Phil Robertson is now America’s Patriarch:
[H]e stood in front of the small class, at White’s Ferry Road Church wearing his full camouflage suit and addressed the group for around 45 minutes.
He said: ‘I have been immoral, drunk, high. I ran with the wicked people for 28 years and I have run with the Jesus people since and the contrast is astounding.
‘I tell people, “You are a sinner, we all are. Do you want to hear my story before I give you the bottom line on your story?”
‘We murder each other and we steal from one another, sex and immorality goes ballistic. All the diseases that just so happen to follow sexual mischief… boy there are some microbes running around now.
‘Sexual sins are numerous and many, I have a few myself. So what is your safest course of action? If you’re a man, find yourself a woman, marry them and keep your sex right there.
‘You can have fun, but one thing is for sure, as long as you are both healthy in the first place, you are not going to catch some debilitating illness, there is safety there.
‘Commonsense says we are not going to procreate the human race unless we have a man and a woman. From the beginning Jesus said, “It is a man and a woman.” Adam was made and Eve was made for this reason. They left their fathers and mothers and be united to become one flesh, that’s what marriage is all about.
‘But we looked at it and said it was an outdated stereotype. When you look back at the human race, the sins have always been the same: We get high, we get drunk, we get laid, we steal and kill.
‘Has this changed at all from the time God burnt up whole cities because their every thought was evil?’
Then reading from the Bible he said, ‘The acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Sexual immorality, is number one on the list. How many ways can we sin sexually? My goodness. You open up that can of worms and people will be mad at you over it.
‘I am just reading what was written over 2000 years ago. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom. All I did was quote from the scriptures, but they just didn’t know it. Whether I said it, or they read it, what’s the difference? The sins are the same, humans haven’t changed.
‘If you give them the bad news, they’ll start kicking and screaming. But you love them more than you fear them, so you tell them.
‘A lot of times they don’t even wait for you to finish and say, ‘But there’s a way out, do you want to hear the rest of the story or what?
‘Jesus will take sins away, if you’re a homosexual he’ll take it away, if you’re an adulterer, if you’re a liar, what’s the difference? If you break one sin you may as well break them all.
‘If we lose our morality, we will lose our country. It will happen. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all walk around without stealing from each other and killing each other?
‘Why don’t we just love each other enough that we wouldn’t want to do these things to each other?’
Robertson – who made his fortune from inventing and manufacturing hunting equipment before finding TV stardom – went on: ‘We are a bunch of rednecks from Louisiana, but I am not uneducated, I have a degree from Louisiana Tech.
‘But this week I have been called an ignoramus. This week I have been asked, “Is this the first time you have brought up sin?” I said, “Are you kidding? I have been traveling to and fro spreading this message.”
‘Then he said, “Well do you invite yourself to go and get your Bible and tell people what you are now sharing with us?” I said, “No they are inviting me.”
‘I have made hundreds and hundreds of speeches and you can pick them apart and the center has always been Jesus Christ.
‘Do many people get up and walk out? Yeah, all the time, do I hold it against them? No. Anybody can get up and stop listening. We are all just humans on this planet.’
He added: ‘Jesus Christ was the most perfect being to ever walk this planet and he was persecuted and nailed to the cross, so please don’t be surprised when we get a little static.’
The best part, however, was how he closed in prayer: “I will not give or back off from my path because you conquered death, Father, so we are not worried about all the repercussions.”
May God grant us all similar fearlessness in Jesus Christ. That spirit of fear you sometimes feel didn’t come from Him. We can always find a reason to back down, an excuse to worry about the repercussions. Phil Robertson reminds us that as Christians, we are always going to get a little static, so we may as well grow up spiritually and accept it.