fish, and it's like, oh, you would be thinking like a stonefly, right? But you know, when you think about that, we're, this is the whole idea of deception and thinking like a fish, and a fish, you know, picking up on everything and not taking the bait.
And it's kind of funny. I mean, he's doing it from like the enemy's perspective where he's trying to deceive the fish and the fish is thinking about it. But you just have, you have us, if you put it in relation to Satan, you know, he wants to begin to think like us, to know what will work for us. And we're trying to figure out, you know, where he's deceived us before. It's kind of a cat and mouse game.
And I think in your growth, and when you get some victories in the area, when you fell for that same lure over and over, whether that, you know, lure is twisted one way or the other or the fly, you know, in the flat, just what type of fly you go for. You know, we were talking the other day and Danny was talking about fishing with a certain pound of test line. And Robby's like, no, that's probably too big where you're fishing, they're probably picking up on it. There's so much intricacy. And the enemy's not, I mean, he's not stupid. So the roaring line seeking who he may devour. So you just think about all of that. There's so many parallels in this fishing story about how he comes after us. And it's not just, it's, we would never, somebody said, if he wouldn't go for the fry or whatever, it's just, it's not going to be the obvious thing. And sometimes I feel like in the early stages of my life, I went for the obvious. Yeah.
He didn't have to get thrown out there about, you know, a basketball or whatever. And I go for it. It's a dollar bill on a string.
Stringing along. Right. Right. But, you know, it's like I said, too, there are times when we get victory in those things. And then you've got the deception of, okay, now I have victory, then what's the next thing? Potentially pride.
Yeah. You know, so there's always something new. You can't ever feel like, well, I've overcome this.
I've got this victory because you got to, again, realize that he's a roaring lion seeking who he would can devour. So, you know, I just think about my life and, you know, being tempted at a young age, losing innocence, seeing the porn at the early age, and then continually through life, you feel like you, this thing is like, you just don't know. It's like the woman's body's too much for a man to be able to really understand. To look upon. To look upon.
Yeah. And, you know, you go through those many years thinking, man, that's what brings life, you know. And then you get tired of that thing not bringing life.
So it is that false comfort, that thing that you go to. And when you begin to realize, and then I've had victory in that for so many years now, but it's still funny how things will happen. I mean, I've got a clean Facebook.
I've, you know, hiking and history are my things kind of. And it's amazing how this crap just flows on. I mean, and there it was like, okay, it wasn't thrown out there like an obvious thing.
It was kind of veiled or whatever. But you have to watch for those things. And it feels good. And I realize there's nothing when it comes to that. I don't want to jeopardize what I have with God.
I don't. And that's the motive to me is to not go for it. But, you know, I think about so many times in my past, too, where I was looking for approval, because I was deficient in my identity. So I was doing all kinds of things, whether it was work, like Robby was talking about, or just doing stuff for people, trying to help them out. I had people pointing out to me, you know, why are you bending over backwards for that person?
They don't care. And it wasn't, I felt like I was doing the right thing. I felt like I was doing things scripturally.
But that can become a God. That can be something. But it's so deceiving. It looks so good.
It looks so holy and righteous. But you're really looking for praise of men when you do that. And yeah, exactly. So, you know, just some couple stories of just what I've experienced in how the enemies come after me with the Lord. So. Now doesn't he said something a minute ago, when you were talking about, you know, where you can develop pride, if you're not careful, but I think pride is the thing trips us up most often, right?
Because we don't enter into these things with enemy when we're walking closely with God. Yeah. They don't usually happen together. You know, I'm in step with God every step of the way. Yeah. And the enemy derails me. It's not usually that way. It's usually, at least for me, I've kind of let myself, oh, I can kind of handle this on my own. Or, you know, I kind of quit checking in with God for a little bit of a time. That's right.
Right. And then I find myself, oh, here I am chasing this rabbit trail, chasing this lure in a bad place. Well, it all started when I started taking those steps away from God. He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord. Well, you're boasting in yourself when you depart from that. Right.
Start thinking, well, it was me. Yeah. You know, it's a slippery slope. And it doesn't take much to get there either.
No, it's very quick descent. That's why we were talking about earlier about being connected to the vine. Rodney, you have something you'd like to add? Well, I thought I'd just throw in my stuff. But again, where I went when I first thought of this was 1 John 2, verse 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world. And I'm like, oh, I was in the world.
I mean, like you just said, all that was life. I go to the party scene. I go to the bar scene. I got to go try to, you know, it's like you talk about, well, what's the lure? It's like, which name do you want me to throw out first?
You know, I can name her, name her, and name her. It's like they're everywhere. It was so easy because that's what you thought was life. You thought, oh, that's where I was supposed to go. I was supposed to go enjoy myself.
I'm supposed to do all this stuff. And what you found is every time you think there's joy in that, it's like, well, there was for that moment. Then like tomorrow you're like, man, it's gone.
There's nothing sustaining in that. And you just go get more. You think, oh, I just need to go get it again and again and again. And the next thing, you know, you're still unhappy.
You're still, you know, upset with whatever things are, your situation. You hate yourself for me. It was always about, you know, well, the suicide thing was just huge for me for a long period of my life.
But you look at that. And then finally I learn after coming to Christ that, oh, it's more of a fear of man. It's, well, I always wondering, what does everybody think about me? Was guiding my actions more than, I absolutely wasn't thinking what God thought of me. But now that I was doing that, thinking, well, Lord, what do you think?
And very quickly it had a really good change in my life. There were many things that I stopped fairly quickly. Some things, you know, I did a few times like the masturbation, the porn or something like that. You're like, you did a few times. You, you know, the cussing, you try to stop.
There's very obvious things you try to stop. Cause like, okay, I think I can do those. But then you find out where your heart's really at is you just keep living and fighting and fighting and fighting. And you're like, Lord, I just, I, I can't do this on my own.
And the more you trust in him, the more I walk with him, the more I stay with him. I'm just, I don't have time for all that other stuff. And it starts to go away. And then it doesn't have the big draw that boy, when you see that shiny lure come flying by again, you're like, Ooh, you do that. That second look, you're like, Ooh, how about I catch myself at least more and more on those things, but there are still out there.
Danny, anything you want to add before we close out? I was just going to pour some oil in on the wounds. First Corinthians 10, 13 says, no temptation has come to you except what is common in humanity, but God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation, he will also provide a way out. So you may be able to bear it. Well, thank you. You guys have a wonderful week. Love somebody. Well, we'll talk with you next week, masculine journey.org. This is the truth network.
