Sunday Night, August 16, 2020 PM

All right, well, we're going to pick up on our study again of Sons of Issachar. And as we get started back, I'm going to go ahead and give a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for the time of fellowship that we've had and the time together tonight.

I pray that you would bless our study of your word, help us to think your thoughts after you, and that we would glorify you with the things that we affirm and the things that we hold and the things that we do.

I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So we're on our second part of our Sons of Issachar study, and we are talking about Black Lives Matter, not so much in the sense that we're talking about why it is that queer theory is unbiblical, which would be an exercise in the obvious, but talking more directly on the large consensus that exists within evangelicalism that we ought to affirm the slogan or the name, the title, Black Lives Matter, even while we would in some fashion distance ourselves from the values and principles of queer theory that lay behind the movement of Black Lives Matter.

And so we're examining whether or not that's a biblical approach. And last time we were together, we talked about our conviction that God made man in his own image. This is all from Genesis. God made man in his own image.

God made male and female for marriage. God demands blood for man's blood. We see how much that God values life, that he institutes capital punishment. We talked about that God's justice applies to all men, just looking at the last five of the Ten Commandments, and then considered from Acts 17 how it is that God's sovereign providence in all creation is towards the gospel, that God made all mankind and put them where they were in the kinds of disparities in which they exist for the one purpose that they would search for God and find him.

And of course, he's revealed his son, Jesus Christ, that they would. Now all of those convictions would lead us to say something along the lines of, well, God matters, Christ matters. Perhaps my favorite one is simply, well, God's gift of life matters because we're accountable to the one who gave us life, and it's valuable.

It's a gift from God, a grace from God. Now all of the things that we just said in terms of our convictions would be entirely opposite of the message of Black Lives Matter's founders, their seven-year process of building their movement, and the things that they categorically affirm.

And so we needed to clarify those terms. We talked about that. We read from Black Lives Matter's own website, talked about how they have a very clearly defined movement in 40 different worldwide chapters and how it is that they believe these things and act upon these things.

And so we established that. And then we began to speak about how it is that major voices within evangelicalism are encouraging us to simply affirm the statement, you know, Black Lives Matter, without any kind of agreement as to what they actually believe.

But we talked about that in terms of, you know, well, if we applied that very same approach to things like, well, everybody should be Jehovah's Witnesses, and we support Latter-day Saints. You know, disagree with what they mean, but just use the titles, and we can affirm.

We know how silly that is. The title, the slogan, carries with it the entire baggage of the movement. And we understand that in these other contexts. Why are we not using wisdom in this context? And so we're examining that.

And so having clarified our terms, now it's time to run the reductio. Is it really possible for Christians to affirm a group's name or a group's slogan without invoking their ardently held queer theory?

Well, let's consider a little bit about this. There are many ways to respond to this. I simply want to focus on the claim that we're not to respond to Black Lives Matter with any kind of counterpunch, as Piper was telling us we ought not to do that because it sounds like we're being unhelpful or racist or something.

But extrapolated from that position is a lot of other things. For instance, there were all sorts of tweets that came out from confessing evangelicals saying that if you're going down to the Black Lives Matter marches and parades, don't go down there and tell them that they need Jesus, that they need to repent of their sins and trust in Christ.

That's not what's needed in this moment, right? So what's our job? Well, the job of white Christians is to be silent and lament as they listen to the pain and suffering of oppression, and countering claims and questioning ideas is by definition racist.

So the problem with that is that we have higher loyalties to Christ, and so what is it that he wants us to say? Not necessarily what is it that people who are hurting want us to say, right? People who are hurting and feel like they're under threat, people who have been told that they are being oppressed.

These people have genuine needs. They have genuine concerns. These are real people made in God's image. But what they want us to do and say is not the prime value here. What does Christ want us to do?

What does Christ want us to say? How would Christ have us act? And that's the most important thing. Is it true that we must affirm Black Lives Matter to love justice and to neighbor? By the way, do you know neighbor is a verb?

Someone told me that. We need to neighbor one another. And as Bill Watterson commented in Calvin and Hobbes, verbing weirds language. I tell you, I sit there and I listen. I have conversations with people kind of on the other side, and the language, I just, sometimes I just have no idea what they're saying.

All the language is different. There's new verbs that used to be nouns. But let's do our best to understand. Jeremiah 23. Let's turn on our Bibles to Jeremiah 23. And we're going to look at verses 25 through 31.

You just thought we were done with Jeremiah. You're like, done with that? No, we're back already. Jeremiah 23, chapter 23, verses 25 through 31. Interesting moment in Jeremiah's ministry. This is what God says.

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in my name, saying, I had a dream, I had a dream.

How long?

Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood? Even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they relate to one another just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

Notice what he just did there. The false prophets are saying, I've had a dream, I've had a dream. Then they speak in the name of the Lord, in the name of the Lord. The Lord, thus saith the Lord, I've had a dream, thus saith the Lord.

And God says, there's not much difference between what they're doing and what the prophets of Baal did, who just outright said, thus saith Baal. He said, the result is the same. The result is to make my people forget my name.

Verse 28, the prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word in truth. And he has to qualify that as we've been told that there are scribes who like to twist the word.

Listen to this.

What does straw have in common with grain? That's a question for farmers. That's a question for people who harvest their barley, harvest their wheat, and then they thresh it and they separate the actual grain, the part you make the bread out of, from the straw, the part that you throw up in the air called the chaff, which the wind removes.

So God says, you know, what's the difference between straw and grain, declares the Lord. It's not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock. Now, that's interesting.

God's word is also a healing balm, too, is it not? It's also a comfort, but it can also be like a hammer and a fire. Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from each other.

You have the idea of someone taking the words of the Lord and using them in a way that's slightly askance, and then this person takes from that, and then they kind of move it this way, and then they go back and forth, and the whole thing gets twisted up.

Behold, I'm against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare. The Lord declares, behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord, and related them and led my people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting.

Yet I did not send them or command them. Now, listen, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit. Now, this is very important for us. These prophets were using the words of the Lord. He says so.

They were using the Lord's words, and they were using God's name. They were employing spiritual language. They had agreement with one another as one prophet stole God's words from another, back and forth.

They had group consensus, spiritual language. They had all kinds of the words of God in there. But then God says, they're not from me. I didn't send them. They're relating their dream or their own personal understanding from their own personal experience of whatever it is.

He says, but they're not furnishing my people, listen, the slightest benefit. Now, that in and of itself is heresy and modern evangelicalism. To ever say about anyone, even the great heretic James Cone, to say anything to say this person is not benefiting the people of God in the slightest, that in and of itself will get you canceled.

Because it is the common fashion of the day to always find something worthwhile in everything. What the Jedi can teach us about the church, right? It's just everything has value somewhere. But God says, these people full of spiritual language, even using the words of the Lord, they're not benefiting his people in the slightest.

We don't have to necessarily find value everywhere. Someone comes and says, you know, black lives matter. Our first job isn't to say, well, what can we take away from that that's valuable? There's no calling for that.

There's no requirement for that. It's quite possible that someone speaking things that they're looking for agreement might be simply saying something that has no benefit at all. There is the need to be slightly less tolerant.

Revelation 2, 19 through 23. God says, I know your deeds and your love and faith and service and perseverance and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel.

You don't celebrate her. You don't even necessarily platform her. But you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. And she teaches and leads my bond servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and things to sacrifice, eat things to sacrifice to idols.

I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds.

And I will kill her children with pestilence. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. Now, it's important to notice that sometimes what the church tolerates, God plans to kill.

And this is no calling at all for embarking on a kind of Christianity that is always firing away at everybody and everything. At the heart of God's message, Christ's message to the church in Ephesus at the very heart is praise for them holding the line and being firm on their doctrine and their beliefs, but also a rebuke for them failing to love.

It is always temptation to go to one end or the other, and Christ would have us hold both right in the middle. Now, let's think about this. Should we tolerate Jezebel, and should we look for benefit amongst false prophets?

I think the Scripture plainly teaches no, and I think there's a lot of other places that we could look that would show us that. And it's worth answering a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes.

Now, you shouldn't answer a fool according to his folly lest you be like him. In other words, don't address matters like a fool would, but you might as well use what the fool is saying to keep him from being wise in his own eyes.

So in this regard, let us think carefully about the claim. And again, this claim has been made by many. Ed Stetzer, J .D. Greer, who's president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Danny Aiken, president of Southeastern, and so on and so forth.

So a lot of people have been saying this. Just affirm Black Lives Matter, and you don't have to qualify it, and so on. We know what we mean when we say that, don't we?

Wink, wink.

We affirm the gospel for all people. That's what we really mean. But Black Lives Matter is a clear and defined movement. It's inappropriate, I think, for evangelicals to fundamentally change the meaning of anybody's slogan just for our own purposes, to subvert it for our own cause.

The framers of the Black Lives Matters movement, they gave the phrase a definite meaning and use. They know what they mean, and they have said what they mean, and they said so clearly and repeatedly. So if we say, oh, just affirm it because what we really mean is we value black lives and people, is to abuse the original author's intention.

Now, isn't it true that as evangelicals we have been saying for quite some time that we want readers, we do not want readers to determine the meaning of the text? That we're not into the reader response hermeneutic?

Whatever it means to you.

What does this mean to you?

We rightly mock that, and we mock that if it's the biblical text or even the Constitution, for example. We're interested in what it was originally meant by the authors, aren't we? Authorial intent. Well, the authors of the Black Lives Matter movement meant something, and it's not keeping with integrity and honesty for later evangelical readers to simply misappropriate and redefine the terms for their own purposes.

The Black Lives Matter people have actually said very clearly they don't want people using their slogan for their own means. They're very much against that, and they rage against it. And I believe that a willingness to take a text out of context and invest one's own subversive meaning to that text, even if it's just three words, does not engender great confidence in me of someone's faithfulness with the Word of God.

If I can just make it whatever I want it to mean for the need of the hour. And allow me to answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes, and I want to use Black Lives Matter's own hermeneutic to do it.

Remember, the whole idea is to give oneself cover and shade. To say, oh, I can affirm that. That way we're not targeted. Oh, I can affirm Black Lives Matter. Oh, sure, I can affirm that. What's the point?

I'm giving myself shade and cover so I'm not pointed out as a racist. But we're actually saying that while saying what we mean something kind of different than what they said. Here's the problem with that.

I think Danny Akins and Greer's reappropriation of this branding is nothing more than the latest theft of property by the oppressors. I think that Black trans folks labored to build this brand, and now white evangelicals are assuaging their guilt-ridden fragility by colonizing space created by colored people.

I think this is nothing but another land run. White Eva using Black Lives Matter to promote their own Christian views is racist, homophobic, and misogynist. And I'm just using their exact way of interpreting the world.

That's critical theory. I'm just using critical theory to interpret evangelicals trying to use the slogan Black Lives Matter to just affirm it and move on like we're okay with you. We support the ultimate goal.

But you're saying something and trying to placate people in a way that they find totally reprehensible. So I think it's probably one of the more racist things to do by the current definition. By the current definition of what racism is, which I don't agree with, I think it is one of the most racist things to do for white evangelicals to walk around and say, Black Lives Matter, but we mean our own thing by it.

We're going to take it from them and make our own meaning for it. So I think it fails on every front. And that's answering the fool according to his fatherless to be wise in his own eyes. Now, what's the problem here?

The problem here is that somehow Christ is not enough. The problem here is somehow that Christ is not enough, that we need a movement spawned by queer theory and their slogan in order to appear that we love our neighbors.

To properly neighbor one another, we have to use the slogan invented by black queer folk trying to push an anti-Christian agenda. We must use their slogan now if we're going to be real good neighbors and actually love people.

I think Christ is enough. I don't think using the slogan eliminates injustice. I don't think it ends racism. I don't think it avoids confusion. I don't think it actually provides any cover. Christ is enough.

His words are enough. His proclamation of the gospel and our living out of the ramifications of that gospel in spirit-filled obedience to Christ is plenty. It's plenty. I think we've been taught throughout Scripture that we do not have to placate fearsome powers and take on the methods and manners of the pagans.

I think we're just told to obey Christ and teach the nations to do the same, and Christ wins the day. Christ has the victory, and the world gets changed by the preaching of the gospel and the love of the Christians.

I'll give you an example of the pattern that we have, and this is some large chunks of Scripture. But in Colossians chapter 2, moving on into chapter 3 all the way to chapter 4, we have this movement of thought here.

At the end of chapter 2, Paul is writing and saying, look, you don't need all these other ways of being holy. Christ is enough. The supremacy of Christ is the sufficiency of the Christian. And so he says in verse 20, if you have died with Christ, all right, well, if you have died with Christ, the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourselves to the creeds, such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch?

You know, the box of do-nots, right? That's the way you be holy. Do not, do not, do not, do not, do not. And Paul says these all refer to things destined to perish with use in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.

These are matters which have to be sure. For the appearance of wisdom, listen, the appearance of wisdom is self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Listen, the poor folk down in Latin America who are trained to walk down the streets during festivals and beat themselves until they bleed, because this is holiness in that particular contorted form of Roman Catholic mysticism, are not that far off from the people out on social media self-flagellating themselves.

I'm a racist, I'm awful, blah, blah, blah.

This isn't holiness. Self-flagellation, this kind of asceticism, this kind of mysticism, has always had the appearance of wisdom, has the appearance of holiness, but in fact there is no value here against actual sin.

Right?

And Jesus has told us time and again, it's not real piety, it's not real spirituality, if you have to blow a trumpet so everybody looks at you so they can see how holy you are.

Right?

Jesus laughs at that. That's just, that's ridiculous. So, what's the answer? Well, so if you have died with Christ, you don't need that. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, Galatians 3 .1, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Some people are too earthly-minded to be of any earthly good. It's only when we're heavenly-minded that we're of any earthly good.

If you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. So our focus is upon Christ, Christ, Christ. And this is where we're going to find our holiness.

This is how we're going to be transformed, by putting our attention where it belongs. And then, in light of who Christ is, and in light of what is to come in Christ, therefore, Paul then says, put to death, lay off all these sins.

All these sins.

Just lay them all off, because this is all to be done away with. This is the old man, and there's a renewal. The renewal is of all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds and identifications, but they're all being renewed into Christ, so that Christ's glory eclipses all of our whatevers, disparities, identities, and so on.

I'm still me, but Christ's glory eclipses that. You're still you, but Christ's glory eclipses that. And this is how we have unity in Christ. And then there's instructions about how this renewal impacts.

So Colossians 3, 12, all the way through chapter 4, verse 6, shows us, well, what does this impact? Does it just impact my own personal heart, my own personal attitude? No, it impacts everything. This renewal of Christ impacts literally everything.

So it impacts worship. It impacts family, you know, how husband and wife relate to each other, how parents and children relate to each other, and because work was part of the family in the biblical worldview, work relations.

It totally impacts the way that masters and slaves work together. Masters treat their slaves in a Christlike way, and slaves treat their masters in a Christlike way. It's totally amazing. And this renewal comes about.

I'm sorry, that whole passage just does not fit at all with the new world hermeneutic. I mean, at all. It's just people's brains melt. But it doesn't impact just the church and the people who are part of it.

It impacts all the outsiders as well, how we speak with those on the outside, all the way through chapter 4, verse 6. So this renewal impacts everything. And so we don't need cover to operate under. We have Christ.

Now, on to the last part of this method, which is stick with the Scriptures, which is always greater than statistics and stories. Everybody's got statistics and stories. Everybody's got a satchel full of numbers, and everyone's got a tale to tell.

Everybody's got that. But we have the Word of God. In this way, do not answer a fool according to his folly. So when somebody starts coming out with their statistics about all these issues, and then they have a heart-rending story to share, don't respond back with a bunch of your own statistics and another heart-rending story to tell.

No, stick with the Scriptures. Stick with the Scriptures. I was reading an article a couple of weeks ago. It says, so-called experts, no matter what their field of study or how much information they gather, are finite in knowledge.

Do you believe that? Experts don't know everything. And they are fallible in practice. Simply put, they do not know everything, and they make mistakes. For every group of experts who claim to know something authoritatively, there are always other groups of experts who claim they can dispute the findings of the first group of experts, and it usually is about a generation removed.

The Bible describes it this way. The first to plead his case seems just until another comes and examines him.

Right?

Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky compiled thousands of expert opinions and declarations about innumerable subjects over thousands of years, and they just brought it all together in just a report, and here's their findings.

Our research has yielded, and we have systematically cataloged and footnoted for the first time, thousands of examples of expert misinformation, disinformation, misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and occasional just plain lies.

And based on our preliminary findings, we can say with some confidence that the experts are wrong. They are wrong without regard to race, creed, color, sex, discipline, specialty, country, culture, or century.

They are wrong about facts. They are wrong about theories. They are wrong about dates. They are wrong about geography. They are wrong about the future. They are wrong about the past, and at best, they're misleading about the present, not to mention next week.

Our faith in the experts needs to be greatly shaken. Greatly shaken. So what is our hope? If our hope is not in the experts, then what is our hope in? We read this passage earlier. I don't remember when, but Ecclesiastes 3, I thought it was a sage observation by the jaded Solomon.

Ecclesiastes 3, 16 through 18,. Moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there, and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. Isn't that terrible? Humans just keep on making a space for judgment.

This is where we'll execute judgment, and we're going to make sure that justice is done. Here we go, and it fills up with wickedness. Oh, this doesn't work. Okay, let's make a place of righteousness, of justice.

Okay, we'll make a place over here for that, and then what happens? Iniquity fills it up. It's not a new problem. Nothing is new under the sun. This has been happening since the fall. So he said, I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts, meaning how humble they are in their efforts to do God things.

They end up just doing things that are wicked and look like animals. So our hope is not in man, and how many spaces of righteousness and justice that someone can create. Our hope is in Christ. This is really interesting, Romans 1, 14 through 17.

Paul says, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. He's under obligation to them. Now, if somebody were to say today in today's context, I'm obligation to pagans, I'm under obligation to barbarians, I'm under obligation to all kinds of people everywhere.

What kind of obligation do you think they are speaking of? To do what? To do justice, right? Isn't that the obligation? This is what we're supposed to do. We have to do justice to everybody. Here's what Paul says, and I think we should be right and have integrity and be just.

Yeah, absolutely. He says, I'm under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. Oh, that'll never work.

You can't just preach the gospel. Well, obviously, we're not simply to say, be at peace, be warm and filled and move on. That's not what we're saying. But to preach the gospel is the power of God, is it not?

I'm not ashamed of the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Verse 17. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous men shall live by faith.

And let's do the trendy thing and let's just replace the word righteous with just because that's how everything's read now. For in it, the justice of God is revealed. What kind of justice is that? What kind of justice is that?

The righteousness that is apart from the law and the prophet being revealed in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just man shall live by faith.

Live by faith. Live by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to give you a little picture. Now, this is just for hope, okay? So I'm going to read Isaiah 65, 17 through 25. Our hope is in the man, Christ Jesus.

Our hope is in the kind of society that he creates, the kingdom he establishes.

This is for our hope.

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for gladness.

I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people, and there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the sound of crying. No longer will there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days, for a youth will die at the age of 100, and the one who does not reach the age of 100 will be thought cursed.

They will build houses and inhabit them. They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and another inhabit. They will not plant and another eat. For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of my people, and my chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands.

They will not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they are the offspring of those blessed by the Lord and their descendants with them. It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. And isn't that what we want?

Isn't that what we want? Well, it's what Christ brings about. That's what Christ will bring about. And it doesn't come about by us adopting pagan slogans, hoping that someone won't cancel us. Christ is who we need for that.

Let's close by singing the doxology together.