John Piper's "Christian Hedonism," Mark Dever's "One Issue Voting, & John MacArthur's take on CRT

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I am back once again in my studio of choice, my wife's laundry room.

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I was in D .C. for the weekend and had a good time there. Some positive things, some negative things.

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I'll give you a little report about that. It is with your support that I'm able to do these things. And a little controversy going on right now on Twitter over a tweet

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I put out. I was outside the Supreme Court building right after Donald Trump announced

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Amy Coney Barrett as his ideal replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and got into a discussion with a couple people.

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One of them though was a self -described political conservative who attended Mark Dever's church or was a member there,

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Capitol Hill Baptist. That's what he told me at least. And he's studying for the ministry.

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Nice guy, really enjoy the conversation, but he's politically pro -choice. And so I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that.

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People said online, oh, John, you know, some people did. John's slandering this guy, Mark Dever, that is, because he's mentioning what church he goes to.

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And look, here's the thing. I responded late last night, but I'm not sure everyone saw it. Mark Dever teaches on single -issue voting.

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And now Mark Dever probably has a more nuanced, he has probably a different approach slightly from at least this guy. But the question is, is

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Mark Dever's teaching on single -issue voting compatible or would it at least give you the impression that you could hold the kind of position that this young person held, that I talked to outside the

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Supreme Court building? Could you be pro -choice and say, well, this is what the argument he gave me. Well, everything is, you know, racism is a pro -life issue.

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And basically insinuating conservatives don't care about race, racism, so he's voting for Joe Biden.

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That was the logic. So we're gonna talk about that. Did I mention it's a beautiful day?

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It is a beautiful day. I actually took the air conditioners out, opened the windows, you can feel that crisp fall air coming in, so I love it.

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I love this time of year. You know, as a kid, I think summer was my favorite. I still like summer, but the older I've gotten,

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I've appreciated fall more. I'm not sure if that's something, a lot of people I think are like that. Anyway, we're gonna talk about that trip to D .C.

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though. We're gonna talk about John Piper. I got some pushback for that interview I did with Enoch Burke on his book on John Piper and Sam Albury and their teachings, and I read about half the book.

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I read the section on John Piper, and I need to say something about this. I've read really every resource people are recommending to me.

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John, you're slandering John Piper. This is a character assassination, one person said.

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Haven't you seen this or that? You know, this book, this article, this interview with John McCartney? Yes, I've seen all of them, just so you know.

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I should probably say this, about 12, 13 years ago, Piper was the biggest influence on my life theologically, probably, as far as theologians

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I would read. I've read more John Piper than probably anyone else. I love John Piper. I mean,

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I would wait for every, the books he'd come out, I thought, well, maybe I'll find more resources to fight for joy in the next book he brings, he releases.

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I taught the, what's the study he has? Don't Waste Your Life. I've taught that three times.

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I've led the study in college career context. You know, his teachings on TULIP, the

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TULIP series he did, I've given that to people years ago again. His Gravity and Gladness, I've used that to train worship team leaders, worship instrumentalists and singers and people on the praise team at church when

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I was a minister of music. I still like that teaching. So, just need to let everyone know,

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I'm familiar with John Piper and the thoughts that Enoch Burke was bringing out in his book, many of them,

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I've been thinking for years now. And I haven't been quite sure how to approach it or how to talk about it, because it's definitely, it's in a different category in my mind than say what we're seeing from, you know,

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J .D. Greer and Thabiti Anabwile and Eric Mason and the list goes on. It's different, it's not,

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John Piper's not in that crowd. I don't think John Piper is necessarily woke, not fully at least. I don't think that John Piper is, in fact,

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I'll just say this, I haven't called him a false teacher. Now, I know that,

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I think Enoch Burke may have called him that. I know E .S. Williams has called him that or said he's promoting false teaching.

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In my opinion, the issue with John Piper is emphasis. And by the way, I don't, I'm not against those guys because I've heard their logic and rationale of why they come to the conclusion they do.

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I'm gonna share with you a little bit about why I come to the conclusion that I come to. And it very much parallels their concerns.

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But in my opinion, it is an emphasis thing. It is not, I don't think that John Piper necessarily has a fully fledged systematized false gospel that he's putting out there and especially knowingly putting out there.

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I think with John Piper, the danger is that if you take his ideas to the next logical step, you can get there.

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You can get to that false gospel or at the very least, you can get to a situation where you've subverted the law of God for this kind of almost semi -mystical understanding of having joy in God.

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And I'm gonna share with you a little bit about my own experience with that because I was in that for years, wreaked havoc on my conscience and what

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I've learned since then. And then I'm going to, I'm gonna share with you a little bit about, more details about why

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I have the concerns I do. So we're gonna go over that. Again, I don't hate John Piper. I don't say throw out all your

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John Piper books. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is you gotta be very careful about some of the emphasis you're taking from his material.

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If all you get, and I said this in the Enoch Burke interview, if all you get is that we should be more joyful and you take that away, good, good, awesome.

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Be more joyful, all right? If you're going farther than that, and I'll explain what that looks like, then that may not be good.

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And it may explain why, and I've gotten so many questions about this, why Piper is not going after the social justice movement like MacArthur is going after it.

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And so anyway, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about also some clips that John MacArthur put out there from Grace Community Church, I think it was yesterday, last

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Sunday night. Going after critical race theory. You need to hear it because you need to be encouraged. If you're constantly picking things apart and you're skeptical and you're looking at all these teachers and you're thinking, man, there's just so much false teaching out there.

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I mean, look, I, probably more than a lot of people, I'm constantly critiquing things. People are sending me things all the time.

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John, what do you think of this? Have you talked about this? Could you do a show about this? Look, you can get cynical.

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You can get very negative. It is possible.

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I'm fighting that myself. And we need hope. We need to know that, look, just because people like John Piper aren't using his big platform to go after the guys he's previously platformed because it's within his power to kill this thing, the social justice thing.

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It's within Al Mohler's power to kill it. They're not. So why is that? Why aren't they using that?

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Well, that question could really grate on us if it's people that we've respected. But here's the thing.

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God is bigger than John Piper. God is bigger than Al Mohler. God has his people.

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God knows what's happening. I believe that. And I cling to that. And we must cling to that. And there are some faithful people out there, and they are telling the truth.

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One of them was last Sunday night and what John MacArthur said. And I'm gonna share it with you to encourage you.

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Not everyone's sold out on this. Not everyone's quietly opposing it, but not publicly. There are people publicly opposing it, doing the right thing.

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You need to know about it. So we're gonna talk about that too, a little bit. So let's start with John Piper.

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Then we'll go to my DC trip. And I'm just thankful to you guys for helping me, supporting me, so I can do these things.

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And then we'll talk about John MacArthur. So starting off, let's talk about,

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I'm gonna do this sort of in a roundabout way. I'm gonna parallel two ideas for you. Let's talk about Christian stoicism.

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I know you've never heard of that, probably. I have heard the phrase before. I didn't, just so you know,

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I didn't come up with this phrase out of a vacuum. There was a book I was reading, The Vanishing American Adults by Senator, I forget the

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Senator's name off the top of my head. Senator, I think from Nebraska. Anyway, it'll come to me.

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And I think he uses this term, if I'm not mistaken. He uses Christian stoicism, but I'm gonna give you, this is my version of Christian stoicism, right?

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And I'm gonna give you a little backstory. And so this is hypothetical, but let's say that I had a real problem obeying the commandments of God, right?

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I kind of, my emphasis wasn't on them. My emphasis was on emotional experience. Sound familiar, right?

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This is like most Christians, self -described Christians in America today. You know, I went to the Hillsong concerts.

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I was trying to, you know, I'd read my Bible, I'd pray. I'd seek emotional, especially, experience with the

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Lord. And finally, I realized one day, man, I'm looking at all these Bible verses on obedience and submission and self -control.

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And I think to myself, you know, that's a lot like stoicism, at least in its rudimentary form and the way it's used in common parlance, right?

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Stoicism is delayed gratification, beating your body in the submission, making sure that duty and willpower overcome emotion and passion.

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And I realized that and I say, I'm seeing stoicism in the Bible. I think the

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Bible is teaching stoicism. So I'm gonna come up with my own teaching and I'm gonna call it

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Christian stoicism. I'm gonna write a book about it when I don't obey God, maybe, or something like that.

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And here's some of the verses, right? 2 Chronicles 30, do not stiffen your neck like your father's, but yield to the

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Lord. Okay, we're supposed to, the duty, you just gotta willpower, gotta do it. Joshua 24, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve.

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Gotta choose. Romans 6, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you obey its laws. All right, I just got,

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I gotta make a choice. I'm not gonna let sin reign. 1 Corinthians 9, everyone competes in the games, exercises self -control in all things.

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Okay, self -control, look, that's the chief thing, right? Paul's saying that Christianity is like a race and for a race, you need self -control.

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It's the chief thing, we gotta have self -control. Then it says, they then do it to receive a perishable bereath but we, an imperishable, therefore

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I run in such a way as not without aim. I beat my box in such a way as not beating the air but I, here's the word, discipline my body, make it my slave so that after I have preached to others,

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I myself might not be disqualified. Okay, look, look, here's the deal, guys. This verse, let's say, opens it all up for me.

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This verse is saying that we must, in the race of life, in this race, we're competing for the prize set before us.

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We want to make sure that we live this life well, we go to heaven on the journey, on the way there.

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I gotta make sure I got self -control. That is essential for this Christian Stoicism right there.

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What do you think? What do you think so far? Sound pretty good? Sound like, now I could bring up a lot of other verses but Christian Stoicism.

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All right, and I'm gonna have a catchphrase for this. God is most glorified in us when we are most obedient to him. I mean, think about it, think about it, right?

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Jesus says that we, how do we know that we love him, right?

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That's what we're supposed to do, that's our prime duty to obey the commands of God, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, love our neighbor as ourself.

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How do we know that? If we keep his commandments, that's what he says. You will know that you're my disciples if what?

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If you bear much fruit, Christian Stoicism. We're supposed to obey, all right.

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What about this? The chief end of God is to glorify God and submit to him forever. Now, John, is that blasphemous?

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Well, I mean, Jesus says that he came to do the will of the father. He doesn't do anything if it's not what the father tells him to do.

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The Holy Spirit doesn't seek his own glory, he seeks the glory of Christ. There's obedience.

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In fact, we're supposed to have the mind of Christ. We're supposed to follow his example, right? Obedience, submission.

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Now, what am I leaving out in all that? Can you tell there's an imbalance in that at all? Yeah, there's an imbalance.

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Jesus also said, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. So if I were to take for the joy set before him and make that the pinnacle, or if I were to take doing the will of the father to be the pinnacle, and that motivates everything, would

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I be off in some way? If I just didn't, I didn't talk about the other aspect, I just mentioned one and I called it either

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Christian hedonism or Christian stoicism. Yeah, I'd be wrong. I wouldn't be giving you a full picture. I wouldn't.

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I would be giving you part of the picture. There's more to Christianity and Christian life than simply obeying, but obeying is essential to the

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Christian life, is it not? Yes, it is. Now, if I wrote a book and all you got from it was, well, we're supposed to obey

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God, and this really helped me understand I need to obey God and submit, and when I don't feel like doing something,

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I gotta do the right thing anyway. I gotta beat my body into submission. That wouldn't be bad if that's what you got from it, but then why call it

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Christian stoicism, which is what the Bible teaches? It's not anything new, but if I call it

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Christian stoicism, I am attempting to bring up a term, create a term that sets me apart from the pack.

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Maybe I can write a book and sell a book based on it because what I'm saying is different than what has previously been said, or I'm packaging it differently.

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I'm showing you a different way of approaching something. Now, if you went to, let's say, the logical conclusion of my

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Christian stoicism, and you made that the end all be all, and everything was just about willpower, what would you become? A Pharisee, would you not?

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Possibly. If you, here's the thing. Now, I gotta be careful here because Pharisaism is subverting the law of the

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God for the sake of tradition. It's also, it's trying to find redemption somehow, salvation in fulfilling the law.

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Now, if you went that far, that would be, you're way out in left field, way wrong, but if you just simply became a legalist, and the only thing that mattered was fulfilling the law, and let's say

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I added to it. Let's say, well, we're gonna go fundamentalist on this.

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Obeying the Lord means there's principles in scripture that you must obey, and you must not, let's say, go and watch rated

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R movies. You must not, you shouldn't go to a bar. It's setting a bad example.

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It's the appearance of evil, and I started applying all these principles and say, it's about obedience. Well, then you'd be in real trouble.

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You'd be exercising legalism at that point, right? And today, that would not be popular. Everyone would reject it.

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Everyone would reject it if simply I said that the chief end of man is to obey God. They would reject that too, because modern

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Christians, so -called Christians in modern evangelicalism, that's not what they're, they're not about that.

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It would not be a popular philosophy if I tried to craft some kind of Christian stoicism. Stoicism doesn't sell today, but you know what does?

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Hedonism. Hedonism definitely sells. That's what we're getting from the world. That's the philosophy of the world, so why wouldn't it be a popular thing in the church?

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Now, I could sell some books if I did that, and I'm not saying that's Piper's purposes to sell books at all. I'm not doing that.

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I think Piper really, I think he had a real awakening. That's a word he uses. I think he really did see that there was something lacking in his life, and I think he wanted to help people.

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I do think that was his motive. Here's some quotes from Piper. This is Christian hedonism. Chief end of God is to glorify

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God and enjoy himself forever. Okay. Does God enjoy himself?

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Yeah, yeah. Okay. True? Yeah, I guess that's true to some extent. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

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Well, is that true? I mean, we are supposed to be satisfied in God in the sense that we're supposed to have joy.

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Now, Piper's kind of loose. He uses joy and happiness and, yeah, satisfaction kind of interchangeably.

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But, you know, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with him. Yeah, I could go with that, I guess. To be born again is to taste that God is more to be desired than anything.

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That's what he says. Now, you might start to realize at this point, isn't the emphasis a little off here, though?

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I mean, those things are important, but is it a one -to -one comparison? Glorification, satisfaction, same thing in every sense.

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To be born again is to taste that God is more to be desired than anything. That's the definition.

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I mean, I guess I could see that your desires change as you're born again, but what does

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Scripture say? Where do you find this in the Scripture? Well, John 3 talks about being born again.

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Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and what does he say it is? It's belief. It's whoever believes in him has eternal life.

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That's what being born again is. That's the process. As Moses lifted up the serpent, even so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up. It's about faith. So we're making a lot of conclusions based on logical constructs, but we're not using biblical language.

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We're not going back to the Scripture on this and the passages that actually talk about being born again. Here's another quote from Piper.

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You go to hell if you're not happy in God, and he bases this on Deuteronomy 28, 47, and 48. Now, if you read the preceding verse, and this is gonna be key.

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I wanted to bring up this verse for a reason because I think it exposes kind of the emphasis problem. You're gonna find that the emphasis is not being joyful here.

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Let me read it to you. So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you would not obey the

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Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. They shall become a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever because you did not serve the

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Lord your God with your joy and a glad heart for the abundance of all things. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom the

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Lord will send against you. Now, listen to this. First, you have the problem is you would not obey the

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Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes which he commanded. Okay, Christian stoicism, right? You just didn't fulfill a duty.

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But hold on. He also says because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart for the abundance of all things.

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So you weren't actually worshiping with a heart that sought to have joy in God.

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Christian hedonism, we could say there, right? Well, which is it? Which is it? Well, Piper just quotes the part that fits his

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Christian hedonism. But if I just wanted to quote, let's say verse 45, I would quote the part that fits my

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Christian stoicism. And is either philosophy going to give you the full picture?

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The answer is no. That's why I think this is an emphasis problem. And this emphasis problem can manifest itself in other areas, in ways that are problems.

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Joy is one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. John 15, eight, my father was glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, so prove to be my disciples.

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So how has God glorified? That you bear much fruit. Okay. What's the fruit of the spirit?

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Galatians five. Well, it's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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There it is, self -control, must be Christian stoicism. No. Well, there it is, joy must be Christian hedonism. Well, no.

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Fruit of the spirit is love. And under that umbrella of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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Against such things, there is no law. This is part of the law. The principles behind the law, the character of God behind the law are these things.

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So why is any of this important, especially as it relates to the social justice movement? Well, I'm gonna give you a little testimony of my own and explain how

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I'm approaching this. When I was deeply involved in Christian hedonism and trying to just really drum up joy in myself and disappointed at myself, because I just could not maintain the level of joy.

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I get little glimpses here or there, I felt like, and it was always eluding me. It left me high and dry.

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It just really, I was so disappointed. I thought the Christian life must just be, it's just impossible, which it is.

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Like you can't actually obey the commands of God either. You can't have perfect joy, but you can't perfectly obey his law.

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And this was a burden. Now, maybe you say that was my fault. Well, okay. I know a lot of other people that had the same kind of issue though.

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And what essentially was happening was every little thing

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I looked at in my life, whether we eat or drink, whatever we do, we're supposed to do all to glorify God. What that meant, because of the

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Christian hedonism understanding I had, was I had to just, in an abstract way, kind of filter everything through this grid so that in my mind,

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I would be having joy. So I'd examine myself and I'd navel gaze and I'd think, John, did you have joy when you drank that lemonade?

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Oh my goodness, you weren't thinking about God. I didn't think about God when I had that lemonade. I guess

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I didn't have joy. Oh no, Lord, please forgive me, I failed. And that's, I mean, it's a miserable way to live, but I was living that way.

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I still, I'll be honest with you, I still sometimes have that tendency to go back into that.

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And this isn't the way that we're supposed to live as Christians. Jesus also said, my burden is easy, my yoke is light.

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Why did he say that? Well, glorifying God isn't necessarily pushing everything through this grid in your mind and trying to sanctify it by, really, that's what's happening.

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You are the one sanctifying it by some kind of almost mystical incantation, this abstract thing that you're doing by repeating mentally,

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Lord, I'm having joy in this, or thank you for this, and Lord, please give me joy in this, and just, well, who are you focusing on when you try to do that yourself?

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That's who you're focusing on. It's me -centered, ultimately. And that's where you can, that's where this at least brought me.

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I was trying to focus on God, but because I knew that joy, and an emotional joy, too, was so important,

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I was always examining myself, looking at myself, wondering, was I joyful enough?

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How do I get to be joyful? And what I've learned is that you don't focus on yourself.

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You focus on the Lord, and the fruit of the Spirit is joy. You live, you're filled with the

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Spirit, which is letting the word of Christ dwell within you. You read the word of God, immerse yourself as much as possible in the word of God.

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You can't do it all day, I get that. You pray regularly. You live the Christian life.

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And yeah, you get your feet dirty in this world, and you confess it. But you don't overthink it, and you don't, as much as you want to be perfect, be perfect for I am perfect, says the

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Lord, you know you don't achieve that. Paul didn't achieve it. He was an apostle.

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If he didn't achieve it, I don't think we're achieving it. Not in this life. Comes in the next life.

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So it's an attitude of being grateful to God. And that's why, even in sin, I'm just, Lord, thank you.

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Thank you for, you've blessed me so much. I fell in that moment.

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I said something I shouldn't have, but I could have fallen so much more. I know you restrained me. Thank you, Lord. Thank you,

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Lord, that you sent your son. And that's ultimately where joy comes from, is understanding that Jesus has paid my fine.

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That's the good news of the gospel. It's not good news when you're constantly on that treadmill of trying to make sure that you have an experience of joy.

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So that's just, I'm just throwing that out there personally for you who have had a similar experience to maybe the experience

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I've had. And not everyone has that. I get some people read his stuff, John Piper's stuff, and they say, oh, I should have more joy. And they go on, and they don't obsess over it.

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And that's great. Praise God for that, all right? Not knocking that. But what

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I've inevitably seen happen is that a lot of people influenced by John Piper and David Platt's teaching in Radical, I'll give you the story.

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I was at a Desiring God conference years ago at Rick Warren's church. I didn't attend there. I went there for the conference. I lived in California at the time.

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John Piper was asked the question. I was close to him at the time. He said, they asked him, is it a sin to buy a new car?

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John Piper said, yes. Now, that was my turning point. That was when I was like, wait a minute, something's off here.

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David Platt kind of has a similar teaching in Radical. In fact, when

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I was doing some research on Ron Sider, I found out John Piper had quoted Ron Sider favorably in one of his sermons.

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I thought, this is all interesting. This kind of, you know, the American dream is bad. Collecting your seashells by the seashore, bad.

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You're wasting your life. The implication here, guys, if it's not said directly, the implication is you are in sin for these things, these external actions.

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The insinuation is that it's idolatry. Having that picket fence in that house, that's idolatry. Picking up seashells by the seashell for retirement, idolatry.

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Buying a new car, idolatry. And the fact is, those things in and of themselves are not idolatry, and calling something evil that God does not call evil is wrong.

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It's wrong, it's adding. It's what the Pharisees did, subverting the law of God for the sake of tradition.

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It's adding to the law, right? And perhaps personally for you, that's not a good idea.

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You will idolize your car. You will worship your car. Your life will revolve around your car. It's not like that for everyone.

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And if you understand how just a basic market economy works, you understand that buying a new car is not, it's not like you're just, oh, you're such a waste of money.

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You could have just fed the children in Africa. Well, yeah, you could feed the children in Africa, but do you realize where all that money's going?

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It's not, it doesn't go into a vacuum and disappear. It goes into the pockets of those marketing, producing, advertising, all the people involved in getting that new car to you are now, they're feeding their families off of it.

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I don't know if people understand that, but it's not a sin to buy a new car. It's not a sin to have a nice house.

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If you can afford those things, praise God. It is a blessing. It is a blessing.

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And if you choose not to, that's fine too. There's nothing wrong with that. But we're at a point now, and this is where it intertwines with the social justice stuff a little bit.

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Idolatry becomes this, something that is used to flatline sin.

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The American dream can be idolatry. American nationalism, we hear that, that's idolatry. Trump, state worship and loving

27:54

Trump too much is idolatry, right? This is how the social justice warriors you weaponize the term idolatry to try to just fit anything that they don't like into that category.

28:07

What happens if you accept Christian hedonism, I believe, is you rearrange the hierarchy.

28:14

Instead of joy being one fruit of the spirit, being something, yes, we should have in God, it becomes the top of the chart.

28:22

It becomes the end all be all. And what that does is you create a new hierarchy and it can flatline things that are underneath of it.

28:30

In fact, now, like I just said, buying a new car could be wrong in some way.

28:35

It's insinuated that it could be sinful in some way. And so having joy is the main thing.

28:42

Now, someone who has, let's say, same -sex attraction or a homosexual orientation of some kind, right?

28:47

Against the created order. This isn't how God intended for things to be. It's not how he created things to be.

28:52

This is actually a Freudian concept that this kind of orientation exists. Accepting that category and saying, well,

29:00

I'm a same -sex attracted Christian, right? Well, as long as you're pursuing your ultimate joy in God, then that can be kind of washed away.

29:09

That can be sanctified. That's not a bad thing. As long as you're not giving into those desires and technically breaking a command of God, and at the root level, your heart is, everything's being put through that grid of joy in your mind, then having that orientation, that's not really sinful.

29:26

Now, we find in scripture itself, you go to like Colossians 3, 5, put to death therefore whatever belongs to earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

29:37

So desires is part of this. And I just quoted from the NIV. I don't, I shouldn't have done that.

29:42

I don't usually quote from the NIV. Let's see if I can get a better translation here of Colossians 3, 5 for you.

29:51

New American Standard says this. Therefore consider the members of your earthly bodies that immorality, impurity, passion, all right?

29:57

Evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Passion, evil desire.

30:04

Mortify those things. Consider the members of your body dead to those things. That's what we're told in scripture to do.

30:11

We gotta attack these things, buffet our bodies, the way Paul said, discipline ourselves for the sake of righteousness.

30:19

So that means, and I'm not putting it, because scripture doesn't do that. I'm not putting this in a category of orientation. I'll put it in a category of sinful thoughts.

30:28

If you have sinful thoughts about someone else, sinful desires, I mean, that's what a sinful thought is. You have this, you have a desire to do something sinful.

30:38

Then you are called to mortify that. And so in the moment, you discipline yourself. You say, Lord, I'm sorry.

30:43

Just like if you were, let's say gluttony was your issue. And you know, I really want, man,

30:49

I want food right now. But you know what? It's wrong for me, it's gluttony. I find my comfort in that.

30:56

In fact, it's a health risk. I'm damaging my body, which is irresponsible to my family. I can't go and eat that, that cherry pie or whatever it is you want.

31:05

Well, what do you do in that moment? You say, well, I'm just, I'm an obese Christian, I guess. It's my orientation. I just got to find my deepest joy in the

31:12

Lord to overcome that desire for cherry pie. My desire in the Lord must be more.

31:18

No, no, you say in the moment, Lord, I confess this evil desire. I don't want to desire this right now because I love my family and I love you,

31:27

Lord. And I know this is a sinful desire within me. Please forgive me. And you go on and you put on something else.

31:37

You replace that thing with something else. I'm going to go and I'm going to read my Bible right now. I'm going to go and I'm going to do my job right now.

31:44

I'm going to do something else. Occupy my mind with something different than that. That's what you do. That's hard work, isn't it?

31:51

Yeah, yeah. But you're not sitting there and being like, oh man, my desire for this.

31:56

The real problem is just that my desire for sexual relationship, it's too strong.

32:03

My desire for God must be stronger and somehow replace that desire for a sexual. No, God gave you a desire for a sexual relationship.

32:10

He gave you a desire for food. He gave you all kinds of desires. Those aren't bad desires in and of themselves.

32:16

We're not playing a game of competing desires. These are natural. These are things God gave you. They're part of the created order.

32:22

Now you could try to fulfill those desires in ways that God has not authorized.

32:28

That is the sin. If you're thinking of fulfilling those ways and those things in ways God has not authorized, that is a sin.

32:35

Sinful, sinful desire. You get rid of it. That's what you do. I hope

32:41

I'm being clear enough on this. I'm trying to illustrate it for you as much as I can. But I was on that hamster wheel and it's a hard hamster wheel to be on.

32:52

It's not merciful. It really isn't. And I'm just so grateful that there's many people who read

32:59

John Piper and they don't come away with that. But if you read them carefully, then you can see why people come away with that because it lends itself to that.

33:09

And I do wanna recommend E .S. Williams' videos on this. I do wanna recommend, hey, go through the material that Enoch Burke put out there.

33:16

I'm not saying I agree with necessarily every single thing that he has. But at the very least,

33:23

I think you oughta go through it and you oughta contend with it and see if there's anything accurate in it.

33:30

So what's the bottom line? Let's tie up the loose ends here. I don't have time to go over everything, unfortunately, that I wanted to go over.

33:37

But what is the main idea I'm trying to get across? Well, first of all, the reason

33:42

I'm doing this in the first place is because people have wanted an explanation on why

33:48

John Piper's not fighting the social justice stuff harder. I don't know the root answer to that. All I know is that his teaching, which really has tinges of pietism and antinomianism in it, that opens himself up,

34:03

I think, to, it's a weakness. So the whole, you can't partake in the

34:10

American dream because it's sinful somehow, because you're not desiring God enough. Well, that might be a more pietist understanding of things.

34:18

But what that does is that actually you're paralleling a lot of the things that social justice warriors are saying.

34:24

They have different motive. They're saying you can't enjoy the American dream because you've stolen that stuff from someone else.

34:30

So it's about redistributive justice. But for John Piper, his goal is, well, because you wanna be satisfied in God, right?

34:38

That's the reason for it. So you have that. And then the antinomianism would be, or I don't wanna say he's an antinomian, but the tinges of antinomianism that I get, or neo -nomianism,

34:51

I'm not even sure where I'd categorize him. The law of God is not the primary thing in pursuing

35:01

God, in obeying God. The primary thing is kind of this esoteric, abstract, vague notion of having joy in God.

35:12

And you can, when you do that, it creates a new hierarchy of sin, and you can cram so many things in that.

35:17

And you can have social justice warriors who say that. I mean, a lot of the reform guys love Piper, and they're social justice warriors.

35:23

And they think this is part of finding joy in God, right? So it just, as long as someone's finding joy in God, that's the big check mark they're supposed to check off.

35:34

And so it makes it difficult to oppose someone who thinks they're doing that, or says they're doing that.

35:39

So not saying that these are the primary reasons. There could be more. It could be, you know, he's got friends, like MacArthur had friends, right, that abandoned him.

35:47

Piper could have friends, not wanna disrupt those relationships. I don't know all the root reasons for all of it. But this is, these are some weaknesses that I've seen in Piper's core teaching.

35:56

Again, not saying he's a false teacher. I know E .S. Williams says that. I don't, in my mind, I don't have enough information yet to do that.

36:03

I've read a lot of his books, I have. But I haven't gone through it with a fine -toothed comb and really dived into it like someone like E .S.

36:10

Williams. I've seen some quotes from him that really, they're borderline,

36:18

I'll put it that way. They're scary when I read some of them. One of them, actually,

36:24

I was gonna show. I'll just share it just to show you what I'm talking about here. This is in an intro to a book by Tom Schreiner.

36:34

He says, the book tackles one of the fundamental questions of our human condition. How can a person be right with God? The stunning

36:39

Christian answer is sola fide, faith alone. Okay, that's right. Well, then he goes on and he says, but be sure you hear this carefully and precisely.

36:46

Okay, we're listening. He says, write with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by faith alone.

36:53

So you're right with God by faith alone, but you don't attain heaven by faith alone. That's what he's saying.

36:59

There are other conditions for attaining heaven, but no others for entering a right relationship to God.

37:06

In fact, one must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to meet the other conditions.

37:11

Now look, obedience to God is the result of justification. It's not the basis for it though.

37:19

And in this quote, you find language that makes it sound like somehow works, meeting these conditions is a basis.

37:29

Now for Piper, I'm assuming, I went, you know, I was reading it and he didn't specify really what that meant.

37:36

I would assume for him, because you find a lot of maintenance language in books like,

37:41

When I Don't Desire God, that it's the constant fight for joy, right?

37:48

This is sanctification. But making that the basis, meeting these conditions for going to heaven, if you really mean that, then we have false teaching.

37:59

The problem is, I don't know if Piper actually means this, even if though he says carefully and precisely.

38:06

It's a hard pill to swallow guys. And I get it, I get it. I mean, I had this with Al Mohler too, when I was like, he can't be pushing woke stuff.

38:14

And then I started examining the facts. So I'm gonna just say, I don't know, but I'm not calling

38:19

Piper a false teacher, at least yet. I'm not doing that. I've benefited from a lot of things John Piper has put out there.

38:26

There are other books that he's written that I probably should read that I haven't, but I have read a lot of his stuff.

38:35

And at this point, I don't recommend Piper really anymore. That just happened naturally.

38:40

It wasn't like a conscious decision that I made about anything. So that's where I'm at.

38:46

And if you're not where I'm at, that is perfectly fine, perfectly fine. You don't have to be where I'm at.

38:52

But please, you don't have to then comment on the video that I'm doing, me and Enoch Burke, because we're talking about this and we have concerns that somehow

39:04

I'm personally, dragging his reputation through the mud and I'm misrepresenting and stuff.

39:11

If I'm misrepresenting, show me, show me where I'm misrepresenting. That's fine. Look, here's the thing. I need to say this.

39:19

I have noticed more than ever this year how celebrity driven Christianity is.

39:24

It is celebrity driven. It disgusts me. Do not follow me because I have this microphone and I talk from my wife's laundry room to you about issues that are important to me.

39:37

Go to the word of God, check it out. Check what I'm saying against the word of God. Check what I'm saying against the sources that I'm citing.

39:43

Do not believe it just because I say it. Now, I understand there's a certain level of trust.

39:48

If I'm consistently right, you're gonna tend to take what I have, my commentary, and that's fine. It's perfectly fine to say, okay,

39:55

I'm gonna just believe what John says because I trust his character and stuff. I get that. But if it's challenged, then you gotta go back to the sources and the word of God is the source.

40:05

The Bereans, Paul was an apostle and the Bereans were checking out his revelation against previous revelation and he commended them for it.

40:13

So don't just trust me. I'm not the Christian celebrity guys. John Piper's not.

40:18

Don't be just offended because Piper was your guy and we're bringing up problems about Piper. Don't be offended if it's

40:25

John MacArthur. Don't be offended if it's anyone, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, whatever leader that you've liked.

40:33

You like his personality, you like his teaching. Don't be offended. Check it out. Check it out.

40:39

That's my encouragement. And if I'm wrong in the critique, let me know. But you can do it in a nice way. And it's fine to say

40:47

I'm totally wrong. It's fine to say that. But I assure you, the motive is not to destroy

40:53

Piper here, which is what many have been insinuating here and you don't know that about me. So anyway, let's talk about the

41:01

DC trip real quick. So I'm gonna give you kind of an update on that. I did go to Washington DC.

41:07

I attended, so I actually got there sort of for the end of this. There was a prayer march and I was gonna go to it and then

41:15

Judd Saul was there from Enemies Within the Church and he had a group with him and they were going out to lunch and he told me that it was, at the point,

41:25

I guess, when I arrived, it wasn't worth it. So we just went out to lunch, met up with some guys that night, some other guys, other ministries.

41:35

I'm not gonna say who all, but I'd say it was productive, had some really good conversations with some folks.

41:43

The main thing though that night was I went to an event. Well, it was more or less an event.

41:50

It was outside the Supreme Court building after Donald Trump had announced from the White House his

41:57

Supreme Court pick. And of course, a lot of pro -life folks there. There was a few pro -choice people.

42:02

I was surprised. I thought there'd be a lot more. Ironically, I actually have a picture of this. The cameras were really focused in on this one guy, one solitary guy with a sign who was pro -choice, who was pro -abortion, right?

42:18

And you see this crowd of pro -life people and the cameras right there focused on this one solitary guy.

42:26

I was just like, wow, yeah, that's the media for ya. But while I was there,

42:32

I talked to a number of folks outside there and one of them was a member, and this is what he told us, all right?

42:38

I don't know, but he told us that he was a member at Mark Devers Church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

42:46

That's where he went. And a young man, very nice guy. I actually really appreciate the conversation.

42:52

Studying for ministry, wants to be in ministry. Just, you know,

42:57

I don't have anything against this guy personally at all. I just want you guys to know that. Man, the way people have treated my tweet on Twitter about this just amazes me a little bit.

43:10

But anyway, this guy, this gentleman is voting for Biden though.

43:16

And part of the reason is because this is what he told me that racism is a pro -life issue as well.

43:24

And he gave me the whole womb to tomb, you know, you're, you know, there's all sorts of these pro -life issues out there.

43:31

And I gently tried to correct that. And I said, look, you have a command in scripture that's very clear, that shall not murder, right?

43:39

It's a murder. It's against God's law. Now, these other things like, you know, police practices and, you know, whether or not we should have free healthcare.

43:50

And these are quality of life issues. They are not a, they're not life issues.

43:57

I said, if we, you said racism is a pro -life issue. I said, look, if there was a law right now that said you could go kill someone of a different ethnicity

44:04

I would be right here standing with you saying, this is wrong. We need to stop it. We, it needs to end.

44:11

And, and interestingly enough, this is how I seen a lot of the social justice crowd think. He went right back to 1619 and said, well, you know, it was, he got a bunch of things wrong about our history.

44:22

It was legal to kill a black person. It was, it was, there was laws on the books that said you could do it, which no, and I tried to explain, we live in a modern state.

44:34

That was an organic relationship that just, it formed organically, the slave trade and stuff. It wasn't this systemic thing that, you know, everyone got together and voted.

44:43

Hey, you know, you, we really want to have slaves. And by the way, we can, we can kill.

44:49

Like that, that's, that's not how, that's not how it went down, but that's what he believed. And, and I think the implication was that we're still dealing with the effects of that today.

44:58

So, you know, police shootings, et cetera, you know, that I think that's where he was trying to go. I kind of cut him off though.

45:04

And I was just like, look, you don't have a law on the books right now. There is no law that says you can do that, but there is, there is a

45:12

Supreme court ruling that says you can kill your child. Apples and oranges, man. And, and so I think it was good.

45:19

He didn't really have much to say to that, but he was, you know, and the final thing, this is actually sad. I said, look, you're a pastor now, let's say, and you're going to have a woman who comes in and she says, look,

45:30

I was, I was raped or my, my boyfriend left me. I have a baby. I'm, I got an appointment in two hours to Planned Parenthood.

45:37

My parents said to come here and discuss it with you first. What should I do? And he, he would, he kept saying, well, it's your choice.

45:43

It's your choice. It's your choice. I can't make the choice for you. That's sad. That's really sad.

45:48

Now I'm not saying Mark Dever thinks that at all. People were saying, oh, you're just saying, you know, you're trying to blast

45:53

Mark Dever for, you know, as if he's pro -abortion. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think Mark Dever's pro -abortion.

45:59

This guy didn't think he was. He told me he was a political conservative and he's pro -life personally.

46:05

So he didn't even think that. But here's, I kind of thought, at least for the people following me on Twitter, they had sort of a basic understanding of what

46:13

Mark Dever has said on this. I want to play you this clip. Listen to this clip and then ask yourself this question.

46:19

If this is the teaching that you're under at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and if you don't hear on an election year, ironically, teaching against, you know, trying to help people morally along to understand that you can't vote for someone who advocates something diametrically opposed to the law of God, like killing people.

46:40

If you're not hearing that, and you are hearing what I'm about to play for you, could you not draw the conclusion that it's okay to vote for someone like a

46:48

Joe Biden? Ask yourself that question. I think I know what the answer is. Here's the clip. Well, just,

46:53

I don't have much time left to make people mad. So what about one issue, voting? I think one of the things that most separates white and black

47:02

Christians in America is one issue, voting. I think white Christians think this is the only moral way to approach voting.

47:11

I think they've never thought of any other thing, generally. I think a lot of our African American brothers and sisters realized like a long time ago that, well, there are going to be a bunch of different issues that are gonna be affecting us.

47:22

And I can vote for a candidate who I disagree with about some very important issues that I don't really think they're gonna get anything done on, but I agree with them on these other issues that I think are gonna help a lot of people.

47:33

Can, even if you don't adopt that thought yourself, can you allow space for that in your church as a morally legitimate argument and option?

47:44

One issue, voting. And I'm not trying to say one issue voting is illegitimate. I'm saying, I think that's clearly there is one way you can think through your vote and you can sort of champion that.

47:54

But I think a lot of white evangelicals assume that's the only morally legitimate position or only position that could be argued to have moral legitimacy.

48:02

And I would, I certainly would like to question that. Yeah, I think one of Satan's greatest successes is dividing majority minority culture

48:11

Christians politically in part through that particular issue. Because you have a party on the right who's pro -life, a party on the left who demonstrates at least more overt concern for issues concerning minorities.

48:27

And so Christians gravitate one, majority culture Christians gravitate this way, minority culture

48:32

Christians gravitate that way. Satan is psyched over the issue, right? Because he sees division in the church and we don't trust each other and you're voting for them.

48:41

Well, you must not care about justice. I don't even know if you love Jesus, right? I question your

48:47

Christianity and just rank division in the church. And again,

48:52

I think this is where we have to allow for Christian freedom and remember Romans 14 and differently calibrated consciences and the fact that we're united around the gospel and not how

49:04

I work out my decision on who or who not to vote for. So I can understand, for instance, how a person might,

49:12

I might not agree with it, but I can understand how a person might decide, well, look,

49:17

I'm pro -life, but there have been Republican pro -life, quote unquote, candidates in the

49:25

White House for the last number of decades and yet the laws haven't been overturned.

49:31

Meanwhile, I think this, let's just say, I'm thinking hypothetically, the welfare policies of these candidates has actually decreased the number of real abortions in such and such a state and actually brought the number of abortions down.

49:45

So though they are pro -choice, I think that they've actually helped the abortion issues as opposed to your

49:51

Republican candidate. I might not personally agree with that argument. I might say, well, that's wrong for reasons

49:58

X, Y, and Z. Nonetheless, I can understand how a Christian in good conscience could make that argument and therefore

50:06

I'm going to leave space for that particular option for Christians.

50:12

Unlike, now it's possible we can get to an issue, I'm gonna vote for a pro -Nazi candidate, a

50:18

Ku Klux Klan candidate, a Communist Party candidate in China. Well, I'm gonna restrict a bit more.

50:25

There are parties, there are candidates that I think are beyond the pale and it's possible we reach a place in American history where we decide that's the case for certain parties and I think some

50:36

Christians already feel that way. Nonetheless, I would say, I think we're still in a two -party system where Christians can, in good conscience, make different kinds of arguments and we need to leave space for that last comment.

50:47

Insofar as we don't, we risk, and I think we all know this, subverting

50:53

Christianity and the gospel to party identity. And how's that going for us?

50:59

Not very good, I don't think. I think one of the glorious opportunities you have if you're the pastor of a church is to build a kind of love and empathy and unity that the unbelieving world around you does not understand.

51:12

And I think in an increasingly fractured society, and I think there are economic motives behind that,

51:20

I think that they learn how to sell the base, either direction, and they milk it and they get money.

51:27

They sell data. I think there are a lot of powerful forces pulling us apart and I think the local church is on the very front lines of displaying a unity in Christ that transcends those decisions.

51:43

So you can see there, there's a bit of a superficial unity that won't allow for voting for Nazis, but will allow for voting for someone who believes in the murder of babies being legal.

51:54

And so you heard it from Mark Dever himself. I'm not blaming Mark Dever in every way for this young man who went to his church and his decision to vote for Biden for the reasons he did, but I'm just saying the logic is allowed there.

52:07

You can go to that church, you're not gonna be challenged in that. Unless Dever did a 180 and I don't know about it, and if he did, let me know, but so far

52:13

I haven't seen anything. More stuff about DC. So I was in some conservative evangelical circles, we'll just put it that way.

52:23

And one of the things I noticed, and I've said this before, I wanna say it again, I'll probably say it again in the future.

52:30

I really think in 2015, something really drastic changed, happened in America.

52:38

The right cut a deal with the left that most of you probably weren't really part of, but it was the country club types, it was the elites.

52:48

They cut a deal. And here's the deal. We're not going to fight gay marriage anymore.

52:54

And we're not going to fight on Confederate monuments. Those are the two things, you can rely on us, those subjects will never be brought up.

53:05

We're not gonna talk about them. I said this at the time,

53:11

I know others said it, when those two things happened, I think it was the same summer the decision on the

53:19

Obamacare came down as well. I was like, this is not good. With Roe v.

53:26

Wade, there was a continued fight. On these issues, there's not going to be. And I'll tell you why. Because elite

53:31

Republicans looked on the gay marriage decision, and they said, finally, we can get rid of those bigoted evangelical

53:40

Christians. They've been embarrassed by the evangelicals for a long time. And they're finally saying we can get rid of them, that this is their issue, yeah, whatever, we don't care about this issue.

53:52

We're fine with gay marriage, now we don't have to fight it anymore. Can we just say the Supreme Court passed it, it's settled now.

54:00

And you will never find Republicans fighting that anymore. Never, it won't happen.

54:05

Even in the most right -wing evangelical political conferences, you're not gonna find it anymore.

54:12

They'll talk about the importance of marriage as between a man and a woman. They'll say the Republicans value that, look at their planks on that.

54:19

They will never go back and try to like, let's say, let's pass a constitutional amendment or a law, let's fight this. It won't happen. The monument thing.

54:27

2015, you had the Confederate battle flag, which flew over a monument honoring Civil War soldiers in Columbia, South Carolina.

54:35

This gave Republicans an opportunity to say, finally, all those people who vote for us, those hick, hayseed, southern rednecks, who they don't think the war was over slavery, they think it was about the right for a state to secede, they think their great, great, great, great grandfather was just protecting his home, but they embarrass us.

54:54

They constantly embarrass us. We don't have to fight that anymore. Well, we've seen the consequence of this.

55:01

Republicans and conservatives in general, not seeing down the road five, 10 years, means all these other statues are now being targeted.

55:11

All these other areas of American history are being targeted. We see what's happening with now a pedophilia movement rising.

55:19

You don't tell me the gay marriage decision didn't have anything to do with that. You're handing them the logic they need to rip it all down.

55:26

And I said this at the time, and I said, it doesn't matter if you're a southerner, the monument thing should be important to you. It doesn't matter if you're a

55:32

Christian, this gay marriage thing should be important to you. I'm telling you, it's the wedge they'll use. It's the logic they'll use.

55:37

You hand the logic to them, it's over. Well, I saw, and this isn't to overly discourage you, but I want you to be aware that in conservative

55:46

Republican circles, this is the logic being employed now by just about everyone. And people who say it sometimes think they're being,

55:53

I don't know, they're owning the left. You can do this and point out hypocrisy, but you must be very careful.

56:00

So the new left critique that America's now a crummy place, America's terrible, it's just racist, it's sexist, it's homophobic, it's just, depending on the flavor of the month,

56:09

America's bad for another reason, where consumers were killing the climate, we're warmongers, that's

56:15

America. What Republicans have gotten in the habit of doing now is they say, well, that's not true about America, but it is true about the

56:25

Democratic Party. So they accept the full critique, but then they just blame the Democrats for it. Democrats are the ones that are the real racists.

56:32

And then they go through a cherry -picked history of the Democratic Party to try to prove it. Now you can find, certainly you can find things in the

56:37

Democratic Party that are racist. Problem is, you can find a lot of things in the Republican Party that are racist, too. And I don't typically go over them.

56:44

I've mentioned them before. I don't wanna, I haven't gotten to the point where I'm, said, I'm gonna do a whole episode on the origins of the

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Republican Party and how they wanted free white labor in the West and they were the ones that put the American Indians on the reservations and they were the ones involved in colonialism during the

56:59

Spanish -American War and the takeover of Hawaii. And, you know, the list goes on. I don't wanna,

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I haven't wanted to do that episode yet. But here's the problem. The Democrats know how to do that.

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And the Democrats don't care about their history because they're revolutionaries. They're fully committed to throwing the heroes of their party under the bus.

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Look at Andrew Jackson. Look at Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, you wanna go after Democrats, you're gonna have to, roots go back to Jefferson, so good luck with that.

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They had the Jefferson -Jackson dinner. They don't do that anymore. Those are pariahs. You can't talk about those guys. Now, they still honor

57:37

Margaret Sanger, still honor MLK Jr., but they are, there are new heroes rising up in the ranks of the

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Democratic Party and they will, they'll throw their past under the bus. Republicans value their past, so they don't wanna throw it under the bus and they think the

57:51

Democrats value it too and so it's owning the Democrats when you blame them. It's not. I'm just telling you, it is not.

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You can, the only thing it does is it points out their hypocrisy. But we're not gonna win this political fight by pointing out their hypocrisy.

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We need to make arguments from first principles. Why is a monument or any history, it's not even, it's past monuments now.

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Why is the history of our country important and the things that are true and valuable in that history, why are those important to emphasize, to train children in, why?

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Answer that question. Why is it important to maintain marriages between a man and a woman for our civilization, why?

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Answer that question, argue for it. This is my whole thing. If we don't do that,

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I think we're sunk. I really do believe that. There's gonna have to be another party that comes up that's willing to make arguments from first principles.

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There's gonna, we're becoming untethered more and more from the actual principles of the founding of the country.

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And it's becoming an identity politics now on both sides. And there's other things

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I can point out that I'm not going to, I may in the future. There's other things I noticed over the weekend that clued me into conservatives are now playing identity politics.

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We can't do it guys, cannot do it. We have got to be stronger than this.

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So that's a warning, I guess. But look, if you're gonna talk about, let me just give you an example.

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If you're gonna talk about pro -life and the right of the child to live, to not be murdered, then there's no reason to bring up the

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Democrats are racists. Now you could bring it up depending on the conversation to point out hypocrisy, I get that.

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But talk about the life in the womb, talk about why life matters. Don't try to just vilify the other side based on a standard, based on their own standard.

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Talk about why murder is wrong. If you're talking about gun rights, like we had this thing in Virginia, this big march.

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People are trying to make out that Ralph Northam is this KKK guy. That's not the reason you're marching.

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The reason you're marching is because you care about being able to defend yourself and your family and your state. Talk about that.

01:00:05

Talk about first principles, guys. All right, I've said enough about that. It was encouraging though, positive note.

01:00:11

It was encouraging. I did run into some brothers that just, they see it, they wanna do the right thing and so anyway,

01:00:21

I was blessed to have some good conversations there and wanted to highlight that as well.

01:00:27

I wanna play for you something more encouraging than all that. Some clips I was sent about, from John MacArthur last

01:00:34

Sunday night and I'm gonna leave you with this. These are some clips that he said, things he said about critical race theory and just so you know that there is someone fighting out there and here it is.

01:00:43

Critical race theory, white privilege, all of that says this, we come into the world as human beings with no immutable characteristics.

01:00:54

We aren't created in the image of God because we aren't created, we're just evolution. So we come in as a blank slate.

01:01:01

We don't have any innate characteristics or immutable characteristics, even gender is not immutable.

01:01:08

So, a kid who's born needs to make a decision.

01:01:14

Does he wanna be a boy, does he wanna be a girl? Whatever gender and I was reading about a mother who was trying to make sure she didn't let the white male patriarchy stamp her baby girl with female gender, she wanted her baby girl to make her own mind up on what gender she wanna be.

01:01:35

So, she gave the baby trucks one day and dolls the next day and then trucks the next week and then dolls the next week and according to the story she came back one day and the dresses were on the truck.

01:01:53

So, it is a perfect illustration of what the kid is gonna end up being if you do that because you're basically crushing reality and substituting it with insanity.

01:02:07

But why do that? You do that so that you can say I'm not responsible for anything that's wrong with me.

01:02:16

I'm not responsible. The white patriarchy, this systemic racist patriarchy that's run this culture for so long has left its stamp on me and this unconscious racism, this systemic racism that's in the ground water of this kind of patriarchy is responsible for all this.

01:02:46

So, that's why the strategy is loot, burglary, burn, smash, destroy because they wanna take it back down to bare bones again and start all over with a new patriarchy that disenfranchised people will take over and they'll be the new patriarchy that will leave their stamp on the next civilization.

01:03:09

Some of the things in my life, obviously, some of the deprivation, some of the things came from my past but God holds me responsible for all those kind of persons and that's, right,

01:03:22

Ezekiel 18, the sins of the fathers are not punished in the children.

01:03:28

They're visited on third and fourth generation because the corrupt generation is gonna leave the corruption that goes in that's any other than their fault and that was why when

01:03:40

I first started talking about this, I started with Ezekiel 18 because if you turn people into victims, how do you then make them responsible as sinners?

01:03:49

If I'm the victim, if I only am what I am because of what you did to me, then it's not my fault and I don't like what you did to me so I'm gonna burn down your society,

01:03:58

I'm gonna burn down your stuff, I'm gonna smash the windows in your store, I'm gonna do everything I can to break everything to pieces because you victimized me.

01:04:10

This is the noble thing to do is to crush this systemic kind of attitude.

01:04:16

The bottom line question in systemic racism is what that are against any ethnic group.

01:04:27

There are no ethnically designed laws in America. Was there a time in the past when there were?

01:04:33

Absolutely, they were horrendous. You know my story of being in Mississippi in the years of segregation and marches and all, first time

01:04:44

I got like that. But this is a different country.

01:04:52

Look, we have a hard skin running for vice president.

01:05:01

There's a state, people in all kinds of, there's nothing in this culture that legally limits anybody based on race so this isn't about that.

01:05:14

What they want to say is that we are all victims of this reality that we came in clean and pure and you messed with us.

01:05:32

It's a very dangerous kind of thing. Well I sure am thankful for Dr. MacArthur, I hope you are too.

01:05:38

We don't have a lot of men saying those things that have platforms and that makes me have even more respect for him.

01:05:45

He's absolutely right and everything he said was absolutely right. Critical race theory assumes that it is society and the power relationships in society and so forth that do the corrupting work and it is antithetical to the morality of Christianity.

01:06:02

There was a time, sure enough, in the past of this country where segregation laws were in place, that was wrong and we thank the

01:06:10

Lord that we don't have those laws anymore. Unfortunately we have laws now or decisions now that legalize things like homosexual marriage and abortion and frankly the immorality that comes in on our television screen

01:06:25

I think most people from eras past would be horrified by but in that area we have made significant progress in this country and John MacArthur is exactly right to use that as a wedge to try to condemn people, divide people, guilt people, rip down the culture that exists and the society and the social laws that exist that are fundamental to the society.

01:06:54

This is not something that Christians can be involved with at all. This is something that's absolutely antithetical and it should be condemned in the strongest terms and I'm very thankful that John MacArthur's doing that so let's pray that others start doing the same thing that have platforms.