Steve Lawson on Social Justice

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:13

My name is John Harris. This is going to be a quick podcast, but an encouraging one.

00:19

I want to let you know I stumbled on a video the other day from Brother Steve Lawson, Pastor Lawson, who has not always been, from my listening, as clear and aggressive, we'll say, about this topic of social justice.

00:35

In fact, I think a lot of people have wondered, where does he exactly line up on this? And I know

00:41

I'm not alone in wondering sometimes, am I alone? Who else is focusing on this?

00:51

Who else sees it for what it is? And then the Lord reminds you that there's 7 ,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

00:58

And we praise God for that. We thank God for that. It still sometimes feels like those with platforming and position and authority and power are ignoring this.

01:10

They don't see it. And I want to show you something that encouraged me.

01:16

Steve Lawson sees it. And he's probably seen it for a while, but he sees it. He's not ignorant about this.

01:22

And this was at a Bible study. This isn't something that got a lot of views, but I want to give it some views.

01:28

I want you to see. This is what Brother Steve Lawson said June of 2021, so about seven months ago.

01:34

Here it is. Can you speak to the current social justice gospel that's being taught from the pulpits and all these churches, parachurches and seminaries?

01:46

Can you speak to that? Yeah, well, obviously I need three hours to speak to that.

01:54

Even I don't have three hours. There's only one gospel, and that's the one true saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

02:02

And social justice has nothing to do with the one true gospel. There is no justice except true justice, divine justice.

02:14

There's not social justice as some subcategory. So, I'll say that up front.

02:22

I think it's a diversion. I understand what some well -meaning people are intending by it, that the sin of prejudice should be repented of, and I totally agree with that.

02:38

But social justice taken to its logical conclusion is anarchy in the streets and the destruction of property and the tearing down of authority and establishment, and that's of the devil.

02:54

So, just to call a spade a spade, it's of the devil. Do we want justice to permeate society?

03:03

And the answer to that would be yes. It begins in the courts and the laws of jurisprudence that are put in the court system.

03:16

And Lady Justice has blindfolds on as she is holding the scales, meaning that there is to be no partiality in the execution of the law.

03:28

It doesn't matter if you're white, yellow, red, purple, whatever, and it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, old or young.

03:37

Across the board is to be impartial administering of justice.

03:42

Well, we left that so long ago. I mean, we left that 50 years ago, 60 years ago. I mean, we left that when we legalized abortion.

03:55

I mean, we left that when we took the death penalty off many states' books.

04:02

I mean, we left that when there was not stiff punishment for heinous crimes.

04:09

So, I mean, we passed that so long ago, and now we want to defund the police.

04:18

We want to attack the police. We want to shoot the police. I'm telling you, that is some of the darkest, evilest rhetoric you can imagine.

04:29

That is belched out of the pit of hell, and I use my words carefully.

04:38

So, all the stuff that's going on now and the propaganda of the media, it just shows how naive people are.

04:46

I mean, we just talked about it today, the undiscerning and how gullible people are.

04:54

I mean, how do you think Hitler came to power? I mean, it's just through propaganda in the media. We live in a country that is not taught truth, and so it is so susceptible to lies and errors.

05:12

And if you speak the truth, you just sound like you're a madman or something.

05:18

Well, that's how far away from the truth we have gone.

05:24

So, Kent, thank you for putting the hand grenade out for me to pull the pin. And obviously, there are so many more things

05:32

I do want to underscore. I mean, we are all about loving our neighbor. We are all about condemning prejudice and the evil that is behind prejudice, and America has had it to its nostrils.

05:52

And I lay the blame at pulpits for not preaching the

05:58

Word of God and for there to be no fear of God. When you remove fear of God even from a society, and you remove the

06:08

Ten Commandments from a society, it's like the last verse in the book of Judges, every man doing what's right in his own eyes.

06:16

I mean, this is going to be the wild, wild west again, and vigilante parties. And I mean,

06:21

I go to South Africa and preach there, and I mean, there are ten -foot walls around every house with barbed wire on top of that, and you can't get in without a laser detector on your eye.

06:33

And this is just like a normal house because there is so much unrest.

06:39

I mean, that's where this thing is headed because we haven't given real justice and true justice in the execution of the law.

06:49

And we've put judges who legislate from the bench rather than actually execute the law that has been put in place.

07:00

There have been checks and balances, and even that can be traced back to the Reformation and the establishment of checks and balances knowing the depravity of men's hearts, that if you put all the authority in one person or in one group, they're going to abuse that power.

07:19

So, there is checks and balances put in, the executive, the judicial, the administrative or the legislative, such that it's a check on depravity.

07:32

But when you begin to legislate from the bench and on and on and on and on, you have a society in chaos, and chaos is the kindest way to put it.

07:44

You just have rebellion and anarchy in the streets. And so now, I mean, now we've got…

07:51

I mean, you don't even know if you're a man or a woman. I mean, what kind of reprobate mind is that?

08:00

Just look in the mirror. I'll tell you, you can know what you are.

08:08

So, I mean, the social justice thing just opens a whole broad discussion, but it's like a clock that doesn't even run.

08:18

It's right twice a day. Well, big deal. Yeah, there are a few planks in there that would be right, but it's the other 11 hours and 59 minutes that violates the

08:39

Word of God. Now, I hope that was encouraging. My encouragement for Steve Lawson is to keep going in this direction, to be consistent, to name names.

08:51

Don't be afraid to do that, to name names of people who are misleading the flock.

08:58

You can hear the passion in his voice. You can hear how upset he is about this. And one of the things

09:04

I think is so necessary, and we're years beyond the point of when this should have happened, but better late than never, we really need strong men who are preachers to start telling the sheep who the wolves are.

09:17

Because a lot of the sheep, they'll listen to a good preacher, they'll listen to a bad preacher, and they just don't put the two and two together.

09:25

And it's important. That's why Paul so often would name names. Jesus, even when he didn't name names, it was like the false teachers were right in front of him.

09:35

He'd say, he'd look at them. They're right there, guys. Those are the ones that are deceiving you.

09:42

Don't eat the bread of the scribes and Pharisees. And everyone knew who he was talking about.

09:48

And I will submit that there's still a lot of people who, when Steve Lawson says something like this, they don't know who he's talking about.

09:54

I do. People who have been paying attention do, but most people aren't paying attention. And this is my encouragement is, you know, great job,

10:03

Dr. Lawson. I'm so glad that she decided to take a step towards shining a light on this problem.

10:11

But, you know, shine the light even brighter. There's so many of us that would have your back on this.

10:17

More importantly, the Lord does. But we would be so overjoyed to just to see you name some of these names, to talk about it in, you know, to really act like it's as important as it sounded, you know, in that clip.

10:33

Because it is important. Someone sent me this this morning. This is a book by Paul David Schripp called

10:40

Do You Believe? And it came out last October. So a few months after Steve Lawson said what he did at that meeting.

10:47

And I'm disappointed to tell you that Steve Lawson actually endorsed this book. He actually says it's an important book.

10:55

Paul Tripp puts his finger on a live nerve in the body of Christ. He addresses the dangerous disconnect that often exists between sound doctrine and sound living.

11:03

And he goes on, Tripp sounds the needed alarm, that knowing truth is never an end in and of itself.

11:09

But here's the thing. Paul Tripp is the dangerous disconnect. Paul Tripp divides the gospel up and says there's the gospel of God's justice and the gospel of God's grace.

11:18

And they're two different things. Paul Tripp attends Epiphany Fellowship, where a heretic, Eric Mason, preaches.

11:24

I've gone over his book. You can go back and watch the episode I did on Woke Church. Paul Tripp has hardly any discernment in this area.

11:33

None, really. I mean, he's on the side of the false teaching. And you got Steve Lawson endorsing this book.

11:39

And this book, I'm not saying the book is false teaching. I haven't read it. I'm just saying it's pretty known. I would be shocked if Steve Lawson didn't know.

11:45

Maybe he doesn't. But it's pretty known that Paul Tripp is on the wrong side of what

11:51

Steve Lawson showed he was so passionate about in the clip I played for you earlier. And so these are the kinds of things,

11:58

I mean, this is something that someone sent me because, you know, they were confused by it. And so I'm not bringing this up to beat up on Steve Lawson.

12:05

I'm bringing this up to encourage Steve Lawson that, look, your words, your endorsements, all these things really do matter.

12:12

People listen to it and they get confused. And I get people emailing me asking me questions about these things.

12:18

And I have to tell them the truth about Paul David Tripp. And it would just be more helpful,

12:26

I think, to the body of Christ to not just in the abstract go after these false ideas, but to talk about the people that are actually pushing them.

12:35

Don't be afraid to name the name Paul David Tripp and his pastor, Eric Mason, and, you know, the people who endorsed that book, like Lincoln Duncan.

12:44

I mean, I know some of these guys, maybe, you know, they've been ministry partners for years or something, but it doesn't really matter.

12:51

They're pushing pagan ideas, false ideas, ideas that Steve Lawson has shown that, you know, he sees and he knows are wrong.

13:02

And so my encouragement is to not be afraid, to trust the Lord. I'll have your back.

13:07

I know a lot of people will. Not that that's a huge comfort, but they're the true children of God who care about truth.

13:14

They're going to have your back, Dr. Lawson. Don't be afraid to take it further. You've said some really good things in that Bible study you did on Romans.

13:26

And just keep it going. Start naming the names. Don't be afraid to be as aggressive as it seemed like you felt in that moment.

13:34

That would be my encouragement for Steve Lawson and people like him. I know there's a lot of people out there like him who just won't say things.

13:45

They have the hesitancy, but they can see things. And it doesn't help the body of Christ if you can see it, and maybe you talk about it in very esoteric or abstract terms, but you don't say it.

13:56

I know this sounds more like a corrective, I guess, at the end of this, and it wasn't meant to. Honest, my whole intention is, let's encourage guys like Steve Lawson.

14:08

When they say something right, let's message them. Let's send them a letter, whatever, and just say, thank you so much for speaking the truth.

14:17

Please don't be afraid to name the names. I'll have your back. Don't feel like you need to go endorse books from these people or to be part of that whole industry for your own ministry's sake or something.

14:34

You don't need that. The Lord's will provide for you. I've seen it, and I think if we have more people that show true courage, step out a little bit, but then, you know what, the water's good.

14:46

I'm going to keep going. I'm going to jump right out there. I'm going to say the truth. And I'm going to say it specifically, and I'm going to make sure that there is no question as to who

14:56

I'm talking about, because I want the sheep to be warned about the wolves. That's what we need. And I think Steve Lawson, he could just be right there.

15:04

I can see it. He's right just a little bit more. Just, you know, just kind of fill in the details and make specific who would be characterized by the description he gives of social justice teaching in the church.

15:20

You know, just say who it is, and I think we're there. And I think there's a lot of preachers who would follow that kind of an example.

15:30

So I just wanted to throw that out there. I hope that was helpful for some of you and encouraging in some ways. There's people who see this that you may not have heard the clip, but they do see it.

15:40

And we just need more men of courage. So anyway, God bless, and until next time, bye now.