I Will Not Lament With You

No, I will not lament with you. I won't. No, I won't weep with you.

I just won't. So you've seen it for sure.

I mean, the woke church is using this verse like a bludgeon, and it's not just the woke church that uses this verse kind of carelessly.

Most people will use this verse in a very careless kind of way, where it's just, well, weep with those who weep.

And I've long known that when people quote that verse and don't really say much else, number one, they're using it like a slogan and injecting it with all kinds of meaning that I don't really think is there.

And number two, they're clearly oftentimes trying to either shut down a certain line of thinking or just flat -out manipulate you.

And there's always going to be multiple uses for this. The reason why it's powerful, by the way, is because it's a

Bible verse. This is part of what Romans chapter 12, verse 15 says. It literally says, weep with them that weep.

And so this is a quotation from the Bible. And if you want to get my attention, of course, quote the Bible to me.

It's always powerful to me when you read straight from the scripture and you're not twisting it and stuff like that.

But here's the reality. I've known this is a manipulation for a very long time. I've known it, and I've been thinking about for a while, why is it that it's so manipulative?

What is manipulative about it? And how do I know? You know what I mean? Is it just a gut feeling and it's maybe inappropriate for me to talk about this?

But no, I figured it out yesterday why this is such a manipulation. What I did, which is what you often should do, is when you know that somebody's trying to manipulate you using a

Bible verse, when you know that that's what they're doing, the best thing to do, and I don't know why

I didn't do this first, the best thing to do is just to read the passage in the Bible. Don't just take the snippet that you're given by the person who's manipulating you.

And also read the chapter that it's in, and also read the surrounding context that it's in. This works with Romans 13.

This works with all kinds of verses and things that people just use as a slogan to shut you up, and that's definitely the case here.

Now, before I continue, there's two kinds of people who use this verse. There are people who mean well, and they use it as a way of trying to protect people, really, because let's say you're going down a line of thinking where, you know, yeah, but the

Ahmaud Arbery situation doesn't really seem like it's a clear -cut case. It's not open and shut. It doesn't really seem like racism.

Sometimes people will just want you to stop the bleeding from their friends who are taking the

Ahmaud Arbery situation and running with it like psychopaths, and so they'll say weep with those who weep, and it's not intended as like a zing.

It's just intended for you to just calm down, just wait, and, you know, to shut you down, but it's not really a manipulation, but a lot of people in the woke church use it as a complete manipulation, and I won't do it.

I won't weep with you. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm not going to do it, and you might be saying,

A .D. Robles, that's ridiculous. You're clearly rejecting what the Scripture says, and how could you do that?

How could you say that? And here's what I'll say to that. Read the rest of the passage before you start manipulating me.

Read the rest of the passage, because it doesn't just say, even the verse itself, it doesn't just say weep with those who weep.

It also says rejoice with them that do rejoice. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.

Let me ask all y 'all woke folks, right? If after Donald Trump got elected, right, the day after, the morning after, when all you guys were lamenting and weeping and stuff like that, and I said to you,

Jamar, Thabiti, Amin, what are you doing? The Bible says rejoice with those who rejoice.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice. That's the King James. Why are you lamenting?

And then you turn around to me, and you say, And it's like, well, so what are we doing here? Is it just like, are we just going to be schizophrenic or what?

You know, this is Matt Smethurst, that smarmy Matt Smethurst.

He sees Donald Trump walk through the protest and holds up a Bible. And I'm not going to play the clip for you here.

It doesn't really matter. I don't really care about the clip as such. And, you know,

Matt Smethurst goes on Twitter, knowing that there's a lot of Christians who really like this. They're rejoicing to see a president that actually, at the very least, because this is the thing, like people say, oh, it's just pandering.

Yeah, well, at least for once, a president is pandering to Christianity because there's no question he understands the power of tradition, even if he's not a

Christian himself. And so there's lots of Christians and people that are rejoicing that we have a president that recognizes the value of Christian tradition, even if he himself doesn't practice it.

He at least recognizes the value of it. And people are rejoicing. Matt Smethurst gets on.

You know, of course, edgelord Matt Smethurst does the, speaks truth to power, does the brave thing and criticizes

Trump. And he says, with the volume on, this is one of the most cringeworthy clips and hollowest tone -deaf gestures

I've seen in a very long time. And what if I said to Matt, rejoice with those who rejoice?

You would instantly see the problem with that. You'd instantly see the problem with that.

I've seen people go so far as to say, if you're not weeping right now, you're not lamenting, then you're not in the body of Christ.

These people are self -condemned, of course, self -condemned. So you see, the reality is that we can't just read the

Bible like a handbook of slogans that fit our agenda that we already hold.

We can't just look for the things that look good. That's what people do when they, quote, let justice roll down like waters to me.

And they act like, well, obviously that means social justice and economic equity and all that stuff.

And it's like, well, you can't just read the Bible like a slogan book. You can't just read the Bible like a five -year -old.

That's how a five -year -old reads the Bible. You know, my grandmother died a number of years ago.

And at the funeral, I didn't cry. I didn't shed a tear. I was very sad. I loved my grandmother.

But I didn't cry. I don't know why I didn't cry. I've cried before.

But when my elderly grandmother, who was sick for decades and was on death's door for probably a decade and she finally did die,

I didn't weep. And there are people in my family that did. Was I breaking the law of God by not weeping?

I don't know why I didn't weep. I can't force myself to do that sometimes. That's not what the passage is saying.

Rejoice with them who do rejoice and weep with them that weep. That's what it says. You never hear the first part when people are trying to shut you down.

You never hear the first part when people are trying to shut your mouth from talking truth. You never hear the first part when you are abhorring what is evil in these protests and in these situations, when you see pastors lying through their teeth about someone being a racist like that SBC joint statement where they said, oh, the racism is still a problem and what they're doing is they're referencing

Ahmaud Arbery, they're referencing the situation with George Floyd, and those pastors, those people are lying through their teeth and we are called to abhor that.

We're not called to weep with those who weep if those who weep are weeping over a lie. We're called to abhor what is evil.

It's just that simple. It's just that simple. You can lament a death.

You can say it's unjust. You can say police brutality. And by the way, almost everybody is saying that about George Floyd.

This is unjust. This was a police brutality situation. This was an unjust killing. Many people, most people are saying that it was murder.

So this is not like a voice of the voiceless kind of thing. Everybody agrees with you. The one point that we don't agree is that we know that it was racially motivated.

We don't know that. And that's the point. When people say lament with those who lament, what they're actually asking you to do is believe everything they say uncritically and just go with it.

And at the very least, if you're not going to do that, keep your damn mouth shut is what they're telling you.

And I mean that word damn correctly because oftentimes these people go so far as to say, and Mika Edmondson is one of those that go so far as to say, if you don't respond to this in the way

I tell you, then it's possible you're not even a believer. You're damned. So that's what they say.

They say lament with those who lament. And what that means is you say and believe everything I say or keep your damned mouth shut.

Silence is a sin, according to some of these people. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.

Well, I guess no matter what, if I'm happy and bebopping and scatting all over people on my YouTube channel, then you got to be happy too.

If I'm ripping the beady and laughing in his face about how stupid he is, well, then you better laugh in his face too because I'm rejoicing in the fact that I'm abhorring what is evil.

So you better too. By the way, that verse comes from the same passage. This is Romans 12. This is a perfect verse.

They're all perfect. They're all perfect. Romans 12. Let me actually get a different version because I don't understand what this word dissimulation means.

I went to public school. So, you know, let's get the Christian standard Bible. So all you hipsters can understand what this means.

It says, let love. This is verse nine. Let love be without hypocrisy.

Detest what is evil and cling to what is good. Let me find the English standard

Bible because I enjoy the word abhor more than I enjoy the word detest.

Verse nine. Let love be genuine. What is it talking about when it says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep?

What is it talking about except for loving those people? Love those who rejoice and love those who weep.

You know, oftentimes it's harder to rejoice with someone that's rejoicing than it is to weep with someone who's weeping.

I was talking to my wife, and we had some trouble with difficulty with miscarriage and stuff. And it was very difficult for my wife to be rejoicing with her friends who were with child and they were pregnant.

It was hard for her to do that. It's almost harder sometimes to rejoice with people who are rejoicing. Let love be genuine without hypocrisy.

Genuine love. That's how you rejoice with people who rejoice and weep with people who weep. And you can't be genuine in your love.

You can't be loving without hypocrisy except for, which the rest of the verse says. This is a perfect verse for our moment.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. You have to hate evil.

You have to detest evil. You have to abhor it. And I abhor evil, no matter if it's a police officer choking out a black guy on the floor while he's under arrest in handcuffs or if it's violence and mayhem and looting in the streets and beating up white people just because they're white.

I abhor evil no matter what kind of evil it is. I abhor it. I detest it.

I hate it. Okay? And then it says hold fast to what is good.

Hold fast to what is good. Let your love be without hypocrisy. If somebody is weeping over something evil that they did, don't weep with them.

If somebody is rejoicing over something evil that they did, do not rejoice with them. You abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good.

Let your love be genuine because that's the only kind of love that actually exists. There's no such thing as a hypocritical love.

There's no such thing as an ungenuine love. Love is according to God's standards. If you're loving someone, then essentially what you're doing is you're obeying the commandments towards that person.

It's not just this feeling that you get that you kind of summon within you.

No, you're obeying the commandments with those people. Love is an action primarily. And so I won't lament with you because I know what that costs me.

I have to worship at the same idols you worship in order to lament with you, and I won't do it.

You know, some of these people are getting really crazy. I mean, some of these people are getting really crazy. I mean, this is

Ali Henni. She's one of these ones that's always like, Oh, white people, y 'all, we see you, we appreciate your help, but it's not enough.

You got to do this, this, this, and this, this, this, and this. And that's what she means by lament with her. And here's who her God is.

Some of y 'all take the Lord's name in vain by asking the Holy Spirit to intervene in our nation's racial issues while shutting down and ignoring the people through whom she is speaking.

Ali Henni is an unbeliever. And when she has her own version of what love is and what proper lament is and how to lament with her, she's asking you to bow down to the same idol that she's worshiping, her female

God of social justice. Don't do it. You cannot weep with those who weep by breaking

God's law. You cannot rejoice with those who rejoice by breaking God's law. Listen to Romans 12 and 9.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good.

I will not lament with you as long as that lament requires me to bow down to your idols.