God decided He would make us perfect, but we have to come to Him through Jesus to be viewed as perfect. When we place our trust in Jesus, God doesn’t count our sins against us. “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1–2). God provided forgiveness of our sins through Jesus by sending Him to Earth and allowing human beings to take His life. Now, a lot of people were crucified in the first century. But Jesus was God in the human body and was crucified for the sins of the world. The price paid by God to remove your sin and mine was the blood of a holy, perfect God who was in a human body. Jesus died so our sins would be removed.
Jesus solved our first problem—sin—by dying on the cross. And He’s also the solution to our second problem—physical death. In the first century they did the same thing with their deceased that we do in the twenty-first century. They buried them. They buried Jesus, and then three days later, our second problem was solved when Jesus came forth from the grave alive. He came out of the grave bodily and He was alive. They thought He was a ghost, which makes sense to me. So He had them touch Him, feel Him with their hands, and He told them, “A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). A dead body went into the tomb, and then that body stood back up on earth. When I first read what happened to Jesus, it opened my eyes. The story convinced me that if there was ever any way to escape the grave, the escape route was right there—Jesus of Galilee. Jesus removed our sin and was raised from the dead. He convinced Constantine of it back in about the fourth century, and He convinced me of it about two thousand years later.
It’s our way out of here; I’m wholly convinced of it. The Good News is that all you have to do is believe, and it’s free of charge. It’s the grace of God personified in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is the gospel. It won’t cost you anything. The only thing you have to do is believe it, turn from whatever sins you have, and change your mind. You want change and hope? Change your mind because of Jesus and put your hope in His resurrection from the dead—that’s the greatest hope anybody can have. The gospel and the grace of God are the source of change and hope—and they’re about the only free things you’re ever going to find while you’re living on planet Earth.
Escaping your grave isn’t hard. Repent of your sins and confess Jesus as Lord. Then follow through by having somebody take you to a pond, creek, or pothole and baptize you. The reason you do this is the one Who died and was buried and raised from the dead said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18–19). Those were His marching orders—some of His last words after His resurrection and before He ascended back to heaven. Jesus’ disciples did exactly what He instructed them to do. More than two thousand years later, as a follower of Jesus, I too am doing what He said to do. I’m doing the exact same thing. You can research all of it. The gospel is the same, Jesus is the same, and the response is the same. I’m not saying anything that you can’t document, read, and verify on your own by simply picking up a Bible and reading it. I strongly suggest you do so.
Jesus told us to go forth and tell people the Good News, and that’s what I’m doing. I condemn no one, and you don’t have to judge anybody. Just go forth and tell people about Jesus. The power to save people is in the story. Just tell the story. I say with the Apostle Paul: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). The gospel will change people’s hearts and lives, and others need to hear the Good News from our lips to their ears. I’m convinced of the power of the gospel to change.
You wouldn’t believe how many people come to White’s Ferry Road Church in West Monroe, Louisiana (where we attend), because of the popularity of Duck Dynasty. People drive in from all over the country to worship with us. They’ll attend my Sunday school classes, and many of them will ask to be baptized in our church. Shortly after the flap over my interview with GQ magazine went viral, two people came to our church and told me they were upset about the way the media and other groups were portraying me.
My son Jase had baptized one of the men in the river many years earlier, but he had fallen away from God. We hadn’t seen him in many years. The guy told me he was sitting in a bar, drinking heavily and snorting cocaine every thirty minutes, when he saw my picture on TV. He said he became enraged when he learned that people were giving me a hard time for reading a list of sins from the Bible. When he started yelling, other patrons in the bar scolded him. “How are you going to defend him?” someone in the bar asked him. “You’re the sorriest guy around here.” Those words convicted him. The man told me he was a drunkard, an adulterer, and sexually immoral.
He came to me and wept like a baby. He repented and renewed his faith.
“The only thing I can tell you is what you already know,” I told him.
“Did you ever think I’d come back?” he asked me.
I told him we always loved him. As it says in Second Peter 2:20–22,
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were in the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”
Knowledge, especially full knowledge, without obedience is exceedingly dangerous! But when the fallen return, we love them like we did before. It’s like when we accepted my sons Alan and Jep after they strayed from their Christian paths. They were like the prodigal son returning home.
The second man had never known anything about Jesus. He was a heart surgeon and was vacationing with his family in Colorado when he saw me on the news. The man told me he feared he was becoming one of those doctors who thought he could play God, and his marriage was crumbling because of fighting, feuding, and infidelity. After the man saw me on TV, he told his family that their vacation was over. He and his wife attended my Sunday school class the following weekend. His wife was baptized at church that day, and the doctor was baptized in the Ouachita River next to our house a few weeks later in the middle of an ice storm. The water was so cold we had to put him in a wet suit so he wouldn’t freeze. Now the doctor is sharing the Good News with others and trying to make amends for his past transgressions. Ironically, they owe their souls and salvation to what happened to me because of the GQ flap. As long as we saved one person’s soul, the grief was worth it for me.
It warms my heart to see so many people affected by my family’s story. We share the Good News with everyone, but not everyone receives it, which is fine. I worry about their souls, but I understand that we are in spiritual warfare, and not everyone will see the light. Who would have ever thought that Hollywood, through a reality TV show, would be financing the gospel being preached all over the United States and world? If someone had told me that Hollywood would be paying for me to go all over the country and preach the Good News, I would have told them they were off their rocker. It’s almost like divine intervention is involved; at least that’s the way I’m leaning. I mean, the odds of it happening from this raggedy bunch of rednecks on the river makes you think there has to be a greater power working behind the scenes. That helps my faith in God.
Here’s the deal, America: None of us is getting out of here alive—except through Jesus. He is the way, the truth, the life—He is the resurrection. There’s no escape without going through Him. Hey, all you numbskulls, do you have a better idea for your own life? Do you have a better idea for fixing this rotten culture and sea of depravity we now find ourselves swimming in? Repent and liv
e your life for Jesus. Turn your life around, turn your streets around, turn your cities around, turn your states around, turn this messed-up country around, and turn your world around. Look at yourself and look at everyone around us. Are you coming or not? Just remember this—even if you hate me, I love you anyway. So does God!
Are you contemplating believing that Jesus died for you and was raised from the dead? If you believe this message, then turn your sinful life around and confess with your mouth, “Jesus is my Lord.” Then follow through by having someone baptize you in water. Then God will seal the deal by giving you His Spirit to live inside you. He’ll help you to find love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. How could you possibly want anything more? The body that God will raise up will be “imperishable”(1 Corinthians 15:42). It won’t be like the body we now have, which is very perishable. You see, when Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32), the “truth” he was speaking about was His death, His burial, and His resurrection, which sets you free from law, sin, Satan, and even the guilt of your sin. Believe it or not, it even sets you free from the graves where you’re surely going. That is freedom indeed. I can’t figure out why everyone doesn’t embrace Jesus! Why did God do these things through Jesus? He loves you. And because He loves me, I love you, too.
It doesn’t matter how bad you think your sins are—you can be forgiven for all of them. I’m telling you the truth. It is time for all of America to repent and turn back to the Lord, and we had better do it now before it’s too late for our beloved nation. Can you do that? Love God and love your neighbor. It’s as simple as that. I’m doing it—not perfectly, but I’m doing it—and I’m not the only one. There are a lot more people doing it too, but not nearly enough. America, we need to get back to the gospel of Jesus as quickly as we can. If we do, we’ll live happily, happily, happily ever after.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the crew at Howard Books and Simon & Schuster, y’all really know how to put together and sell books!
To Schlabach, for such a quiet man, you really know how to retell a story!
To Stephenson, for your brain power and meticulous attention to the details of our Creator!
To my family, you are my legacy that will carry forward these truths to the future!
To my forever family at WFR and the men I shepherd with there, you keep me grounded and engaged in the work of our Savior!
To the millions of people who rallied to my defense when I was being disparaged, I appreciate you and challenge you to be vigilant during these days of evil!
To my God, You rescued me from sin and depravity with grace and forgiveness with the gift of Your Son and You supplied me with power and the courage to never back away from truth with the gift of Your Spirit. Everything I do, I do for Your glory!
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PHIL ROBERTSON was born and raised in Vivian, Louisiana. There were seven children in his family, so money was scarce, and very early on, hunting became an important part of his life. In college, Phil played football ahead of Terry Bradshaw at Louisiana Tech; after Phil received his bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s in education, he spent several years teaching. Never satisfied with the duck calls that were on the market, Phil began to experiment with making a call that would produce the exact sound of a duck—and so, in 1972, Duck Commander was born. In the mid-seventies, Phil turned his life over to the Lord and is now invited to speak to hundreds of churches and organizations every year. Duck Commander is still a family business, with all four of Phil’s sons and their wives working for the company at one time or another. The fishing nets are still being run on the Robertson land, hauling in enough to feed the whole family. “Yes,” says Phil, “it’s a rough life, but somebody’s gotta do it.”
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Copyright © 2014 by Phil Robertson
Scripture quotations marked “NIV” are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.
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First Howard Books hardcover edition September 2014
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Interior design by Jaime Putorti
Jacket design by Bruce Gore
Author photo © Russell A. Graves; all other images by Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robertson, Phil.
UnPHILtered : the way I see it / Phil Robertson with Mark Schlabach.
pages cm
1. Robertson, Phil. 2. Television personalities—United States—Biography. 3. Conduct of life. I. Schlabach, Mark, 1972- II. Title.
PN1992.4.R535A3 2014
791.4502'8092—dc23
[B]
2014008730
ISBN 978-1-4767-6623-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-6624-9 (ebook)
unPHILtered: The Way I See It Page 15
