Last summer on a visit to the U.S. one of my sisters said: ‘You should watch Duck Dynasty – it’s hilarious!’ When we got home, I did, and it soon became my favorite program, a reality show featuring the amazing Robertson family of West Monroe, Louisiana. Now the homosexual lobby in America is after the star, Phil Robertson, one of my favorite people on the planet.
For those who don’t know, Phil was a football player who turned down a contract with the national league - because it conflicted with duck hunting season!
He married Miss Kay and became a teacher, but gave up teaching to make a living fishing and developing the now famous duck call used by hunters all over America.
When I was growing up my Dad had a duck call in his hanky drawer and sometimes we would go and get it, just for the fun of blowing it. Dad’s shotgun stood on the floor in his clothes closet, and it never occurred to us to handle that. Sometimes he would go hunting with my uncles, taking my brother along when he was old enough. I don’t remember him ever hitting any ducks, but I remember picking lead shot out of the rabbit meat my mother cooked.
One Christmas my grandma served duck which my Uncle Harry had shot, along with the usual turkey, but he said it had cost him $500 to get that duck, when he added everything up. The turkey tasted better and cost a whole lot less.
People in England, where we live, have no idea how important hunting was and still is to some American men. When my Dad was growing up in the south in the Depression, it was the difference between eating that day or going to bed hungry. He learned as a boy that it was his job to put meat on the table and that was his measure of manhood. I remember him saying, if someone was being discussed: ‘He can (or can’t) put meat on the table.’
Back to the Duck Dynasty family. I just love them all. Phil and Kay had four boys, now grown with families of their own. Three of the boys – Willy, Jason and Jepp, are in the program each week and the oldest, Alan, is a pastor and appears occasionally – the only Robertson without a beard. Phil’s brother Si (Silas), a Vietnam veteran, is absolutely hilarious. I’ve met people like him in America (mostly friends of my brother), guys who just cannot help being funny. They’re blue collar skilled workers (the people who make civilized life possible), family men, just ordinary people, but have some kind of brilliant beam of humor that keeps shining out. Si is one of those kinds of guys.
Getting back to the Duck Dynasty Dad, Phil Robertson - Phil and Kay were poor and at one stage as a young guy the marriage split up. This brought Phil to his knees before God, and he had a marvellous conversion to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings.
He and Kay and the boys all got back together. Eventually he baptized all the boys in the river behind their house, where the show is filmed now.
As for his duck call, made to his own patented design, sales started slowly, but over the years it became a real hit with the hunters. When the boys grew up, Willy got a degree in business, and Phil made him CEO of his duck call company, which is named Duck Commander.
Willy took the company to unheard of heights, and the family became millionaires. As Kay said to Phil: ‘I loved you when we were poor and I loved you when we were rich. Rich is better!’
The Robertsons became famous as well as rich when a cable channel began filming them. To Willy’s credit, he is obviously a very humble man, because he is willing to let himself be the target of much humor in almost every program.
Every show finishes with all the Robertsons sitting down to dinner together, and Phil saying: ‘Bow your heads’ for his prayer thanking God for their food and much else and finishing ‘in the name of Jesus’. Apparently sometimes his prayer is cut short and ‘Jesus’ is sometimes cut out. I always listen to see if Jesus was left in. So typical of our world. Even those who will admit there is a God often do not want Jesus included in the deal.
Now Phil is in trouble with the company for a magazine interview he gave in which he was asked about homosexuality. Being a genuine man of God, Phil just gave his honest opinion and also quoted scripture. His critics say he was too coarse, but how do you talk about homosexuality with any delicacy? What they actually do, God calls an 'abomination' - which means untouchable, something totally disgusting. Do we hate them? Of course not! We want to see them saved! (We know of some who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus and now have a new life in Christ. It is NOT impossible.)
Now Phil has been suspended from the program, according to news reports, and those of us who love him, love his family and love the program, are waiting to see what happens.
Are they perfect people? Of course not! Sometimes they make me cringe, but no doubt I would sometimes make them cringe too! We are all a work in progress, folks! But they know the Lord Jesus and stand up for Him when the crunch comes and they are family. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you are family too, dear reader! We're all one in Him and we're all on the way - for He IS the way.
Here is my prayer: Dear Father in Heaven, I love You, and I love Your Son, Jesus, and I love Your people down there in Louisiana, the Robertsons, who are now being attacked for standing for the truth. Keep them strong, dear Father. Don’t let their enemies triumph over them. Let the truth of Your word, the Bible, go far and wide because of all this. Bring great good out of this mess, Lord! Vindicate Your people, Your Word, Your Bible. Let many come to faith in Christ because of all this, Lord! And bless the Robertsons more than ever! And please save more men and women out of sinful lifestyles! And please, dear Father, turn America back to You! In Jesus' name, amen.
Alan adds: Many people today have little idea of what “Christianity” is or what the Lord requires. Here’s a quick Bible study. Jude, the half brother of the Lord Jesus, wrote this in the penultimate book of the Bible: (verse 7). It is a dire warning of the consequences of homosexuality. I deliberately chose a passage out of the New Testament, showing God’s condemnation of homosexuality had not changed all the way through both testaments.
Here’s Jude, rather more condemnatory that the Duckman… “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”
Eternal fire is what awaits every unrepentant homosexual, so why are churches today ordaining homosexual priests or saying homosexuality is just another lifestyle? That’s not how God sees it.
When we flew to Israel we went over the site of Sodom, marked on the BA map. British Airways are not known as fundamentalists, but there it was - the site of the city destroyed by sin. In the same way New Orleans was judged, and San Francisco will be.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, (the Anglican church in America), Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, is a woman. A deceived woman. She favored the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop. She says sodomy is “a given characteristic, not chosen.”
This is untrue and no scientific study has ever backed this up. Notice the word sin is never used. Says Bishop Kate, when asked about how homosexuality is declared a sin in the Bible: “The Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.” Please note: You cannot throw out the bits of the Bible you do not like or which have become unfashionable.
Look up, for starters, Leviticus chapter 18, verse 21: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”
Deceived people like the so-called “Bishop” Schori, intelligent enough to have no excuse, will be judged most severely when they face The Great White Throne Judgment, for they are leading millions down the path to perdition. Woe unto them……
