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#NoDespair2020
All right, well let's jump right into it today. If you remember, we left off, he had just read that passage from Numbers and I don't know, I think he had a moment of clarity where he realized he's in trouble because he's gotta preach a sermon that has nothing to do with the passages that he's bringing up.
He had that really weird pause in between the words individual and he has wronged. And when you talk about reparations the way people talk about it today, it's not about the individual who has done the wrong and the individuals that that person wronged.
It's actually about generations and all this kind of stuff. So let's see how he connects this because I don't even think he'll attempt to connect this because there is no way to do it, in my opinion. You know, I'm not stupid enough to say there is no way but in my opinion, it doesn't seem like there's a way to connect, you know, charging an individual who has done wrong to write the wrongs he did to other individuals and reparations.
I don't think there's a way to do that but let's see if he even tries.
And so restitution thinks that way. It doesn't think through how do I survive? No, your survival has been based on what you took for them for them not to survive. So therefore restitution has to involve.
How can we at the best of our ability remove the generational obstacles that have been put in place?
And we'll talk about both. Notice restitution has nothing to do with that. Generational opportunity, generational stuff like that. He's just making statements that the scriptures that he's brought up have not actually defended at all.
Cause he's talking, remember, he's talking about Zacchaeus who goes to find the people that he extorted to give them four times as much, right? That's what he's doing. And then he also brought up the passage from numbers that said, you know, the individual who did the wrong pays back plus 20 those that he wronged.
So both of those are about the people that actually experienced the wrong. And he's telling you that the heart of reparations you look at where the generations would have been and you give them to catch them up to where they would have been.
See, that statement is completely disconnected from the passages that he brought up. This is not how we preach, right? This is not how we preach. That's not what restitution says. That's what Dr. Eric Mason says.
But if you're not listening carefully, you might think the numbers passage did say that. No, it didn't. No, it didn't. That's not how we do hermeneutics. That's not how we do exegesis. That's not how we do, that's not how we read, right?
That's not how we read. And so this is very interesting because he's making these claims about restitution and he's using Bible verses, but actually he's twisting and abusing Bible verses. Sure, the Bible can say anything you want so long as you're willing to abuse it.
So long as you're willing to add stuff to it that it doesn't say. And, you know, this is very, this is a very tough spot to be in Eric Mason because he's at a pulpit pretending to speak for God and he's speaking for himself.
And that's a very dangerous thing to do. That's a very dangerous thing to do. Look, God forbid that I ever do that myself. And if he does, I'm covered and God just stop me. Let people forget the things that I say that you didn't say, right?
But the thing is like, this is from a pulpit and he's gotta know that he's not saying the right thing here. But let's continue to see if he tries to connect it.
Obstacles. But let's finish here with this passage. So to make restitution is to make payment to someone for a loss incurred for which one is responsible. He can't help it.
He can't help it. Do you see how disconnected and confused this is? He cannot help but say what restitution really is. Pay back someone for something that you are responsible for. He can't help it because that is what restitution is and he knows it.
So how is it all of a sudden multi-generational orthopraxical, you know, all this stuff? He knows that's not it because every time he goes back to the definitions, it always reverts back to the person who's making restitution is the one who did the wrong and he's making restitution to the ones that he wronged.
He can't help but say it that way because that's the truth. I think there's hope for Dr. Eric Mason here because he sees the truth and he keeps speaking it. He can't help it because all the Bible passages talk about it this way and all his definitions talk about it this way and he's trying to ham fist reparations into it and it doesn't work.
Pastor Eric Mason, it doesn't work.
I like, I like Proverbs 14, nine. It says, fools, listen to this verse. I didn't even know this was in the Bible. This was crazy about this. It says, fools mock at reparation, but there is goodwill among the upright.
In other words, giving reparations is a sign of being upright and righteous. Look at Exodus 22, 12. It says, but if in fact an animal was stolen from his custody, he must make restitution for the owner.
Again, notice this is all,.
Every Bible passage is gonna talk about it in this way. When it talks about justice, you know, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about biblical justice. It's talking about the one who stole and the one it was stolen from every time.
And the thing is like, so where, how do we go forward from here? I agree, restitution is biblical. Every Christian believes that restitution is biblical, but what does that have to do with reparations for black people in America today?
What does that have to do with it? I mean, you've got some heavy lifting to do here. We're, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes into your sermon. You haven't even begun to do the heavy lifting. What's it gonna be, Eric?
Are you just gonna continue to preach yourself? Are you just gonna continue to preach your opinions or are you gonna actually try to connect this somehow? Because every verse that you brought up, including the jump off point, Zacchaeus, has nothing to do with reparations for blacks.
You can't even find principles there. The principles all apply to individuals. It's not how we do hermeneutics, man. This is not how we preach.
These are verses on restitution in the Bible. You can look at Ezra 1 .14, look at what happened.
Now, I named my son Ezra because I love Ezra. So I can't wait to see what he has to say about the book of Ezra, which I love. Some of you are saying, well, that's individual restitution.
If I did something to somebody, I understand paying restitution. Well, you have Exodus, you have Exodus 12 .35, and you also have Ezra 1 .4 that shows us experiencing, so the people of God experiencing generational restitution.
So look at what it says in Ezra 1 .4. It says, let every survivor, but this is when the children of Israel are coming out of Neo-Persia. It says, let every survivor, wherever he resides, and this is stuff that they did.
They got themselves in this.
Listen to this. He can't help it. He can't help it because he does want to read the text. There's an air of conservatism to him. He wants to read the text, but he can't help but bring examples of individuals.
Let every survivor, it's the first words of the passage he read. Let every survivor, these are current people, people that are surviving, people that are leaving. There's so much to this. Let's let him finish, and we'll talk about the problems here.
Captivity, but still they, even though they got themselves into this captivity, black people didn't get themselves into slavery. In America, they were stolen, but Israelites got themselves into captivity because of their idolatry and sin.
But I guess black people in Africa.
Weren't committing idolatry and sin. I mean, it kind of seems like what he's saying here. The Israelites were committed idolatry, so they were put into slavery. I guess the black people were all of them.
Every one of them that came from Africa, they were completely faithful Christians of the most true stripe, every one of them. None of them had committed idolatry, none. Look, they still got See how you weave a narrative like this?
It's just not true. But let's just believe it. Okay, let's just say it's true. Every black that came from Africa in the slave trade, none of them were idolaters. They were all Christians. And let's just go with it, because actually it doesn't really matter to the point.
Preparations because of the time they were in.
Look what it says. It says, let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted, listen to this, by the men of that region with silver, hallelujah, gold, hallelujah, goods, hallelujah, and livestock, I feel God right there, along with a freewill offering.
They talking about stacks.
You see what gets this guy going, what revs his engine? Gold, silver, goods, livestock, freewill offering. Look how happy he is.
This guy wants stacks. They give the people of God drip coming out of there. Drip. It was dripology coming out. Drip is like when you have nice shoes,.
Nice clothes and stuff like that, you got drip. Out of the ministry, right?
And so it says here, it's a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem. So let's go back to this passage,.
Because again, he can't help it. Let every survivor, wherever he resides, he's talking about individuals yet again. And these are survivors. So these are people that experienced the extortion, experienced the trouble, experienced it.
They're survivors. They went through it, right? This is not Eric Mason in 2020 who didn't go through it. Eric Mason was never a slave. Eric Mason was never a sharecropper. Eric Mason didn't work for free, unless he had like an internship of some kind, which, you know, whatever.
You see, like, he can't help it. He's not gonna ever do the work. Let's just, because he can't. He knows he can't. He can't do the work to try to connect this to the situation today. He can't. Every example is gonna be like this, where it's like a survivor.
The word survivor, it has so much in it. This is someone who went through it. Be assisted by the men of that region, okay? The people that were perpetrating it, theoretically. But it doesn't even matter.
That's actually a side issue anyway. We're gonna talk about this in just a minute.
Let's let him finish. Right? And so it says here, it says free will offering for the house of God in Jerusalem. So notice the free will offering is for the house of God, but the silver, the gold, the goods, and the livestock are for the people.
That's right, because every offense is an offense. Every offense against a person is an offense against that person, but also an offense to God, right? So if you steal from a person, yes, you've wronged that person.
You must make restitution to that person, but you've also wronged God. And it's an offense to God. David knew this. That's why there's a Psalm about this exact idea. Against you, you only have I sinned, right?
So that's a good point.
This is for, they knew that when they sent them back to their land that they had nothing. And so it would be unjust to send them back to their land without anything to be able to begin to build their own independent economy.
That's what I love about this, is they set them up to build their own independent economy.
Look at this. Look at how excited he is. But think about this for a second. So they were being sent back to their land with silver, gold, goods, and livestock. Is Eric Mason advocating being sent back to Africa?
You might laugh. You might laugh, but this is an idea that's been around for a very long time. Abraham Lincoln wanted to send the blacks back to Africa. He wanted to release them from slavery, but send them back.
Richard Spencer, actually. Everyone's surprised he's coming out and endorsed Biden. I'm not surprised. Richard Spencer has been a socialist the entire time. And one of his big ideas to create the white ethnostate is to pay African Americans to go back to Africa to pay them.
So you send them with stacks. You know, you see, this is why I've always said like the woke church and the alt-right movement, it's two sides of the same coin. Like black power, black bourgeoisie, black nationalists, like Eric Mason, they're very similar to white nationalists, you know?
They like the idea of separate but equal kind of stuff. Like Eric Mason, he likes the separate economy. He wants a separate economy. He wants a black church. He wants, like, he's very similar to Richard Spencer.
Is he advocating to be sent back to Africa? Go back to your land? Is that what he's saying? Because I'm not for that. I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying he's for it, but it certainly sounds like he's using this book of Ezra.
See, this is the thing. Like, if you're gonna use the book of Ezra, you're gonna use it all the way, right? I guess pay people to go back to their land. Is that what he's saying here? Because this is an idea that's floating around right now.
Richard Spencer's into it. Abraham Lincoln's been into it. You get a lot of people, a lot of woke people that love the idea of segregation. But they want stacks though. They want money. They want some of that drip.
I'm not for that. I'm wondering if he's for that. But look how excited he's getting. Look how excited he is about this.
And so it's because they knew that they were gonna need to do that so that they wouldn't be long-term dependent on them. The reason why there've been so many challenges in America is because people are talking about welfare and all that.
First of all, welfare and social security was created for white people, but we're quote-unquote benefiting off of it. But there's nothing that's been done in this country comprehensively as a system beyond a handout versus a hand up to help there to be economic independence among black people.
That is why even the community that we're in, I'm not gonna do a panoramic view, but if you could see where I'm standing, I'm standing at ground zero of brokenness. I'm standing at ground zero of what challenges have happened.
Yeah, well, I've been to ground zero of brokenness as well. You might not know old AD, but old AD lived in the city. Old AD's parents are from the Bronx. I've hung out in the Bronx before. I've hung out in Queens.
I've hung out in places that look very similar to this. Not in Philadelphia. I'm scared of Philadelphia. But New York, but New York, no, just kidding. Yeah, man, I know it's broken, right? And welfare is very responsible for this kind of thing.
It definitely is. But how is like, is reparations gonna magically not do the same thing that welfare's doing? He's trying to pretend like welfare's for white people, social security's for white people, even though if you're black, you get both of those things.
He's trying to make this false narrative, right, where blacks haven't benefited from these ridiculous systems. And I don't think they actually have, but they have gotten the stacks. They got the stacks.
They got the cash. They got the drip. On what planet would you say, well, okay, so if we give you cash, but we call it reparations, that's somehow gonna be different than the cash you get that we call welfare.
It's just ridiculous. But the thing is, let's just go into this from Ezra for a second, because like, okay, the Israelites got stacks, right? They got stacks. And listen, if God wants to pay the ancestors of slaves for the wrongs that they suffered, that's God's prerogative, right?
God can do that. God, and the Israelites plundered the Egyptians, right? That was a miracle from God that the Egyptians showered them with gifts, because people don't just do that randomly. And in fact, in this book with Ezra, like Cyrus didn't just like magically have like a nice heart.
You know what I mean? Like he didn't just grow up apart from God, have a great heart to give people goods and services. No, that was a miracle from God. People don't just give you cash, right? That's not how it happens.
That comes directly from the hands of your creator, right? So if God wanted to do that, and if God wants to give blacks restitution, I'm sorry, reparations in the United States in 2020, or 2021, or 2025, or 2030, or whenever he wants to do it, he'll do it.
He'll do it. But you see the thing is like, it doesn't mean that it's actually gonna be like just for us to do it, right? Like just because God's prerogative is what God's prerogative is, doesn't mean that we should be engaging in this kind of stuff, because God's law is very specific.
And every passage that Eric Mason has read has said that the individual who's done the wrong pays the ones that he's wronged, has nothing to do with reparations today. But you see, God can do things differently, right?
Because God can come in with Nebuchadnezzar and judge Israel, right? Take over the land, pillage, and sack Jerusalem. And God can send them as an instrument of his wrath to punish their idolatry, right?
Kind of like how he did in Africa, right? The idolatry of the Africans and the fact that they went into captivity, that was God's wrath, right? God's wrath. Kind of similar to how white land in South Africa being taken from white, that's God's wrath.
That's the wrath of God being revealed, right? I have no shame in saying that because I'm a Calvinist and I understand God can use secondary causes and means and things like that. It's an instrument of God's wrath.
When this kind of calamity happens, is it not the Lord? Is it not the Lord? And so God can do that, right? God can do that, but it doesn't mean that Nebuchadnezzar was right to come and sack Israel, right?
Like it doesn't mean that when he came and destroyed cities and towns and killed people and brought people into captivity, that doesn't mean that he was right. In fact, the prophets say that he sends these nations to judge Israel in his wrath, in judgment, and then he punishes the nations for doing it with a wrong heart, right?
So God's prerogative, his providence in the world, it's very different than what we do with individuals, right? So if blacks got reparations, I would say that that was God who did that, right? I'll take my stacks.
I'll take my stacks. I identify as black after all. But that doesn't mean it was right to do. You understand what I'm saying? Like we have to understand God's will and our requirements and our justice.
We have to understand those in their proper categories, right? So like the book of Ezra describing what happened here, does that mean that that was the right thing to do? That's what we should do? Well, there's one way to test that.
Look at the law of God. What does the law of God say you should do? If these are freewill offerings, fine. They're in the freewill offering. There's nothing wrong with that. But just because God put it in Cyrus's heart to give stacks to the Israelites as he sent them back to their land, does that mean that the law allows a governor, a civil governing authority to just take money from people and to give stacks out to other people?
Is that something that's allowed? I think you can search the Old Testament law. I think you can search the general equity of the Old Testament law rather. And you'll see very easily that no, that's actually not the right thing to do.
That's not the right thing to do. In fact, every passage that Eric Mason has used here to try to springboard off into talking what he wants to talk about, it fails. It absolutely fails. Anyway, we're hitting about the 20 minute mark here.
I think this video has gone on long enough. Hope you found this one helpful. God bless.
