Something Fishy Here

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.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now. Welcome to Masculine Journey, and this is the 4th of July week, so happy whatever it is. Freedom, Independence Day, there we go. It's freedom, that's what it's about. It's freedom, right? It sounds like someone else I knew that came that we would have freedom. That would be Christ, and that would be in Isaiah in 61 where he talks about that. So freedom is obviously quite important to us as Christians and quite important to us as Americans, and so I hope you're having a very blessed week in remembering things that Christ has done for you daily.

And at least during this week, remember what the forefathers and people that died ahead for us that we could have this freedom, and just pray that you're doing that this week. Yeah, and you still have all your fingers and toes and whatnot. Yeah, yeah. And if you're in the... go ahead, Jim.

Maybe not toes. Well, depends. Yeah, and hopefully you survive the very hot weather here in North Carolina we've had. I know it's unseasonably warm, let's put it that way. It's been in the mid-90s, which is normally something we get in July, you know. But it is July, Sam.

Well, it was June when we started getting it, so it was at least a good month early, it seemed like, and so not really ready for that heat quite yet. But anyway, hope you're having a good week. And Danny, this is your topic, so if you want to tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, the...

Unless somebody changed it on you, like they did the title. Well, we'll get everything in here. The topic is something fishy here, or if you ask Robby, it's fishing clips.

Okay, yeah, that's the name, yeah. But the topic kind of came to me as, you know, I've learned to love to fly fish, and last time I went up to the Mitchell River up here in North Carolina, and as I was leaving, you know, because I think I got laughed at by some fish, but as I got to leaving, I think God just kind of impressed upon me how, you know, fishing is a deception, and that's the enemy's whole genre of things he does is deception. But, you know, you're presenting something that looks like food to a fish, so you can ensnare him or hook him and bring him into his demise. You know, for those of us who like to eat fish, you know, there's a frying pan waiting on any trout that I may catch. But the reality of it is, you know, where I fish, and they're hatchery bred fish, so they were born in captivity, and they're set free in the river. And, you know, kind of like you were just talking about, you know, Christ sets us free, so they're free, and they're hanging out, and then we're going over there throwing artificial flies at them and trying to trick them into biting them, and that's what the enemy does.

He doesn't throw flies, he throws lies. And so we'll play a clip, and then I'll finish setting up what we're going to talk about. Now, this particular clip is two movie clips put together.

It's two movie clips put together. It's from A River Runs Through It, where the father is teaching the boys to fly fish and how to cast, and then the second part of it is from Mending the Line, which is another fly fishing movie, where an older veteran is teaching a younger guy how to fly fish and the whole setup to the thing, so. So, my brother and I learned to cast Presbyterian-style on a metronome.

He began each session with the same instruction. Casting is an art that is performed on a four-count rhythm between ten o'clock and two o'clock. If he had had his way, nobody who did not know how to catch a fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it. Cast the line. Flies us along for the ride. Now, you see how the water takes the fly?

No self-respecting trout's going to eat that. So what do I do? Mend the line. Mend the line?

Yes. Flick your wrist forward to mend the line above the fly so the fly will float true. There. Keep the rod low. Keep it low.

Keep it low. Now lift. Got it. Okay, easy now. Easy. Keep the tension on it. That's it. Whoa.

We're trying for a first. You know, so often we've fallen for the lies of the enemy, or half-truths, and I couldn't help but think about how, when Jesus was tempted, that Satan threw a lot of different stuff at him. But one of the things he threw at him was scripture, and a half-truth, or sometimes when you're fishing, using live bait, but there's still a hook in it. And so if we're not careful, and sometimes even if we are careful, the enemy's good at what he does.

He's been doing it a long time, and we're going to take the bait from time to time. And kind of what I'm hoping that unfolds here is that, you know, we tell stories of how, you know, somewhere where you've taken the bait. I mean, I know I have more than once some sort of deception, some sort of half-truth that I believed in. It took me down roads I shouldn't go. Or, you know, there are times when you recognize, hey, that's not a real fly or that's not a real fish or anything like that.

That's not real. You see the lies, and in the pre-show, Andy was talking about how, you know, we do get wisdom through experience, and we don't fall for the same tricks. But the enemy will mend the line. He'll make the fly do a different thing or show you the other side of it, and you bite anyway. So that's just kind of where we want to go, see where that goes, sir. Well, thank you. Anyone have a story they'd like to share?

Harold, is there anything you'd like to share on this topic? Well, mine didn't involve fishing as such, but I told the guys that the clip was in my head, and I didn't know how to get it out of the head into the recording. I got a hammer.

I've never been to a jail pretty much myself with a hammer in the head. But one of the baits that he threw to me many years ago and that it worked for a long, long time was telling me that I should get angry when I get on the road because these idiots are messing with my driving. And so for many years, I drove like a maniac, and fortunately, those days are gone. One of the other things where he threw the bait and I won is a time when I was working at least 16 hours a day for seven days a week.

We were converting from a Burroughs computer system over to IBM and having to reprogram. And there was a young lady on the programming staff that she and I got way too friendly. And then one night around two o'clock or so in the morning, we were leaving the office. I was going to drive her to the far side of the parking lot, which was a big parking lot and dark and everything. And she made me an offer that she thought I couldn't refuse, but I did. I love my wife, who was about eight months pregnant with our second son. I love my wife too much, and I feared God too much. And I was able to refuse what I really wanted to do.

So the bait worked, and then the bait didn't work. But it takes being strong not to give in. And recognizing it for what it is. Yeah. Right. Because a lot of times he is good at presenting those things.

When you're talking about comparing us to fish, yeah, he's not throwing a french fry out there. That's not what it is, but it's something that we believe is going to give us life. It's going to provide life for this moment.

It may be only for a couple of moments, but it's going to give me something that I feel like I'm missing. Or something that's going to be a salve to something that's ailing. False comforter.

False comforter, right. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. And so, you know, you may not relate if you're not a fisherman, but I know you can relate to chasing after things that you thought were going to give you something, and they ended up being a trap and a snare.

And that's what the enemy is really good at doing. You know, one of the stories I thought about was when we started ministry in Ashboro, we opened up Amos House. The idea behind it, and I think God's vision for us was people coming out of treatment centers and stuff like that. And I kind of took a bait that, you know, there were people coming out of prisons. There was nothing wrong with what was happening, but it wasn't a division.

I know now it wasn't a division because people who were coming out of incarceration take a lot more supervision, a lot more than, but it was flashy, and it was what the community was saying really needed to happen. And I took the bait, and I run with it and, you know, got snared up in some stuff. But, you know, that was just kind of – it was good stuff. It wasn't – it's like you're talking about. It wasn't – he wasn't throwing blatant sin at me.

But what he was throwing was that, if you will, fame and fortune, that kind of accolades that sometimes looked like the real thing, but it wasn't. One of the places that the enemy constantly trips me up, and I know talking with some of you guys, it's a similar thing, but I'm really, really good, and I talked about it on here, assigning motives to other people's actions. I know I don't know the rest of the story. And honestly, a lot of times I don't care because I'm right in my judgmental vein, you know.

And I know I know what I know, you know. And it's probably completely wrong. And that's where he gets me a lot is just trying to figure out what's going on and figure out the motive, you know. And that's not really my place. I mean, God does give us the desire or the spiritual gift of discernment. Right.

But trying to evaluate the motive of somebody's heart is totally out of line. That's reserved for him. Right. And he's tripped up in that for, I think, we all do.

Oh, yeah. I fall into it way too often, whether it's somebody driving in front of me, whether it's somebody at work, whatever the case may be, or, you know, well, that was the motive behind whatever they did there, you know. And boy, I'm the judge and jury pretty quickly on those things sometimes. With a little bit of age and experience, what you're saying is something I've struggled with all my life. When I was in divinity school, I took a test and it said I was paranoid. I said, I'm not paranoid. And she said, it's not what you think it means. And she explained to me that you assume you know what everybody's motives are. And I'd always been in that, oh, yeah, I know what people are thinking.

And she reminded me, no, you don't. But I got to the point of getting better and better assuming the best motives, not the worst motives in people. Still not totally there, but it's better. Well, all we can do is grow and get better at what we're doing. Masculine Journey, we do have a boot camp coming up. It's coming up November 21st through 24th. Go to masculinejourney.org to register. We have a section that we talk about, a segment we talk about spiritual warfare. What a great place to learn more about it. Talk to you after the break. Is that one of the talks that really came alive to you this weekend? Yep, I don't want to grow up real fast.

I had to do that a long time ago. I'm just taking baby steps along this journey. And I can't think of any place or group of guys I'd rather be with because you are appointed and accountable for me to learn and listen. And I got a notebook full of good tools that's going to help me grow.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. That was the Steep Canyon Rangers and Steve Martin. And the title of the song is Yellowback Fly, which is obviously about fly fishing. And I found that.

I thought, man, what a perfect song for a bump. But, you know, in the song he's talking about buying another fly, going back to catch old Jim. Not our old Jim. We have a hard time catching him. He's hardly here. He's in the ocean a lot.

But that was the whole premise behind the song, was this guy's trying to catch this trout that's fooled him more than once. Well, good. Well, thank you. Anyone else have anything you want to add, Jim?

I really identified with the hero of that bump, and I appreciate you thinking of me, Danny. But it's better to be the fish that gets away than it is the fisherman that goes home hungry. It is better to be old, Jim, because you live to be old, right?

I mean, what's the other alternative? Better. Maybe.

Maybe. Well, I guess we'll just go with my clip for now. And so on my clip, I went a little bit different direction.

It's not about fishing traditionally, right? But I heard this, and yes, I did hear it on TikTok, so whatever you think of TikTok, whatever. There is some good stuff on there if your algorithm is set correctly.

You get some really good clips. But this is one that was talking about I Ask God is how it starts, right? And so I want you to listen to it, and I'll talk about it when I come back about how the enemy uses that and has used that to trip me up. But I think he does it with a lot of other Christians as well.

So we're going to listen to it and come back and talk about it. God said no. Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me. I ask God to make my spirit grow. God said no.

You must grow on your own. But I will prune you to make you fruitful. I asked for all things that I might enjoy in life. God said no. I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things. Then I asked God to help me love others as much as he loves me.

God said, finally, you get the idea. So the reason I chose that clip was because I think a lot of times, at least for me, when I've prayed about something, and the enemy knows I'm praying about something, whether that's an audible prayer that he can hear, because he can't read my mind. The enemy cannot read your mind, right? But he knows you really well. He can read your facial expressions. He's been with you your whole life, right?

He's been around long before you, for countless generations before you. He's seen the same situations over and over again. He knows how to play it. He's good at what he does.

I hate to say it, but he is good at what he does. And so he knows when you're praying about certain things. And when we pray and we have an expectation of how that prayer is going to turn out and it doesn't, he's right on the heels of that scene. God doesn't care about you. That's what he'll say. Or God's abandoned you.

Or you see, you're not a strong enough person. Maybe someone else he loves more he would have answered that prayer for. It's like when my brother was in the hospital, wasn't sure he was going to make it.

Of course I'm praying for him to live. And he didn't. But the enemy had no foothold there because I knew he might not, right? Because that was based on lots of things, environmental, lifetime of choices, all sorts of things that play into whether he makes it or not. Yes, God has authority in that, but sometimes God doesn't intercede in those things. And so I knew there was no promise of that, so the enemy didn't have a trip there for me.

But he has in lots of other times. When my marriage wasn't working out and didn't work out, that was a foothold if I let the enemy have it. When our prayers don't turn out the way that we think they should, they turn out the way they should, but they don't often turn out the way that we think they should because a lot of times we have a set outcome. God, you could either do this or you could do this with it, and he may do a hundred other things with it, right? But the enemy gets a foothold a lot of times in our prayer life if we're not careful, and that's the lure he pulls us in with, right?

And the accusations go against God at that point, if that makes sense. Talking about algorithms and social media, I was just thinking about, you know, you were talking about Satan's aware of what's going on in your life, the environment, what you're praying for and those things. And it's kind of like one of those things where, you know, you're on search engine and you search for fishing lures, and then all of a sudden in Facebook it pops up, fishing lures.

He knows how to mold a situation to where it draws, it's going to take you down a path that you don't want to go just because he's understanding the environment and putting something custom for you. You kind of triggered my – well, let me start with the story about this topic. I'm not a fisherman. I've been fishing with a couple of friends, and they can attest to that.

I've caught one fish, and now I feel embarrassed about that because I didn't deserve it. But all that being said, I wasn't really into the topic, and my wife asked me, what's the topic? I said something about fishing, and I'll be there, but I'm not likely to participate. But she goes, you know, what about fishing? So I went back and read it.

Oh, this is a great topic. Why didn't I miss all the fact that I was the fish instead of the fisherman? And part of the presentation was, you know, when have you escaped, when have you not? And you triggered my hook, line, and sinker because this was when I was in Divinity School, and we were in a financial crunch. And I had a good friend that we'll just call Midas because he has the golden touch, and he said, I got this way of earning anywhere from 5 to 20% a month investing. I said, well, if I tried that, I'd be in trouble, but this is when I've been praying about our finances, and I said, okay, thanks, God.

This is from you. I didn't look at the fact that there are a lot of things in the Bible that would warrant against it because I just knew that was God's answer in a way it was, but I took it hook, line, and sinker. I borrowed $50,000 on credit cards.

That right off the bat should have been a warning, but no, God wanted it. So I gave it to him. The first month, we earned about 10%, and I was real excited. I said, oh, good. This will get me through Divinity School.

The second month was the dot-com crash, and I think I had about $1,000 left of what I borrowed. And I said, God, what were you thinking? And I sort of got the same question back from him. What were you thinking? And it was an outstanding but very expensive lesson that sometimes we think it's God, but we're just trying to get God to approve the plan that's ultimately ours. That one did not work out. Well, thank you. Thanks, Jim.

I like that story. Another thing about the clip that I liked, it echoes a relationship. Yes, God has things he's doing, but we have our own responsibilities, just like any other relationship. The first part of it says, I ask God to take my habit.

He said, no, that's yours to give up. Yeah, he's going to help you in that. He's not going to leave you abandoned, but there's actions you have to take, and that's the same with any of those prayers. There's actions.

There's perspectives. There's ways I look at life that have to be put in alignment with his, so I can see things more clearly or see things more fully that I might not have been able to see before because I could only get this little glimpse. One of the things about as you walk with God, there's parts in the Bible that suggest that it's all up to him. You really need to cast all your cares on him and put everything on him, and then there's other parts like you were just talking about that we have a responsibility, and it's yes to both.

I think that is the walk. When you're connected to the vine, you get an idea of what your job is and what his job is, but when you disconnect from that vine, you get all messed up. You don't really know what to do, and you don't really know. You could take a scripture, and it's just like Satan throwing out the half-truth to Jesus. Yeah, it kind of applies, but it wasn't exactly how God intended it for it to be applied in your life at that time.

Well, it's basically when you're disconnected from the vine, it's like cutting off oxygen. You'll be able to think for a little while, but at some point, that's got to stop. Well, one of the scriptures I had was James 1.14. It says, but each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. Part of that, even evil, is everything that's a good idea is not a God idea, and so that could be determined as evil. But the whole idea behind scripture sometimes, and I think I've had this in my own life, and I know this will be true, I think, is that context is everything. I had a very good pastor that taught me to, he says, you want to know who's writing it, who they wrote it to, and the full context.

It's kind of a running joke in Christian community. If you see the word therefore, you need to look and see what it's there for, because if you take things out of context, the enemy loves to do that, and, Lord, we'll do it. You go, oh, this scripture says he'll give me the desires of my heart.

Well, there's more to that, and so the reality of debate is that it looks good, but if Jesus is the light, in the right light, you can tell it's artificial. Yeah, well, just the desires of my heart part, right? Is it he's going to give me everything I want, or he's going to give me the desires that I need to want? I mean, he's going to place the desires in me.

Well, the first part of that scripture is delight yourself in the Lord. Right, exactly. That's where the context comes in, because you only do that second half. You're like, oh, I get this car I want. Oh, I get this. Oh, I get the, no.

Bring your own Mercedes. That's true. Whatever the flavor of the week is for you, I guess.

I don't know. Jim, you had something on that? Oh, I did, but Andy said what I was thinking better than I could have, and it really is.

I love that clip, because I really didn't like that clip, if that makes any sense. Well, God really does that. Well, it is a partnership, and if you're not walking with God, that's the big issue there. Yeah. Well, I started to say before the break, we do have a boot camp coming up, and I mention that every radio show, and you guys know that, but we have one coming up November 21st through 24th. It's at the great place in Mocksville, Carolina Bible Camp, or up near where Harold lives in God's country, as he would call it up that way. But it's a great place to go, but we do have, one of the talks we do is on spiritual warfare, and one of the cool things you get from that, when you come from that, is you get to see how the enemy has been attacking you. What are the lures that he's used?

What ways has it worked? Will you fall for him again once in a while? Absolutely, but you'll fall for less of him, and next time you maybe not fall for it again. There will be other lures that come at you, but you get the context of the warfare in your life. So please consider going. Go to masculinejourney.org. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody well this week.