Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Hey, what's up. What's up. Welcome out to the grease ups podcast. It's always an honor to be here with you today. Thanks for taking the time to tune into the grease ups culture. Recently, I was in Lake Geneva and as you know, if you've been listening, I was with Dr. Brian benchmer, uh, Steve castle, Bob Linquist. And we sat down as a band of brothers to discuss the recent Ravee, uh, Ravi Zacharias scandal that came out after his passing. We've been, we did, uh, five episodes on this, an intro, and then a four-part series, all connected. And this actual episode is what happens when you move past the red flags. So the boundary lines are up, the, the, the borders are up all the right things that God tells us to do as far as how to guard our hearts and live and upright lifestyle.
Speaker 0 00:00:59 Well, let's just say you blow past all those. Why, why do we do that? And how, if we've done that, how do we actually repair ourselves and actually get out of those trappings that we find ourselves in? So in this episode, we're going to look at that aspect and extract lessons from this scandal, not to judge or to condemn, or to say how look, how evil he was, but it's actually to look at the evil in our own lives and how that gets there and stays there, or how do we actually deal with it. So I hope you enjoy this. And I say that from the perspective of learning, hope you can learn and extract the lessons of how to live up, right
Speaker 1 00:01:46 Expedition 44 here on a grease ops initiative, we are going through a Ravi Zacharias series, responding to some of the things that came out of that is a little bit of a history lesson for us to take a look at and forward. Think about how to live Holy set, apart lives. So in doing so, our last section, we talked about red flags, and I think the majority of people watching these films are people that are devoted to Christian, kind of living in thinking. But the next question is, what if you find yourself simply passed the little red flags and you find either yourself significantly into things you shouldn't be into maybe addictions, or you have to approach another brother in Christ. That is that far in, that is no longer receptive to the kind of love and building up of a brother in Christ. How do you approach those tough situations? Because Robbie's situation was way messed up. I mean, it was so far gone that some of us think, Oh, that would never happen to us, but then we get past the little red flags and we get to the next stage of it. And you know, it,
Speaker 2 00:03:00 That
Speaker 1 00:03:00 Implodes to your, the situation of Ravi Zacharias.
Speaker 2 00:03:06 Yeah. One of the, one of the things that we were talking about just before, um, hitting, hitting record on this was, uh, like, Hey, did we talk about the fact that Robbie had a hotel or a headache, an apartment in Bangkok, in the red light district in one year in 2010 or 2011, he lived there for 265 days of the year in an apartment in Bangkok. And everybody's just like, Oh, got an apartment in Bangkok. Like, I mean, obviously that happened
Speaker 1 00:03:36 And this personal misuse, along with it, she traveled with them. You see this barbecue with up in Bangkok and the red light district for three days, I'm going to be on a plane dragging you back in three hours. We're calling you.
Speaker 2 00:03:51 So we were talking about this before we hit record. We're like, wow. I mean, obviously none of the people that are watching our videos literally are going to have an apartment in Bangkok for 265. Right? But there are some people out there that, Hey, you know what? You travel for work. And you got, you got that one hotel that you frequent and you got that one excuse that you can use every randomly for an overnight fishing trip or doing like there's a ton of youth. There's a ton of guys and gals ham going to go hang out with my girl pals and we're going to go do the thing with the stuff like there. There's obviously applications and maybe it's not a night away. Maybe it's a day away. Maybe it's a couple hours away. The point is, is that there is a ton of application to wherever you are in your life, that you've already gone past those red flags.
Speaker 2 00:04:42 Like you are literally making opportunities on purpose in your life, in your time, in your day to do those activities. So what we're talking about in this video is either a that's, you you've already gone past the stuff, and now you're making plans to continue these things in your life. Or number two is you're one of the people in these people's lives and you're identifying to like, Hey Robbie, you got an apartment in Bangkok. So what do you do if you're Robbie's friend and now you're standing here and you realize that they've literally set themselves in a place of discussion destruction. What do you do? So those are the two people that we're trying to identify in this way.
Speaker 1 00:05:25 So number one, it's, it's a vital importance. If you're a believer in Christ and a follower of arcane, you can walk with boldness, not rudeness, not being obnoxious, walking in love yet boldness and go, dude, what's going on with the thing in this sense to me, that's in there. Isn't going to be the, Oh, thank you, brother. Thank you. Still know. What does the Bible say? Get your other brother right here. You're still acting lovingly. That's the combination here, right? Because we're trying to hold each other up. Yeah. Coming in from a place of, of meekness humility yet boldness in Christ to bring truth into that situation. Exposing the darkness. When our brothers, sisters walking in right now, maybe like Robbie, you don't have 200 messages of women of sexting and everything else, but what if you're starting to get one, right? And maybe they're not those graphic pictures, but maybe you've started a train or a trail of these kinds of things. Or the checkout lady at the grocery store is getting a little flirty or something like that. You're there you're past the red flags. If you go back, your heart's twisted. Yes. Just that little tick. Oh, she's cute. So now what do you do? So how do you,
Speaker 2 00:06:41 Um, how do you come out of that? So we've just, we've just poked enough into, into your little sandbox. And we've identified a ton of cat droppings that are in your sandbox. What do you do? How do you get your sandbox back to right now? Steve you've been there. Yup. I've been nursing, right?
Speaker 1 00:06:57 I've been there on a small scale, but I can't, I can't speak to proportion scales. Luckily in my life I've always had a brother, a dad, my wife, somebody that reeled me in before I would even say, I got to stage two here, you can speak a little bit more.
Speaker 2 00:07:14 Yup. So this is post Bible college. Um, post incredible encounter with a God that I, I got into a time, I call it like a spirit. I call it my spiritual comatose time, where I got into a spiritual coma where I was convinced by the world that my responsibilities as man, and as a leader and as a, as a big manager supervisory type in the, in the pursuit of the godly reasons to be wealthy and provide well for my family and give my family all the things that I never had growing up, super poor, I got sucked into and, and allowed myself to get sucked into this belief system that I had to do it the world's way. And I entered into a time about three years where I was in spiritual comatose that I live like the world, and this is post Bible college.
Speaker 2 00:08:04 And here's the thing this entire time I went to church. Yeah. I served at the church and some of these times I was part of the church board and I was violating my covenant of marriage with my wife. I was in, I was in emotional adult tree. I was in physical adultery. I was in spiritual adultery with my father. I was chasing the man, the system of mammon in the world and justifying it with scriptures. And you know, the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the Justin here. I am an unjust person standing on a promise that the wealth of the wicked. And so I have been there. And I know that there was times in that, in that season of my life where, because I wasn't just, I just didn't go into super demonic and stage demonic. There was a bunch of times that God was calling my heart and God was sending, um, little things into my life to try to, to get me out of this.
Speaker 2 00:08:57 And I remember there were times I literally would cry out. I would cry out that a man would come into my life and they knew that I was what I was going through. And they wouldn't use all the stuff that I was going through to beat me up and condemn me and finally stick the one stake in my heart and put me, put me down into the grape. I actually wanted a guy to come into my life and say, Steve, God sent me here to help you get out of this and get back on the track that I know exactly. I know what you did last summer, and God loves you. And I love you. And we're going to take your hand me on one side and God on the other. And we're going to walk you out of this self-imposed prison that you put yourself into.
Speaker 2 00:09:40 And we're going to get back into a place of victory. I literally cried out for that and I couldn't find it. I'll never forget the time I was sitting in a men's a men's lunch breakfast. It was a Saturday morning, men's breakfast and I'm sitting in a church and there's 25 guys in this room. And the thing that comes up is accountability. Everybody needs an accountability buddy, which I don't even get me off on that, but I didn't need a buddy. I needed a man of war. I needed a blood brother. I needed someone that was willing to fight with me and stand back to back and shoot. So anyway, I didn't need a buddy. I needed someone to come into my life hard.
Speaker 1 00:10:16 Sure.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 I'm sitting in this room and in misery, I I'm, I'm, I'm in this place where I'm not, I'm not actually physically an adult anymore, but I'm still struggling with all this stuff going on in my heart and knowing who I'm called to be. And I'm sitting in this room and I'm listening to all of these guys and the pastor of the church, talk about the fact that we need to have accountability. And I remember pausing in that moment. I looked at every single face in that room and I realized that the 25 or 30 guys are in that room. There wasn't one guy, not one guy that I knew that I could be honest with. I could be transparent with. And they would literally from a godly place, walk me out of that. Not condemn me, not shamed me, not blast me, not go to my wife or go to all the other guys in the room or go to their wife and say, Oh my God, let me tell you about Steve castle.
Speaker 2 00:11:06 Let me tell you about the terrible guy that was at men's breakfast this morning. It did the things in this stuff. I didn't know, one guy in that room and it was a good church. And this included the pastor. I didn't know, one guy in that room that if I wanted to literally just let it all out and get help that any one of them would actually help me. I know a bunch of them that would condemn me, but I didn't know any of them that would literally help me like a father would father me in a loving and gracious way and get me the help that I actually needed. That's sad. State of the church.
Speaker 1 00:11:40 One of the guys in our group is a military chaplain. And one of the things that he says that every group is I'm retired. I don't have a whole lot to do. And I care about each one of you there. He stands up before we leave every week and gives a little speech and says, if anybody needs anything, I will come. I'll talk to you. I'll come. We'll find scriptures. We'll work through it. I'll beat you up. If that's what you need. Cause he's a pretty rough around the edges guys, but I'm going to love you at the same time. And he doesn't let anybody leave our group without putting that out there. That if you need that, let me know. And occasionally he he'll tell you stories about guys, just show up on their doorstep and he doesn't know why. And he just goes, all right, brother, we're here to, we're here to get it done. And God, God gives them the direction every single time.
Speaker 0 00:12:29 That's beautiful. Well, I think too, like we're, we're asking the question of, if you've blown past all these red flags, you, you blew past all the barriers you, yourself, your friends are here, your wife, your brothers, you blew past all those boundaries. What do you do? You don't want a new set of your own lifestyle is kind of like tightening around your neck and your, I mean really like your
Speaker 1 00:12:50 And guys, uh, Oh, I'm good. I'm good. I can still breathe.
Speaker 0 00:12:54 Like I'm going to write this news is tightening that you created in the scriptures are very clear that you're you're practicing sin and that actually makes you a hypocrite, right? I mean, it's not the struggling of sin occasionally or the unplanned stumbling. It's the I'm going to do this. I'm going to live this way two weeks from now. I booked that hotel room. You know, you you're ingrained in a, in a, you know, corrupt religious system where you think that you're okay with God. That's, that's the watering down of the standard of grace. Like, like it's, it's Paul says we can't use our, the grace of God has a license to go around and just free, fully, you know, free wills. Sinfully just like living these lifestyles. So my advice in my heart to you, and I would be saying this to myself is this, this is my self-talk coming out.
Speaker 0 00:13:42 Now, if I was in a situation where the noose was tightening like that, and I knew I was just corrupt repentance. Yeah. Like really repent and find a place of tenderness before God. Okay. So repent, David wrote Psalm 51, which wasn't just like two sentences. Like, I'm sorry, God, it was very heartfelt words, right? There was like 15, 20 verses close to that. Like it meant something David's repent. Then David also had to be willing to face the consequences right. Of his news that was around his neck. So you have to do the same thing, be willing to face the consequences because that's godliness. If you repent and lose it all, and you got to go through the pain of telling your wife or telling your spouse or friend or business partner, it's way better to do that and go through the consequences. That's actually viewed as godly.
Speaker 0 00:14:28 The headlines are going to eat you up. I get it. The headlines are gonna eat you up and spit you out. That's the culture we live in. But the remnant, the Christian culture is going to be so refreshing go, Oh, now there's a man of righteousness and you might not have be able to see that. But once you, if you take the new softer repentance and just facing your consequences and be willing to lose everything, I mean, David lost the child that was routine to him. Best she even like, but he went on to that. Repentance was able to position him with God, to actually continue to be used as a King. Amazing ways. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:56 And if you fear, this is one thing that Brian just brought up. If you fear the headlines or you fear what people say about you, more than you fear what God says about you. There's a problem that is, that goes to the core of what's going on of all that. If the entire world hates me and they don't, they don't say wonderful things that I don't win any popularity contest for the rest of my life. But my father is well pleased.
Speaker 1 00:15:25 That is the hardest thing about the Robbie story is that you have somebody that is walking in the way the Bible describes evil and he's unrepentant about the whole thing. We don't ever get a picture of repentance to, to his death, you know? And it would be a very different story. Refer Robbie. If Robbie, when he was alive would have come out and shown all this, you know, we don't need to do a report. I'm just going to tell you, here's my cell phones here. This I've been a wreck that would've spoken volumes to Christian leaders that were probably wrapped up in the scene
Speaker 0 00:16:03 And not to make a really hard statement because this can apply to any one of us sitting here. But who knows if, is even in heaven. Yeah. I mean, who, who, who really knows? I mean, you know, Jesus does have that whole concept of depart from me for, I never knew, you know, you can go around and do all the signs and wonders and do all this powerful stuff. And I'm not trying to bring up a deep topic here cause it's deep. But because any of us could be in this, if you're not, I'm not saying he is or isn't, I'm just saying, we all like to think, Oh, you know,
Speaker 1 00:16:29 And on one hand that's not grudge us to judge. I mean, we preach this all the time. You know that like, and that's why Brian's being careful here. But you know, we're not condemning or judgmental St. Isinia avenues. He not in heaven. But when you look at the words of the Bible that describe those that are not with God, that's the description. We get a variety.
Speaker 2 00:16:47 Jesus said this, Jesus said this specifically. He said, what if you've gained the whole world and you lose your own soul, right? Th th this is, this is a really, really big, important part of any of us that ever truly want to be successful in life and need to really chew on this. Do you really want to keep the depravity more than what you want to have any eternity? These are, these are questions. These are things that you need to wrestle with. And that's why Brian is saying like, this has to be real repentance, right? This can't be like the whole, I'm sorry. You know, you tell your brother, he, you, sorry, you tell your brother, he, sorry. Now go play together. And everything's fine. This has to be deep into the core of who you are, where you realize you were trading. I was trading my marriage. I was trading my family. I was potentially trading my eternity for some sexual pleasure. Yeah. For some vile, for some vile, disgusting nights or moments that made me feel good that that should break someone on the inside.
Speaker 1 00:17:55 So when we're looking at our life going, are we pass the red flags? When you're looking at a brother going to pass the red flags, all of us have something in common that we all believe in the journey. You know, we're not really momentary salvation. We're rejoicing. Like the angels are when somebody professes a new belief, Allegiant, obedient thinking to God, but we're journey. Guys. We want to, we want to see the fruits here. We want to see people know the word of God intimately. And so one of the things here is, if you can't tell if you're in that journey anymore, or you can't tell if your brother's in that journey anymore, that that's, that's a moment where you need to reel things back in. If that's not the biggest red flag you've ever seen, this is where people are screaming out. I messed up. Somebody come right.
Speaker 2 00:18:42 Helped me. Here's the thing. And when Bob and I were talking about this on the drive up here, here, here's something that some folks don't maybe realize, because when Bob said this, when he was reading the report, I'm like, what? Robbie was 74.
Speaker 1 00:18:54 Yeah, crazy. He was 74.
Speaker 2 00:18:57 Y'all this may, how long did this happen? And at 74, how I'm just being, I'm just, I'm going to be transparent. How sexually jacked up. Can you be at 74? Well, apparently like, I want you to think about how much extra effort does it take to be super objective sexually had 74. Were you taking drugs first? We on by Negra, were you doing, I mean, think about what it takes to be messed up in 74. Like it's literally now our pursuit, this isn't someone that just had some issues that he had, you know, we all got some issues and Robbie had no he's 74 and he's literally going through sex trafficking and S four cell phones at apartments in Bangkok. And he's hiding stuff from his board and he won't surf in his own ministry. And he's got millions of dollars of non-disclosure agreements with all these women all over the planet. You're not talking about like blow past the red flags. Like there are no red flags he's on Mars. Like he left couple of lads. It was, it was good. And at what point in that stage, did he make himself available for some dude to come in and say, are you really kidding me right now? And also why wasn't there some guy that came to him and said, Hey, you know what you get right? Or I'm quitting the board.
Speaker 1 00:20:27 Now this comes down to church discipline. Some people come down and sit down. Ravee wasn't in a church. What church did he belong to? And this is a major problem with speakers within the Christian ministry. So God put the leadership in place within a local church body to help keep us accountable to his name. And when we step outside of the way, God designed things in his ideal, which in this case is the leadership of the church to hold people accountable. We have major problems within the body of Christ, and then it gets ugly like rice, everybody needs to be accountable to their local church body. And what makes me really sad is when the churches themselves don't step up to be accountable with the people in there,
Speaker 2 00:21:14 You were too busy with skinny jeans and big screens and smoke machines to actually get into the depths of somebody's heart in life. Right. I ain't got time for meeting with you. I ain't got time to disciple you don't, you know, I'm writing a book. Don't, you know how important it is for me to be working on my website profile. I ain't got time to get into the nitty gritty, the dirty darkness of your life. Why would I discipleship
Speaker 1 00:21:35 Above another brother or sister, right? Yeah. I'm going to get into this in the next film. But when, when your pastor says, he's too busy to hold you accountable, that there's somebody else in your small group or this or that, there's a red flag of, are you no longer a shepherd at that point?
Speaker 2 00:21:49 Yeah. And you know, Jesus said this, I actually just had this on Sunday and the message, and I got a ton of resonance, which I was actually shocked. Um, but one of the reasons I sent me the link, one of the things that I said today was that what is Jesus's definition of a law sheet,
Speaker 3 00:22:11 Right? And
Speaker 2 00:22:13 According to the scriptures, Jesus Jesus's definition of a lost sheep in Matthew chapter 10 was a sheep without a shepherd. And I tell you what I am ready to about just Jack slap the next person that comes up to me and say, well, I don't need a shepherd on this earth because the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, I have no time to break that down doctrinally. But Jesus specifically gave gifts under the church. And one of those gifts he gave to the church was the shepherd, right? If you do not have any local pastor that will get in your PS and QS, you are by Jesus's definition, you are a lost sheep and you can wander out there. You can find food. Maybe you're fast enough to avoid the Wolf. Maybe you're not going to cross the road at the wrong time. Maybe you'll go through your whole life and not fall prey to some of those things that lost sheep fall prey to, but I'll guarantee you this, you are a million times more likely to be carnage on the side of the road than a sheep that is safely in the sheep fold with their theirs.
Speaker 1 00:23:15 I'm not sure I can finish this film any better than that, but I'm just going to say, if you are finding yourself past the red flags, if you know somebody that's past the red flags, your best line of defense is right here. And that's to go find a local church that is going to bring you into the place of accountability before the word of God in the name of Christ,
Speaker 2 00:23:39 Matthew chapter 18, Rina,
Speaker 3 00:23:43 God bless you and keep you.
