Session 4: The Problem is Enmity, Not Ethnicity with Darrell Harrison - 2022 Equipping Conference

Messy's was always a good choice so if you didn't buy a ticket you really lost out. Sorry to hear it.

Would you please stand as we sing How Firm a Foundation. How firm a foundation ye saints of the

Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

What more can he say that to you he hath said to you who for refuge

Jesus hath fled? Fear not

I am with thee, O be not dismayed for I am thy

God and will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, health thee, and cause thee to stand upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie my graceful sufficiency shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not hurt thee I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose

I will not, I will not desert to his foes.

The soul though all hell should endeavor to shake

I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

I once was lost in darkest night yet thought

I knew the way the sin that promised joy and life had led me to the grave.

I had no hope that you would hold a rebel to your will and if you had not loved me first I would refuse you still.

But as I ran my hell -bound race indifferent to the cost you looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross and I beheld

God's love display you suffered in my place you bore the wrath reserved for me now all

I know is grace.

Hallelujah, all I have is

Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my light.

Hallelujah, all

I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my light.

Lord, I would be yours alone and live so almighty.

The strength to follow your commands could never come from me.

O Father, use my ransomed life in any way you choose and let my song forever be my only ghost is you.

Hallelujah, all I have is

Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my light.

Hallelujah, all I have is

Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my light.

Hallelujah, all I have is

Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.

You may be seated. I will.

Can we, it says, build black better. Thanks, Jim.

How am I going to get through this message with that thing staring at me? You guys are champs for hanging in here today.

We've come with some really heavy stuff and y 'all are hanging in there with us so we appreciate that.

I want to talk to you this evening, I've taught this message, the problem is enmity not ethnicity. The problem is enmity not ethnicity because I can't do it, man.

I'll stop laughing any minute. The problem is enmity not ethnicity and I'm going to be speaking to you from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 14 through 16.

I'm going to be reading that passage from the New American Standard Bible translation or as those of you who are familiar with the

Just Thinking Podcast, the non -Armenian Standard Bible translation. Ephesians 2 verses 14 through 16.

For he himself is our peace who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so that in himself he might make the two into one new man thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross by it having put to death that is by the cross having put to death the enmity, enmity.

It's a word that has all but disappeared from our contemporary lexicon, I mean think about it. When was the last time you used the word enmity or heard someone else use that word in a conversation?

Exactly. But despite its rare usage today enmity is a word that carries significant weight and importance particularly when considered within the context of scripture.

By the way speaking of context I want to say at the outset of this message that I am rather dogmatic that when

Christians engage in apologetics that is when we engage the culture in a defense of the truths of the gospel it is critically important that we begin that defense by defining our terms biblically.

Now every Christian in this room is an apologist the only question that remains is whether you're a good apologist or a bad one but every one of us is an apologist that's 1st

Peter 3 15. Now I sort of emphasize the importance of defining our terms biblically because words have meaning, words have meaning and it is the meaning of words which for better or worse establish the context for our apologetics.

By not defining our terms biblically we risk engaging the world using the world's terms on the world's turf.

Consequently we run the risk of ceding the moral ethical and more importantly the theological high ground to an unbelieving culture and end up losing the argument altogether.

As Christians to not stand on a solid biblical foundation as it relates to biblically defining the terms we use that opens the door to pluralism.

Pluralism is the idea that all beliefs are equally valid and that's exactly what the culture is trying to tell you today.

As D .A. Carson declares in his book titled The Gagging of God subtitled Christianity Confronts Pluralism quote entire vision of reality is at stake let me pause here by the way that's why you're here that's why you're here at this conference is because there is an entire vision of reality that is at stake that's exactly why you're here.

Quoting Carson one thing is very clear it is quite impossible to be a Christian in any responsible use of that term and be a pluralist.

The pluralist will explain the Christian and will doubtless conclude that the

Christian is too tightly bound by tradition naive in the area of epistemology intolerant of other views and so forth.

All those things are happening by the way. If you're not being accused if you're not experiencing one of these accusations or more of them that is you're being accused of being too tightly bound by tradition you're naive of what's going on in the culture you're intolerant of other views if you're not being accused of any of those things you're living in some kind of bubble that you need to burst and get out of.

Continuing to quote D .A. Carson he says pluralists are inconsistent and that they want to be understood univocally while insisting that ancient authors let alone

God himself cannot be understood univocally. So you're getting me pause here and say again what you're getting is even with the evangelicalism you've got people like Tim Keller and others like that trying to argue well nobody can really understand what the scripture means you know none of us is

God. So they're coming at us now saying well

God can't be understood how do you know I mean even as Virgil and I and you have

Jim here who's not just an expositor of us he's an exegete you can tell a person what a word or verse means in the original

Hebrew or Greek language and they'll say yeah but how do you know how do you know that? So it's a circular questioning always trying to deconstruct what we know and how we know it even when it comes to scripture.

That's what Carson is saying here that the pluralists are inconsistent and that they would argue that they want to be understood with one voice but there's while insisting that the original authors let alone

God himself cannot be understood with one voice. Carson says they may have many religious experiences but none of them deals with the heart of the human problem the sin that is so deeply a part of our nature.

Let me stop here again I'm going to get through this quote I promise you I will. See what

I run into many times and I was saying this on Twitter just a couple weeks ago what you're finding within the social justice movement and the critical race theory movement and Black Lives Matter is a good example of this because the payoff for them is to get paid.

What you'll find is that they want the problem to be something other than sin in the human heart.

They want the problem to be something else. They want the problem to be something that they can target that will get them paid in the end.

So they'll say well the problem is racism, the problem is discrimination, the problem is you know the weight of my student loan debt.

They want the problem to be something else something that will reward them and give them the payoff that they want.

They can't afford to let the problem be sin and let the solution be biblical confession and repentance and come into faith in Christ as a result because that doesn't get them what they want.

So scripture is not enough for them. They need to have something else that's the problem that can be either identified as a problem with no solution but as as long as that problem gets them what they want that's what they want the problem to be.

It's never sin in the human heart. So for instance you've got the dialogue is ratcheting up again about gun control an oxymoron of a term if ever

I heard one. They want to blame the gun. They want to blame the gun.

Why? Well because the goal is to what's the what's the right word for it really I think is to the target is the total deconstruction of the second amendment.

That's that's really the goal but what they're having to do is with the especially with these mass shootings they always want to blame the gun.

They never want to point to the motive or the intent in the heart of the person because I say all the time the night before or the day before the shooting in Texas and then this recent one in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Before those incidents occurred those those weapons existed but they hadn't harmed anybody the day before.

Those same weapons existed the day before. Didn't shoot anybody.

Why? Because there was no animate human being with the intent to pull the trigger get the gun aim it at targets and then pull the trigger.

But they want to say it's the gun because the goal is to minimize if not eliminate your right to own weapons.

That's not Jim Osmond saying that that's me saying that. So don't come at don't come at Jim continue with it with D .A.

Carson. They may have many religious experiences but none of them deals with the heart of the human problem which is the sin that is so deeply a part of our nature.

In short we must deal with massively clashing worldviews. Again that's why you're here.

This is really a worldview conference. It's got a cool name the equipping conference but what you're here to really talk about is as D .A.

Carson has put it massively clashing worldviews and part of our responsibility continuing to quote

Carson part of our responsibility is to explain competing worldviews from our vantage point.

Let me stop here again that's what an apologist does. That's what a capable equipped prepared

Christian apologist does. They explain competing worldviews from the biblical standpoint.

That's why it takes virtually me three hours of an episode of a Just Thinking podcast because that's what we're attempting to do.

We're trying to help equip folks to understand things like critical race theory, deconstructionism, salvation and other theological topics so that they can they can understand and be able to articulate these issues because that's what 1st

Peter 3 15 commands us to do. And I want to challenge anybody here.

I'm not trying to be condescending toward anyone at all but if you know this in your heart of this is true. If you're a lazy

Bible reader you need to repent of that. You need to repent of that and you need to get serious become a serious student of the

Bible. Don't just read it you need to study it and dig into it. Get a Greek Hebrew lexicon and understand what these words mean in the

Greek what they really mean literally so you can peel back the layers of God's word because I promise you there's more there than what's on the page.

Carson says we cannot possibly engage at that level unless we ourselves have thoroughly grasped the biblical storyline and its entailed theology unquote.

Again that's why you're here as apologists for the gospel and as I said every true believer in Christ is an apologist.

It's vital that we not embrace the language of the culture as we endeavor to engage the culture. Did you understand that?

You must resist the urge to embrace the language of the culture while you're attempting to engage the culture because the language of the culture is going to change from the language they're using today is going to be different tomorrow.

Your job is to become so good at understanding and articulating the scripture because you know scripture does not change.

I don't care what the language and vernacular of the culture is scripture is not going to change and it's still going to be able to address that issue regardless of the language that the culture uses.

So you need to dig into that book that's your job is to become better at that book understanding that book not understanding the culture okay.

Christians ought to love others yes but not at the expense of the truth. This is what narratology tries to achieve it tries to make you feel guilty for standing on the truth and then they'll accuse you of being unloving because you don't cave.

This is why we have the I don't care mug on the Just Thinking website. I don't care parenthetically we have Galatians 1 10 to give you context there because Paul the apostle

Paul is saying listen if I'm trying to be a friend to the world that would mean I'm not a friend of God and guess which one of those is going to take priority guess which one of those is going to win out according to Paul that's why we say

I don't care I don't really care what the world thinks I care what God thinks. So yeah Christians ought to love each other but not love others but not at the expense of the truth.

We dilute the message of the gospel when we exchange biblical terms for the vernacular used by the world.

John MacArthur says it this way he says the health of the church and the impact of the church is always based on the church's ability to keep objective truth clear.

The church is the pillar and ground of the truth and the health of the church is always based on her ability to keep objective truth that is biblical revelation what we have in scripture clear and never to blur the line between truth and error.

When theology is watered down MacArthur says that line between truth and error is rubbed out and I'm sad to stand here and say that the enemies of the church aren't just outside the church we have enemies within the church who are trying to do this very thing we're trying to water down the word of God so that that line between truth and error is rubbed out this is why you have many evangelical churches embracing the

LGBTQ agenda saying we need to make room for them they're embracing critical race theory they're embracing liberation theology because we they think the church is some big tent as I said on one of the episodes they think the church is like a

Fred Flintstone water buffalo club as calls for racial reconciliation and social justice increase both in fervency and infrequency

Christians must be willing to call a thing what the word of God calls it the word is homosexuality it's not gay what the court what the culture calls racism the bible simply calls hate that's 1st john 2 verses 9 through 11 and 1st john 3 15 listen what the world calls racism the bible calls hate listen there's only two attitudes you and I can have one against towards one another one of two attitudes

I either love you or I hate you period there's no isms there's no phobias

I either love you or I hate you according to scripture that's clear read 1st john

I either love you or I hate you the only question is how that love or how they hate manifests itself there's no isms to show ethnic prejudice or ethnic partiality which is a more biblically accurate term ethnic partiality from what society calls racism to show ethnic partiality toward another image bearer of God is sin that's period there's nothing else to say about that this

James chapter 2 verse 9 hatred of any kind is a matter of the heart that's why enmity not ethnicity is the root cause of the societal disharmony we are witnessing in the world today now just a little bit of exegesis here in its singular form because the plural form of the word occurs in Galatians 5 verse 20 the word enmity appears only eight times in all 66 books across all 66 books of the bible those eight occurrences are found in Genesis 3 15 numbers chapter 35 verses 21 and 22

Deuteronomy 4 42 Ezekiel 25 15 Ezekiel 35 5 as we just read in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 15 and 16 and in each of those instances the word enmity denotes a very intense fierce intentional and deep -seated spirit of animosity or hostility between parties that are in opposition to one another the 18th century puritan theologian

Jonathan Edwards elaborated on that reality when he said this quote natural men are greater enemies to God than they are to any other being whatsoever natural men may be may be very great enemies to their fellow creatures but not so great as they are to God there is no other being that so much stands in sinners way and those things that sinners chiefly set their hearts upon as God men are want to hate their enemies in proportion to two things one their opposition to what they look upon to be their interest and their power and ability a great and powerful enemy will be more hated than the one who is weak and impotent but none is so powerful as God man's enmity to others may be gotten over time may wear it out and they may be reconciled but natural men without a mighty work of God to change their hearts will never get over their enmity against God they are greater enemies to God than they are to the devil yea they treat the devil as their friend and master and join with him against God unquote and the book titled man's enmity to God the 17th century puritan theologian

Stephen Charnock says this he says every action of a natural man is an enemy's action but not an action of enmity a toad does not even them every spire of grass it crawls upon nor poison everything it touches but its nature is poisonous certainly every man's nature is worse than his actions as waters are purest at the fountain and poison most pernicious in the mass so is enmity in the heart and as waters relish of the mineral vein they run through so the actions of a wicked man are textured with the enmity they spring from but the mass and strength of this is lodged in his nature there is in all our natures such a diabolical contrariety to God that if God should leave a man to the current of his own heart it would overflow in all kinds of wickedness for the mere nature has fundamentally and radically as much of this enmity as the worst for the disposition is the same though the effects may be restrained in some men more than in others no man is any more born with a love to God than he is with knowledge of the highest sciences there is indeed an active power to the attainment of those by the assistance of a good education but man hath only a passive power to the other as being a subject passively capable of the grace of God this inherency of the the inherency of this enmity in our nature the psalmist expresses when he tells us the wicked are estranged from the womb they are estranged from God from the womb they go astray as soon as ever they are born as psalm 58 verses 3 and 4 they go sinfully before they go naturally their poison is like the poison of a serpent which you know is radically the same in all of the same species unquote now whether we want to admit it or not the fact is that you and I are congenital enemies of God we're born we're conceived as enemies of God consequently that makes us congenital enemies of one another enmity not ethnicity is why there can be no horizontal reconciliation that is between us one -to -one human beings apart from first of all having vertical reconciliation between us and God but in either case whether vertical or horizontal it is faith in Jesus Christ by the power of his

Holy Spirit and regenerating sinful human hearts that makes that reconciliation possible not any man -centered or man -concocted method as the 18th century

Welsh minister and Bible commentator Matthew Henry said if God justified and reconciled us when we were enemies much more will he then save us when we are justified and reconciled now sadly the church's understanding of the biblical doctrine of enmity is so languid that it is virtually absent from our preaching and our apologetics but there was one individual on whom the doctrine of enmity was not lost his name was

Jupiter Hammond Jupiter Hammond Jupiter Hammond was born a slave in October 1711 he died a slave sometime around the year 1806 literally every breath every heartbeat every blink of his eyes every cough every sneeze every hiccup that Jupiter Hammond experienced over the course of his 95 years on this earth was as a slave on September 24 1786

Jupiter Hammond gave a speech in New York City at the inaugural meeting of an organization called the

African Society Hammond's speech was titled An Address to the

Negroes of the State of New York also known as the Hammond Address among the remarks

Hammond made in that speech was this sobering admonition quote now you may think that you are not enemies to God and that you do not hate him but if your heart has not been changed and you have not become true

Christians you certainly are enemies to God and have been opposed to him ever since the day you were born now

I want to remind you at this point that Jupiter Hammond took every breath literally of his nearly 100 years of life in this sinful world as someone else's property and yet the biblical doctrine of enmity is something that Hammond clearly understood now contrary to what was the common stereotype concerning slaves

Hammond was not unintelligent or uneducated both of Hammond's parents his father was named

Obadiah and his mother was named Rose they were both literate meaning they both knew how to read and write that was rare of course but it was a common stereotype that if you were slave no slave could read or write but Hammond's parents could they were both literate and those slave

Jupiter Hammond's owners his owners were husband and wife Henry and Rebecca Lloyd they were

Anglican okay and they provided for Jupiter Hammond a rather rudimentary education through what was known in the

Anglican church as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts that was the

Anglican church church's missionary arm the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel in Foreign Parts as a result of that education Hammond would go on to become the first black poet in the history of the

United States to have his literary works published Jupiter Hammond was a

Christian who was convinced of the sovereignty of God convinced so convinced was

Hammond in fact that so convinced was Hammond that God was in absolute control of everything that occurred in his life that he saw even his own enslavement as God's divine providence in his life now let me ask let me pause and ask you no show of hands what is there going on in your life right now that you're complaining to God about here's a man who lived to be almost 100 years old and every tick of the clock of those 100 years he spent as a slave yet he attributed that he attributed his station in life to God's sovereignty now

I don't know what's going on in your in your life but you're not a slave so whatever it is is going on in your life that you're complaining to God about as Hammond declared in the aforementioned address to the

Negroes of New York quote listen closer to this Hammond said we live so little time in this world that it is no matter how wretched and miserable we are if it prepares us for heaven what is 40 50 or 60 years when compared to eternity unquote what are you complaining about in your life though in bondage physically

Jupiter Hammond was a free man spiritually perhaps freer even than some of you who are within the sound of my voice tonight

Hammond firmly understood that emancipation from his slavery to sin was a far greater concern and importance than being liberated from his physical shackles it's my personal belief that Hammond's understanding of what scripture teaches about enmity demonstrates that he was a more orthodox he was more orthodox in his theology than many formerly trained theologians who have earned seminary degrees this guy was a slave but regardless the level of theological acumen

Hammond may have possessed I'm convinced he would be criticized if not all together ostracized by many evangelical social justicians today for holding to what they would undoubtedly regard as a hermeneutic of passivity for having the temerity to believe that his subjugation to his white slave owners had been providentially ordained by God before the foundation of the world no way if Hammond were alive today there is no way he would survive within wokeism absolutely not within the church because they would say you're crazy how could it have been

God's will for you to spend 95 years on this earth as a slave I have no doubt whatsoever that Jupiter Hammond were he alive today he would be labeled either a race traitor a coon an uncle tom a house negro or worse he would have been accused of not being enlightened or woke enough to the historical struggle for justice in America by those who are of a similar shade of melanin as he was in other words

Hammond would be denigrated and dismissed especially by many black social justice advocates today for not beholding to what

I refer to as a gospel of perpetual grievance Hammond Jupiter Hammond was a slave for almost 100 years yet his belief in God's sovereignty was so deep he didn't complain now let me just put

Daryl in the mirror Daryl could you do that whatever it is whatever whatever you see listen unless I don't see

I don't hear any balls and chains clinking around here so unless I'm in this guy's shoes look at what people are complaining look at what people are saying they're oppressed about today

I'm tweeting from my $800 iPhone in the comfort of my air -conditioned

BMW from my two -story house in suburbia from my office home office desk where I work remote that I'm oppressed listen to what

Booker T Washington had to say about people like that Booker T Washington in his book uh titled

My Larger Education he wrote about people like that people who all they do is just walk around preaching a gospel of perpetual grievance this everything's grievance everything's oppression everything's woe is me listen to what

Booker T Washington had to say in this story here please listen closely Washington writes he says a story told me by a colored man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances in a certain community there was a colored doctor of the old school who knew little about modern ideas of medicine but who in some way had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment in this community there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world's goods and who thought that she had a cancer for 20 years she had enjoyed the luxury of having this old doctor treat her for that cancer as the old doctor became thanks to the cancer and to other practice pretty well to do he decided to send one of his boys to a medical college after graduating from the medical school the young man returned home and his father took a vacation during this time the old lady who was afflicted with the cancer okay called in the young man who treated her within a few weeks the cancer or what was supposed to be the cancer disappeared and the old lady declared herself well when the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well he was outraged he called the young man before him and said this my son i find that you have cured that cancer case of mine now son let me tell you something i educated you on that cancer i put you through high school through college and finally through the medical school on that cancer and now you with your new ideas of practice in medicine have come here and cured that cancer well let me tell you son you have started all wrong how do you expect to make a living practicing medicine in that way here's the point washington went on to say this he says i'm afraid that there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public if the patient gets well an entire industry of victimhood will get cancer and die this would be the best thing for the black community until blacks throw off the shroud of victimhood they will be at the mercy of doctors who treat a cancer that does not exist but that they are paying for you get the point washington's words are important for us to consider because you're hearing a lot today about systemic racism in america but for something to be systemic hear me out here this again i said earlier about why it's important for us to define the terms understand this for something to be systemic is by definition to mean that it is literally everywhere and in everything that's why systemic means by objective that's what systemic means by objective definition to say something systemic is systemic means it's everywhere so if america were a systemically racist nation i wouldn't be standing here today in the middle of idaho for do me a favor look up the percentage of black population of idaho will you i mean seriously if america was systemically racist why would i be here listen the problem not only in america but in the world at large it's not systemic racism it's systemic sin now sin is everywhere sin is the most systemic reality on the face of the earth but as i said see the woke don't want that to be the problem because god gets the glory for that they get nothing they get nothing you gotta be we doubled it gosh two percent two percent hmm see we do our research on the just thinking we research everything the british preacher and writer jc ryle reminds us of the systemic nature of sin in this classic book titled holiness i mentioned earlier that there's two books you need to have in your library actually there's three if you have not read jc riles holiness i commend it to you please get a copy of that book it will change your life it really will jc riles says this he said sin is the universal disease of all mankind search the globe from east to west and from pole to pole search every nation of every climate in the four quarters of the earth search every rank and class from the highest to the lowest and under every circumstance and condition the report will always be the same excuse me wow the report will always be the same the remotest islands in the pacific ocean completely separate from europe asia africa and america beyond the reach alike of oriental luxury and western arts and literature islands inhabited by people ignorant of books money steam and gun powder uncontaminated by the vices of modern civilization these very islands have always been found when first discovered the abode of the vilest forms of lust cruelty deceit and superstition if the inhabitants have known nothing else they have always known how to sin the sinful attitudes biases and prejudices that you and i harbor toward one another all have the same root cause and origin sin in the human heart of the individual jesus makes that abundantly clear in mark chapter 7 verses 17 through 23 when he had left the crowd and entered the house his disciples questioned him about the parable that he had given them in the previous verses and jesus said to them are you so lacking in understanding do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him so it's not the culture is not the problem the gun is not the problem white supremacy is not the problem do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and is eliminated and he was saying that which proceeds out of the man that is what defiles the man for from within out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts fornications thefts murders adulteries deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit sensuality envy slander pride and foolishness all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man virgin and i are both biblical counselors we have a passion for that my wife and i do biblical counseling back in la through grace community church and one thing we try to make clear i don't care if it's premarital or marital i don't care what the specific issue is the root cause is always sin somebody in that relationship does not want to give up their sin they don't want to give it up they do not want to give it up for the young people here i know we have a boyfriend and girlfriend here we may have some i think there's an engaged couple here or soon to be engaged couple but especially for young people because my heart is with you all before i met melissa let me just be transparent with you for for a second before i met melissa i came out of an abused abusive marriage when my wife was the abuser that god used that situation to put me on the path to becoming a biblical a certified biblical counselor i've just never understood why spouses sin against each other i just i don't understand it i just don't get it but if you're taking notes there's a book i want to recommend to you it's called when sinners say i do when sinners say i do by dave harvey and if i could just put on my biblical counseling hat for one second the one piece of marital advice that i would give you i don't care if you've been married 40 years you need to remember that you are married to a sinner and the best thing that you can do for your marriage is to be is to is to pre -forgive that person for when they sin against you you will forgive them because they're going to sin against you they're going to sin against you that's the one piece of marital advice that i have for you you get that for free we're not we're not billing that to jim to the church this is just free you need to remember that you are married to a sinner so when sinners say i do by dave harvey i commend that book to you it was the 19th century baptist preacher charles haddon spurgeon who said this sin poisons the wellhead sin is in our brain we think wrongly sin is in our heart we love that which is evil sin bribes the judgment intoxicates the will and perverts the memory we recollect a bad word when we forget a holy sentence like a sea which comes up and floods a continent penetrating every valley deluging every plain and invading every mountain so has sin penetrated our entire nature i gotta say one more thing about the whole marital thing when you uh many of you probably had marriage vows that you exchanged with one another when you got married the thing about vows is that and i want i want i want the young people to hear me here young people who are not married but who may want to be married someday do your marriage vows do them however you want just understand this what makes a vow are not the words it's not the words you know what makes a vow a vow what makes a vow a vow is a heart that has the intent intent to live by those words then it becomes a vow as you lift those words out and until you do that they're just words on a piece of paper worthless worthless so do your marriage vows but understand this if your heart is not motivated to commit to the words that compose that comprise that vow worthless and it's pragmatic zeal to partner with the world on matters of social justice and racial reconciliation the evangelical church today has succeeded only in complicating what the gospel makes very simple so simple in fact that a child can understand that according to luke 18 16 that simple gospel is this each of us has sinned against the holy god that's romans 3 23 our sinfulness is congenital that's romans 5 12 our sin makes us subject to god's wrath that's john 3 36 but by faith in jesus christ and his atoning and propitiatory work on the cross sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to god and then consequently consequently we can be reconciled to one another that's the gospel simply stated but see when the simple message of the gospel is integrated and interwoven with worldly philosophies and ideology ideologies such as liberation theology the social gospel the marxist worldview that is that undergirds critical race theory and intersectionality the gospel loses that simplicity consequently it becomes nothing more than an humanistic proposition of moral and ethical rules that center on mankind trying to save himself that's the most silly aspect of what we're seeing in the culture right now the culture believes that it can save itself from itself gun control it's an oxymoron how are you going to control an inanimate object i'm convinced that the failure on the part of the professing evangelical believers to embrace a proper biblical anthropology which is to say a biblical understanding of the innately sinful condition of mankind is precisely why so many professing christians today believe as if skin color were dynamic and not static i'm going to explain what i mean by that that kind of misplaced thinking is totally contrary to what the scriptures declare about the innate depravity of the human heart to view melanin as dynamic and not static is to believe that skin color in and of itself possesses the inherent and autonomous capacity and ability to somehow cause a person to form sinful attitudes prejudices and biases about someone such misplaced reasoning is why i wholeheartedly reject the term racial reconciliation i totally reject that term listen races don't reconcile hearts do did you hear me racial reconciliation is a non -sequitur it's an oxymoron listen your melanin does not feel it does not think it does not love it does not hate it does not form intent whether for good or ill nor can it comprehend discern or distinguish between good and evil your melanin doesn't do any of that so how can this reconcile because you know that's how the culture defines race they look at your skin color and they say oh you're white or you're black see that hat is black this is white but that's what the culture does that's why we have to reject these terms we have to reject the vernacular of the culture your melanin does none of those things because it cannot do any of those things to argue otherwise is to deny what jesus clearly declared in the passage i just read earlier mark chapter 7 that the genesis of all disharmony and disunity that exists in the world not only today but throughout human history is a direct byproduct of the sin nature that indwells each one of us racial reconciliation it's a joke it doesn't even make sense as believers our collective failure to apply what is taught by christ himself in mark chapter 7 is what has given rise to a doctrine that i've termed sin by proxy you heard virgil allude to this earlier as it relates to specifically to the concept of racial reconciliation sin by proxy is the unbiblical idea that this present generation of white people should be regarded as collectively guilty of historical sins and grievances allegedly perpetrated by their ancestors against black people particularly with regard to slavery solely on the basis of their ethnicity you recall one of the five reasons why critical race theory is unbiblical is that it imparts guilt to image bearers of god solely on the basis of the color of their skin this is what sin by proxy does so in addition to you being guilty by virtue of your skin color you must also collectively repent of that sin and then make reparations for those alleged presumed offenses by the way on the matter of slavery especially slavery in america those of you are listeners to the just thinking podcast you've heard me say this before if you ever were to visit valencia california come by the offices of grace to you i would love to give you a tour of the building show you around maybe john will even be there when you show up but if you were to come to my office that's where my library of books is you will find that i have more books in my personal library on slavery than any other topic other than theology i've studied slavery for years i'm not saying i'm an expert but i know a little something something what wokeism does woke is like i said earlier in my first message slavery is one issue one way that that the woke try to reproblematize things so they'll reach back 400 years it's always 400 years america's been 400 years of guilt 400 years america's not even 400 years old so how are you going to say america was and i'm pretty dogmatic about this don't approach me want to talk about slavery and you want to begin in 1619 jamestown virginia don't do that you got to go a couple thousand years back i stand before you at this podium as a descendant of slave owners i got both sides going one side of the family i have their roots in slavery the other slaves the other side of the family i got slave owners my wife melissa right now she's in the process of doing a really in -depth research of our but her genealogy and mine on ancestry .com

and just a couple weeks ago she dug up my fifth great -grandfather his name is john r harrison he resided in fairfield south carolina fairfield county south carolina he owned 200 over 260 slaves we saw the slave manifestos we saw them slaves handed down to him by his father reuben harrison so you got people like the 16 who's ever heard of the 1619 project oh a lot of you have see that project is really named incorrectly but again that's that narratology the narrative of people like the one who heads up the 1619 project their chronology of slavery always starts at 1619 and i've always i've always argued that what we really need is a 1618 project meaning we need to if you really want to talk have an intellectually honest conversation about slavery you need to start way before 1619 you start 1618 and go all the way back a couple thousand years because there would have been no slavery in america were it not for black africans who willingly participated in the transatlantic slave trade to deport those slaves from west africa onto north american shores listen to what dr uh david eltis and david richardson say in their book titled atlas of the transatlantic slave trade just to make that point quoting the strength and capacity of most west africans bring us to a subject that is both surprising and upsetting to many uninformed readers that burger man was it was good but didn't agree with me apparently the strength and capacity of most west african nations brings us to a subject that is both surprising and upsetting to many uninformed readers namely the indispensable listen to this the indispensable complicity of africans in creating and maintaining the slave trade even in the earliest history of the trade the portuguese discovered the extreme hazards and counter productivity of trying to capture and enslave west africans on their own west africans could and did attack and sink some european ships in retaliation the rulers of congo benin and some other regions succeeded at times in temporarily stopping the slate the trade and slaves yet the crucial point was the eagerness of african rulers and merchants to sell slaves similarly similarity rather in skin color and other bodily traits as europeans viewed them brought african rulers no sense of a common african identity with the captives sold let me pause here and say so what he's saying here is a point i made earlier that the idea of black community is a myth even going all the way back to the transatlantic slave trade in africa these african rulers didn't care that they're the people they were selling and the slaves looked like them they didn't care they did not care european ships european ship captains soon discovered the need to present ceremonial gifts to african rulers to pay fees and taxes even to anchor their ships and engage in trade and to employ black interpreters who went ashore with the ship's captain to haggle and bargain with local rulers over the price of slaves so don't come to me telling me that slavery was just a white person thing oh no oh no no no there would have been no slavery on the shores if it weren't for people who look like me but see they don't want to talk about that reparations what what what does the reparation is how does he handle someone like me you pay me reparations over here because on my mom's side of the family yep there were slaves but over here you take the reparations back because on my dad's side of the family they sold the slaves so i'm a net zero i'm a zero sum i get nothing i told you it doesn't pay to be black like virginia are black that doesn't pay is this idea of sin by proxy that has fueled and fed the propagation of such unbiblical philosophies as white guilt and white fragility even within the church so much so that many white evangelical christians have chosen to remain in the closet so to speak for fear of being labeled racist for saying anything that might even be remotely construed as going against the current social justice narrative and that narrative is to portray all black people as oppressed and all white people as oppressors but the prejudicial feelings and sentiments that you and i hold toward each other is a direct and tangible byproduct of the enmity that resides in our hearts towards god it's a reality that is affirmed by the apostle paul in romans 8 7 where he says that the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward god for it does not subject itself to the law of god for it is not even able to do so and yet despite that truth the false gospel of racial reconciliation continues to be preached from the pulpits of many evangelical churches today but you see nowhere in scripture is the term race used in the same context as it is consistently employed today by the culture now here what i didn't say what i didn't say is that you won't find the word race in the bible yeah you'll find that word there but when you exposit and exegete that word you understand that it's not the same context in which the culture uses the term it's like i said this morning race is a social construct to the culture in the bible where you see the word race it's not used that's not the same definition in april 2018 national geographic published a special issue titled the race issue april 2018 you can go online and search for this national geographic special issue titled the race issue in that special issue there was an article included in the title of that article was there's no scientific basis for race it's a made -up label it's the national geographic you usually expect national geographic to concentrate on animals and but they nailed it with this one november 2018 i'm sorry april 2018 there is no scientific basis for race it's a made -up label and in that article was included a very important yet little known fact about a man whose name you heard virgil mentioned earlier dr samuel morton i'm quoting from that article in the first half of the 19th century one of america's most prominent scientists was a doctor named samuel morton morton lived in philadelphia and he collected human skulls he wasn't choosy about his suppliers he accepted skulls scavenged from battlefields and snatched from catacombs one of his most famous craniums belonged to an irishman who'd been sent as a convict to tasmania and ultimately hanged for killing and eating other convicts with each skull morton performed the same procedure now listen to closely to those closely to what morton's procedure was he stuffed the skull with pepper seeds later he switched to lead shot which he then decanted to ascertain the volume of the brain case so what would what would happen morton would take a human skull stuff it with pepper seeds to see how much pepper seeds the skull will hold then he would empty the the skull of what it contained morton believed that people could be divided into five races and that these races represented separate acts of creation here's why you need to be a better theologian because here this guy morton morton had his own theology he had his own theology of creation he believed that there were five separate acts of creation by god to create these five categories of races which i'm going to describe to you now still quoting from the national geographic article the races had distinct characters which corresponded to their place in a in what morton believed was a divinely determined hierarchy so morton argued that this is god's providential order of the species of humanity morton's craniometry showed he claimed that whites or caucasian were the most intelligent of the races again because the cranium of a caucasian person held more pepper seed morton's craniometer craniometry showed he claimed that whites or caucasians were the most intelligent of the races east asians morton used the term mongolian though ingenious he said and susceptible of cultivation were one step down next came southeast asians followed by native americans blacks or ethiopians as morton called them were at the bottom in the decades before please listen closely to this in the decades before the civil war morton's ideas were quickly taken up by the defenders of slavery so you see what believing a lie can lead to when morton died in 1851 the charleston medical journal in south carolina praised him for quote giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race unquote today samuel by the way i don't know how many of you in here have ever been to charleston but if you've not been there and if you ever have an opportunity to go there please take some time to visit what's called the old slave mart in uh downtown charleston south carolina it is uh the actual literal uh port where slaves ships would come in to port in charleston and um and offload their slaves to be auctioned off uh on that spot matter of fact there's a cobblestone street that you will walk down the slave mart is well depending on what direction you're coming from um was on the left but there's cobblestone it's a cobblestone street from one end to the other those cobblestones actually come from actual slave ships from a couple hundred years ago that they use those stones to balance the the weight of the ship out so if you're ever in charleston take some time to go by the uh the old slave mart it's definitely a an impactful uh experience but when morton died in 1851 the charleston medical journal in south carolina you i read what they said that that they praised morton for giving the negro his true position as an inferior race today samuel morton is known as the father of scientific racism another word for scientific racism is darwinism is darwinism so many of the horrors of the past few centuries can be traced to the idea that one race is inferior to another that a tour of his collection is a haunting experience to an uncomfortable degree we still live with morton's legacy racial distinctions continue to shape our politics our neighborhoods and our sense of self this is the case even though listen to this this is the case even though what science actually has to tell us about race is just the opposite of what morton contended it's like verga said earlier this morning if you don't have act 1726 highlighted in your bible you need to highlight it act 1726 is a one verse apologetic against this kind of worldview one verse you don't need another verse one verse act 1726 will debunk the idea of race and totally shut it down in a commencement address delivered at western reserve college in 1854 titled the claims of the negro ethnologically considered the noted abolitionist author and educator and former slave frederick douglas wholeheartedly and unambiguously denounced dr samuel morton's scientific conclusions now before i read this quote from douglas notice here the title of his commencement address he didn't title this the claims of the negro racially considered he titled it rightly and accurately the claims of the negro ethnologically considered i'm gonna read a quote that's excerpted from this address but if you're taking notes again the title is the claims of the negro ethnologically considered i would encourage you to go online and read that entire address because in that address frederick douglas uses act 1726 to argue the equality of the black man with the white man and what you'll find is black abolitionists use the bible regularly to do that the bible is often blamed especially by critical race theorists and this was true to some degree the bible has been misused over hundreds of years to promote propagate and advance unbiblical worldviews like slavery especially in the south but the bible was also used to abolish slavery apart from the word of god slavery would have lasted much much longer than it did but douglas said this about samuel morton he said common sense is scarcely needed to detect the absence of manhood in a monkey or to recognize its presence in a negro his speech his reason his power to acquire and to retain knowledge his heaven erected face his habitudes his hopes his fears his aspirations his prophecies plant between him and the brute creation a distinction as eternal as it is palpable away therefore with all this scientific moonshine that would connect men with monkeys that's what he thought of samuel morton he thought his craniometry conclusions were scientific moonshot away therefore with all the scientific moonshine that would connect men with monkeys that would have the world believe that humanity instead of resting on its own characteristics petal matter of fact let me say this just just poetic language that douglas use here uses here he said away with all that scientific moonshine that would have the world believe that humanity instead of resting on its own characteristic petal gloriously independent is sort of a sliding scale making one extreme brother making one extreme brother to the orangutan and the other to angels and all the rest intermediaries douglas says that mankind rests on its own characteristic pedestal gloriously independent i'm reflecting on genesis 2 verse correct me if i'm wrong on here but if your translation is correct where god creates man and woman when adam says you shall be called woman that word there is a capital w when he goes on to say you were you shall be called woman for you were taken from man that's a capital m if your translation reads those words man and woman in small letters that's an incorrect translation the reason is capital w and capital m is because of genesis 127 because god created man in his image there's not another creature on the face of this earth that god created in his image this is what douglas says this is what douglas realizes that samuel morton did not this is where this poetic language is coming from it's coming from genesis 127 douglas goes on he says tried by all the usual and all the unusual tests whether mental moral physical or psychological the negro is a man considering him as possessing knowledge or needing knowledge his elevation or his degradation his virtues or his vices whichever road you take you reach the same conclusion the negro is a man his good and his bad his innocence and his guilt his joys and his sorrows proclaim his manhood and speech that all mankind practically and readily understand unquote so the idea of human races is a myth race is a myth if you don't hear anything else i'm saying hear that race is a myth you must reject that term you must reject it the proper word as douglas rightly understood it's ethnicity it's ethnic not racial it's ethnic it's ethnicity race is a myth both theologically and scientifically and i would add biologically for centuries society and sadly to a great extent the church has unquestioningly unquestioningly bought into that myth the resulting damage has been well documented over the annals of both societal and ecclesiastical history not only in america but around the world man -centered efforts to reconcile people of different ethnicities is nothing new and yet invariably those efforts have proven futile in ameliorating what is the root cause of the enmity that exists between human beings and that root cause is the sin that dwells in us i left my head off when i see people on cnn saying well we need to have a conversation about race no we don't no we don't we have conversation about the sin in the human heart that's conversation we need to have see by definition reconciliation is a volitional act that occurs at the level of the human heart if i make make another biblical counseling note here this is what my wife and i do when we bring uh two people together husband and wife or in premarital counsel we bring a fiance two fiancees together what you're doing is you're bringing two hearts together is what you're doing that's really what you're doing the only question is are either of you going to be willing to humble yourself enough to come out of here reconcile reconciliation is a volitional act it's a volitional act skin color plays no role whatsoever none this is static it's not dynamic it's static only the regenerative power of the gospel of jesus christ can alone turn our stony hearts to hearts of flesh that's ezekiel 36 only the gospel of jesus christ can remedy what separates us both from god and from one another i mean think about this think about this apart from the gospel how can it how can it be understood apart from the gospel and what part the gospel says about the congenital condition of our heart that it is sinful from conception apart from that how can it be understood how something as innocuous and fixed as the color of someone's skin can be observed with our eyes processed in our mind and formed as simply prejudicial attitudes in our heart how can you explain that how can i look at my god squirrel right here i'm observing the color of his skin with my eyes i process what i observe in my mind how does it get from here to here see only the gospel explains that there's no other explanation other than the gospel i wholly concur with what pastor john mcarthur says he says as christians we ought to have a moral and social influence in our communities we ought to use the rights granted to us to promote morality and decency in the public arena but that's not the sum total of our responsibility to this world we can't settle for mere social change and behavior modification we must bring the light of the truth to bear in a world blinded by sin and we must do what we can to halt society's decay not through protest and political action but through the bold proclamation of the gospel unquote but see the culture doesn't want that to be the problem because that doesn't get them what they want jupiter hammond who lived his entire life as a slave is now a free man he's eternally free you see but the truth is hammond was already a free man even in the midst of his earthly enslavement see are you some of us in this room aren't as free as hammond was when he was a slave some of us aren't even that free right now we're not chained but in your heart in your mind you're not free you're more enslaved than he was the gospel of jesus christ frees us to rest in the reality that the same god who spoke into existence the heavens and the earth is in complete control of everything that occurs in it everything those of you who listen to version me on the on the podcast you know this is my favorite verse in the entire bible ecclesiastes 714 ecclesiastes 714 in the day of prosperity be happy but in the day of adversity remember that the lord created the one as well as the other i promise you if you can get that verse into your mind and heart you will never have a bad day never you will never ever i don't care what's going on ecclesiastes 714 in the day of prosperity when things are going well be happy celebrate but when things aren't going well you need to remind yourself that the lord created that good day as well as that bad day see that's what that's what hammond believed for 95 years that god is sovereign over everything the blessings and the adversity if you can get that up here i promise you you will never have a bad day never cringe van till who lived from 1895 to 1987 said this in his book on christian apologetics quote he says i feel that the whole of history and civilization would be unintelligible to me if it were not for my belief in god so true so true is this that i propose to argue that unless god is behind everything you cannot find meaning in anything now as i prepare to close i want to shift gears for a moment and say a word about justice because we hear stuff here stuff incessantly about justice justice justice blah blah blah there's an old maxim that says justice delayed is justice denied who's heard who's heard that before justice delayed is justice denied well those words could not be more wrong in terms of what scripture teaches as far as god is concerned justice is neither delayed nor denied god has promised that his holy righteous and impartial judgment will be meted out to those deserving other of it either in this life or in the next i want you to make a note of one verse first timothy 524 this is a one verse biblical theology of justice one verse one verse biblical theology of justice says for some their sins will be judged in this life but for others their sins are going to be judged after this is why i can accept what is happening in the culture knowing that a sovereign god is gonna judge wrongdoing he's gonna judge injustice if someone was murdered unjustly he's gonna judge that if someone has something stolen from them unjustly if a spouse was hurt by an adulterous spouse who left them without biblical reason god's gonna judge that he's gonna do it either in this life or in the next one but they're listen hear me clearly on this one injustice is not non -justice that's what first timothy 524 is teaching us injustice is not non -justice that's what the culture wants you to believe so this this is what gave rise to black lives matter because they thought that trayvon martin trial was an injustice because george zimmerman was acquitted oh it's an injustice injustice is never non -justice that said it is naive for us to expect perfect justice in a world that is inherently imperfect justice is never perfect when left to the determination of sinners like you and me it's imperfect because of enmity not ethnicity scripture is clear that the world in which we live rests in the power of the evil one that's first john 519 ecclesiastes 5 8 says if you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province do not be shocked at the sight for one official watches over another official and there are higher officials over them crooked politicians ecclesiastes 5 8 got that covered jesus christ came into the world to save sinners he did not come into the world to save society the culture's view of racial reconciliation fails to realize that our need for reconciliation is rooted in the enmity that exists between us and god and society cannot hope to remedy with temporal solutions what is fundamentally a spiritual malady the only solution is what jesus himself preached you must be born again thank you all very much we are for a break jim 10 -minute break all right thank you is praise the lord with instruments

Praise Him for His excellence. Look at what

He's done for us. For our sins are upon the cross.

Praise the Lord with all you are. Mind and soul, will and heart.

From His hand comes everything. He alone is

God and King. Everything that has birth, praise the

Lord. Everything that sin has, praise Him. Everything that has birth, praise the

Lord. Everything that sin has, praise

Him. Everything that has birth, praise the Lord.

Everything that has birth, praise the Lord. Everything that sin has, praise

Him. Everything that has birth, praise the Lord.

He's the faith, He's the truth.

Let all of creation praise the Lord. As the

Lord builds the house,

Those who build it labor in vain.

As the Lord watches over the city,

The watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early

And go late to rest. Eating the bread of anxious toil,

For He gives to His beloved sleep.

Unless the Lord builds the house,

Those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

The watchman stays awake in vain.

Behold, children, a heritage from the

Lord, The fruit of war is in the hand of a warrior,

Children of one's youth. Unless the

Lord builds the house,

Those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

The watchman stays awake in vain.

He shall not be put to shame When He speaks with His enemies in the game.

Unless the Lord builds the house,

Those who build it labor in vain. Unless the

Lord watches over the city,

The watchman stays awake in vain. Unless the

Lord builds the house,

Those who build it labor in vain.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness, Come into His presence with singing.

Make a joyful noise to the

Lord, All the joyful people,

And the sheep of His pasture. Make a joyful noise to the

Lord, all the earth. Make a joyful noise to the

Lord, all the earth. Make a joyful noise to the

Lord, all the earth. Enter His gates with thanksgiving,

And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless

His name. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him, bless His name. Enter His gates with thanksgiving,

And His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good,

His steadfast love endures forever. And is faithful.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

What up, V -Dog? Come on, bro. You're going to learn about taking those red eyes.

All right, you want to come on inside and have a seat? All right.

Our very first question is, We need you guys to approve a design. Oh, my

God. Uh -oh. I like that. Oh, yeah.

I like that. All right. Let's get it. You couldn't get your design guy on it, So I got my design guy on it.

Man. I like that. So that will be available at the church website.

Man, if you did that. You talk about people coming at you. Only thing missing is the reference to Acts 17, 26.

That's the only thing missing. To give it context. We'll have that by the end of the session. Yeah, you got that. Way to go,

Jim. I like that. All right. Yeah. All right, first question. I'm going to try and go through the ones that we've got

From the audience here so far. You can take that down. You don't need to keep that up. Somebody's probably taking a picture

And then shouting it out on social. It'll be a whole other issue tomorrow. You guys can deal with that?

Yeah. We can handle it. From your book about the state, Your chapter on elections and going into the voting booth

With a biblical worldview was absolutely relevant. I used the information talking with others over and over. Have you thought of printing this in a way

That we can hand it out to people To educate them before elections? Oh, well, we have the actual episode

That was the catalyst for the chapter. One of the things that we did as a part of the process

To putting the book together, We actually took the sections from the... We started with the transcripts from the actual episodes.

And then from that, we would build out whatever we needed And then would edit it and make sure that it read in a way

That you weren't reading the podcast, But that you were reading a book As if you were sitting down And we were talking directly to you.

So the goal of the process was for it to look like that, Sound like that, read like that,

And for the most part, I think, between us and the editor, They did a fantastic job.

It was a kind of collaborative effort. If you want to take that portion separately And give it to someone,

I would just encourage you to do that. I mean, you could go back and actually get the episode. I don't remember what number it was.

Yeah, I don't remember what number episode that was. I'll look it up. 105? I would just get that.

Who knows your podcast better than you guys do? I would just go grab that episode And send it to someone for them to listen to And think about separately

So that you don't have to buy the whole book. But I would also encourage the purchase of the book Because it's a compendium of information

That will be helpful year after year after year. We wrote it so that it could be a resource

For someone to use over and over. We had a conversation with one of the folks,

The publisher who put the book together. They said, well, here's what sales are doing, My thought is every election cycle

With regard to this book, You should see a spike in sales As people begin to think about How should

I think about this issue or that issue biblically? And the hope would be that they would pick up that book

And it would be helpful. Yeah, I was just going to mention real quick, In the book, the chapter is titled just Elections. But on the podcast, the episode is titled

The Doctrine of Elections. But they shortened the title in the book The Table of Contents.

But if you're going to go listen to the episode, It's episode 105, But the title is The Doctrine of Elections.

Do you want to tell a little bit about What we covered in that? The reason I mention that is simply because If you are

Reformed, And you hear Doctrine of Elections, You're actually thinking about soteriology.

And that's not what we cover. It is actually about... A play on words. Yeah, it's a play on that. It's a play on the words,

And the thought process is What kind of a world view do we need to have As we go into the election booth?

What kinds of things should we be thinking about? How should we be thinking about issues, Biblically speaking, As we approach an election, the election?

Yeah, that episode is like a three hour Biblical primer on how to vote. And what I'm most proud of in the work

That Virgil and I did in that episode Is that we went three hours. We didn't name a single political candidate by name. And we don't mention a single political party by name.

But we give you three hours of Biblical precepts And principles, Which we hope would encourage you

To go into the voting booth With a Biblical world view So as to not be...

So we wouldn't be in the position of being accused Of being biased or whatever. We don't mention any candidate by name,

No political party by name, And three hours worth of content. So that episode is evergreen, as Virgil just said.

Coming upon a minor or major election cycle, You should send that episode out to everyone you know.

Absolutely. I'd have to listen to it. That would be helpful. Alright, the amount of material, resources, and books That you two read for your podcast is immense.

How do you find time to do that research And how do you schedule that in? One of the reasons why we don't do the podcast every week

Is for that very reason. And Daryl can walk through a little bit Of how we process each subject.

But every time we begin a portion of the research, We've just got to do it as we go. So we have to consider,

Okay, we've got travel schedules, We've got work, We've got day jobs that we've got to take care of.

So we really are processing all of those things. And we won't do an episode Until we feel like we've fully vetted the subject.

One of the things that really caused, I think, an elevation or an increase In the amount of research

That goes into each episode, For me at least, And Daryl can speak to this himself,

It was who was listening. It was who was listening. Initially, it was just me and Daryl.

We were having a good time with a couple hundred people. But when it gets to 10 ,000 And then 20 ,000 and then a 50 ,000 episode

And then an 80 ,000 And then a 100 ,000 plus, I'm thinking, That's a whole lot of folks who are listening.

And many of them, while Many of them are favorable To what we say and do,

There are a number of them who are not. Can I interject real quick right here? Speaking of a number of them that are not,

It's not a large number, But the small number, there's a small number. I'm recalling right now

A person who shall remain anonymous. They left us a negative review On Apple iTunes,

On Apple Podcasts. They left us a negative review. They accused us of being too articulate. I'm not kidding.

That review said We were too articulate. He gave us a one star. One star out of five because he said we were too articulate.

Was it Joe Biden? He once said Barack Obama was Articulate and clean. As we begin thinking about Who's listening, it's imperative

That we get things right. And Darrell spoke to this earlier. That's important to us. If I'm quoting something to you

From someone who has A different worldview, I want to be honest About what they're saying,

What they're doing, How they're believing. You'll hear us try to quote From original resource material

Because we want to be accurate In what's said. Doing that takes time.

It's more than just a quick Google search And you got it and pop and go. You've got to buy these books at times

And read through them and unpack them. That takes time. Our hope is that with each episode

You come away feeling like Wow, if I hadn't listened to that There's no way I would have had the time To go research that And know that, apart from these guys

Spending the time, taking the time And dissecting it for us And then pushing whatever the issue is

Through a biblical worldview. So that's kind of the thought process. It takes a while.

Right now we're trying to average About one episode per month.

And I think this is the first time That it's going to be a little bit of It's going to be a little bit delayed Because of our travel schedule for the month of June So we have to push the next episode out

To the middle of July. But to just give you guys some background Virgil's kind of alluded to this

To give you guys some background On how we do what we do. Usually there's nothing scientific

Or complicated about it. If there's a topic or an issue or a theme That's burdening one of our hearts

We'll just send a text message out. Like Virgil, for instance The episode that's coming up The one that we're going to be releasing

In the middle of July Is titled Cultural Denominationalism. Virgil sends me a text

Says hey, I think we should do one on denominationalism. And I texted back I said political denominationalism.

He said yeah. Then a couple days later I was dwelling on that I said no, political denominationalism is too narrow.

I said what about cultural denominationalism? He said let's do it. So I got to work. So that's usually how we agree on a topic

Or an issue for an episode. It's just a couple text messages Maybe a phone call real quick We'll nail it down after a few seconds

And then that's my cue to go get to work. For this upcoming episode, episode 119

On cultural denominationalism If you want to make a note We're tentatively scheduling that release

For July 13th. Wednesday, July 13th. I went out and bought 12 books

On denominationalism To study and prepare For this episode.

So Virgil's right We invest a lot of Not just time

But a lot of our own resources Financially to prepare for these episodes To rightly divide the word

Of truth up against these topics. So I went out and ordered 12 books on Amazon What you're going to hear me

I'm done with my preparation for that episode But Virgil's just now beginning his I think I emailed

Virgil like 15 pages of notes Is that what that was? That's what that email was

You might want to open that email You might want to open that one So yeah,

I emailed Virgil 15 pages of notes on my end From my side,

I'm quoting 17 different theologians In that episode, just from the reading that I've done

So now Virgil's Getting to work on his end And what happens is, when I send

Virgil my notes We both Develop our content in manuscript form

So every word you hear When you press play Is written down It's in manuscript form

We have every single word written down And as I prepare my notes I have

Places within my commentary Where Virgil will come in Okay So when

I send him my notes He sees what my thesis is He sees what my argument is

And he sees where he needs to come in That's why you never hear us talking over one another Because I've got

Designated spaces for him to come in Now we have moments where we ad lib And kind of go off of our notes

Periodically, but for the most part All that stuff is structured So when I send my notes

To Virgil Virgil knows, okay, now it's time for him to get to work However much time he thinks he may need

That we will build that time Into the date that we're going to release the episode So I just emailed

My notes to him last week I'm thinking Virgil probably needs about three weeks To get ready

So we build that three weeks in I'll text Virgil I'll say, okay Virgil, for this three weeks that you may need

I think that puts us out Maybe we can record the episode on July 9th What do you think? He'll look at his calendar

Boom, okay, we're good, alright, got it We set the record date, we set the record time The release date is always the following Wednesday So we're going to record this episode on July 9th

It's going to be released on July 13th And the cool thing about it Is that when I send Virgil my notes

He sees what I'm going to say But he never sends me his notes He never sends

I never know When we hit record On that scheduled date and time I never know what he's going to say, never

And there's a reason for that There's a reason for that There's a couple of dynamics

That are happening when I get his notes He's got a very methodical, thought out process And usually

He already told you, he's got 17 different quotes In 17 different Theologians alone that he's quoting

In order to maintain some Fluidity, I can't come back in With 20 more quotes

In order to maintain Fluidity, I've got to think through Where he's going and what

I need to do To help you breathe When you hear that podcast When he comes

With a quote that's A paragraph long I've got to think, do I need to help them process

What was just said Are there points that were made that I need to reiterate Or Is there a completely different direction

That I need to take So that it can illuminate what's taking place And so While I didn't do this early on And I I kicked myself for not doing it

Early on when we started I would He told you he's the writer, I'm not the writer I would use bullet points

So I would bullet point my ideas And just kind of be very extemporaneous Which was great

And it helped with the flow And continuity of our conversation The problem with it became

When we started Taking our transcripts And putting them into manuscript form

For preparation for a book So the first book They're like, where are your notes

And I said, oh they're bullet points What's a bullet point going to do for that So we had to go back through in the manuscript

So that took a lot longer To get the first book out But the other piece of it is

I try, once I get his notes To think of a different direction That he's not seeing

Or thinking And for the most part I try to operate in a pastoral framework

Yeah, I'm the more prophetic Voice of the two So I'm always hitting the truth aspect Darrell is going to Hit you with truth real hard in your face

And I try to Think about it through a pastoral lens How can I not soften the truth

But frame it in a way That helps bring someone along For where we're going

So he's got the application piece So I'm the doctrine guy, he's the application piece You hear that distinctly

In our most recent episode On a biblical response to perfectionism Where it's a three hour

Biblical counseling session So if you know anyone who's dealing with The sin of perfectionism in their life

You want to turn them on to that episode It's a three hour biblical counseling session On perfectionism Where you hear our distinct

Spiritual gifts I'm more prophetic This guy right here is more pastoral

More application But we warn people At the top of that episode That this is not going to be a comfortable episode

For you to listen to If you're dealing with that issue in your life Because like any biblical counseling session

You're trying to identify what the heart issue is And perfectionism is no different There's a heart issue at play here

That you need to identify and deal with So we walk you through that But you hear our distinct voices

As you listen Last thing I'll say about this And then we'll get back to more of the questions If you're thinking about podcasts

Or doing a podcast And or listening to us And kind of are thinking about What's the secret sauce

I don't know that there is any I will simply say I've always thought of our partnership

And Daryl's been gracious Daryl has never said You only get so much time

That never happens When we turn the microphones on He can't wait to hear

What I'm going to say And I know what he's going to say But I can't wait to hear him deliver What he's going to say

And so there's still that mutual Just kind of effervescent Kind of joy to hearing two brothers

Talk about things But in my mind Just so that you know I try to think whatever he's delivered

I need to be about 40 % of that So I'm thinking when I'm preparing 60 -40 60 % of his voice needs to be heard 40 % of mine

Needs to be heard as a co -host Some people do 80 -20 Some people do 90 -10 I try to balance it about in that range

So if I see he's Sometimes I'll do a word count If I'm going to manuscript

I'll do a word count I'll see okay in that section He had a thousand words Okay whatever I say needs to come in at 600

So I've literally done that at times To just make sure that there's a balance Of matching

That's probably way more than you ever want to know about that We don't have three hours to get through the rest

Sorry brother You boys need to pick up the pace Why do you think the

New Testament Does not directly address slavery as a sin It does address it It does address it

It directly addresses it Virg you may be better To respond to this question than me

But I think the question Gets into the area of Bible study methods

How do you go about studying the Bible How do you go about The process of hermeneutics

How do you deal with exegesis Exposition and things of that nature Because fundamentally I think that's what the question gets to The Bible does

Directly address slavery And it addresses it as a sin issue So the question

The question needs to be reframed Because the issue isn't slavery The issue is the sin that leads to slavery

That led to slavery So you have to root call What you're dealing with In that question is

The fruit of the root You need to deal with the root Yeah You need to deal with the root

The Bible from cover to cover Directly addresses slavery Now because you don't see

In Exodus 20 Thou shalt not commit slavery That doesn't mean the

Bible doesn't address it The Bible does address it It's a sin issue The Bible does nothing else

It addresses the sin in our hearts I tried to address that in the message that I just gave In that section where Talking about Jupiter Hammon Talking about Quoting from David Eltus In the

Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Sharing my own ancestral Realities With slaves and slavery

But yeah The New Testament does address directly Slavery because it addresses

The sin issue that resulted In that sin And I think

Virgil I think it was you who said At some point today Slavery has been a global issue for thousands of years

It's going on right now As we sit here So slavery has not been Eliminated Throughout the world

But the New Testament does address And so does the Old Testament by the way I think

Our culture is so reactionary We're so emotional We're so sentimental Where when we hear words like slavery

We automatically default To an Uncle Tom situation Where we think of somebody being whipped

Or beaten or abused And there definitely was that But the thing about Scripture when it comes to slavery

When you look at it, the Bible doesn't outlaw slavery It doesn't prohibit it What it prohibits is the

Maltreatment Of your slaves Historically Slavery was

I don't care if you want to call it slavery or servitude Whatever word you want to use In many cases

Those situations were the only Opportunities for many men And women and children

To maintain A standard of living so that they could Remain alive They weren't employable in certain

Occupations or jobs or things like that Because they weren't skilled Those cases were rare but we've got to We've got to remove ourselves

From these default Reactionary responses to where When we hear the word slavery

We think only on the worst case scenarios Matter of fact Most slavery was not that So the

Bible Addresses the maltreatment Of your slaves Because even slaves were image bearers

Of God So That question is a very

It's a very important Question but the question itself Needs to be exegeted a little bit

To get the context I would add a couple things to that I'm trying to make sure I watch for time Two things, one is the

Old Testament Actually does deal with it directly From a standpoint of man stealing You have that kind of KJV language

Exodus 20 It really forbids the stealing And what you're talking about with Chattel slavery particularly here in the

United States And what that looked like That was people who went into a land Stole a man, brought him here, put him in chains

And enslaved him The issue of slavery In the Old Testament when you see culturally speaking

People sold themselves Into indentured servitude In the Old Testament It's a very natural part of the

Of the culture of the time So we have only one view Of slavery

And that's what blacks experienced Here in the United States of America You also have 1

Timothy 1 .10 That where Paul In writing to Timothy Actually calls slave traders

Immoral, these same slave traders Would be the ones that are kind of looked at In the Old Testament as man stealers

So the text does address The nature of What we would talk about here in America As chattel slavery

The manner in which it was Encountered, but the point of Scripture wasn't to clear up slavery

The point of Scripture was A story about a sovereign God who would send his son to Redeem mankind and save us

From the true slavery That would lead to eternal death and hell And so as a result of that, that message

Is the message that's focused upon And with the hope that people's hearts Would be transformed by the power of that gospel

And they would engage in things that dehumanize Other image bearers of God Finally I'll say this, you've got

The book of Philemon Or the story of Philemon Who was a slave, leaves

And Paul tells him to go back And tells the slave And the slave master

How to engage one another So you have Christianity being The first of a worldview that tells

Slave and slave owner that they are Brothers in Christ And need to treat one another

In that manner So there's all kinds of things you can look at from the text I think the point that Daryl is making

Is it takes someone responsibly exegeting The text, unpacking it For the clarity of truth that's there

So I hope that helps We see more and more men who are Once trusted, and we're going to talk about this more in just a moment

Begin to sort of go off the beam Head in a trajectory that makes us uncomfortable If a pastor or author that you have

Read and heard turns to embrace an unbiblical idea At what point do you abandon any helpful materials That they have produced?

Because we've got guys that have produced good materials Sometimes volumes produced by ministries And now they're

Wavering on some of these issues, embracing it At what point do we just walk away from it And turn our nose up at it?

Yeah, I think That's a challenging question Because I think there are categories

For these kinds of things, right? And again, I don't want to I'm going to share with you kind of how

I view this But I wouldn't prescribe this as Here's what I do, follow me, right? Because there's still aspects of this

That I'm working out A similar question that Daryl and I were asking As we watched the whole woke thing unfold

Is when do we begin calling these people These men who have been When do we begin calling them unbelievers?

Right? They're preaching a different gospel They're advocating ideas that are anti -biblical

And they're embracing a world view That doesn't match what Scripture's taught When do we finally challenge it

And say they're unbelievers? That's what Galatians is all about I think that's challenging

So the way I kind of View that I'll give you an example of what I Demonstrated here

Today when I gave my talk I quoted who? Dr. Martin Luther King Trusted hero and really an iconic figure

But I said We should have problems With this theology Because it was off, it was wrong

I even went so far as to say I don't believe that Martin Luther King Was a Christian But under the umbrella of common grace

Whether believer or not believer You can speak truth about An issue, a situation, a circumstance

You can speak that truth And we can advocate that truth As something that coincides With the biblical worldview

While identifying the wrongness of that man I think I would, in light of a believer

A man that we've trusted I would do the same kind of thing I would say, listen, here's someone

Who has maybe some good material At the point at which They've gone off the rail

I don't Promote their works I would not promote

You would not see me advocate, hey, go buy this Hey, go For the purpose of your own soul's protection

I would not advocate doing that I would simply say that This person has written some good material If you came to me and asked me

And that's usually how this happens I'm on a Facebook page Or a live and I'm telling you

About, let's just call it that I'm not telling you about nine marks of a healthy church On a

Facebook post Or in some space and place Because I know What Deborah now, where he is

What he stands for What he's promoting in the way of A gospel that's tainted

And by that What I mean is simply the Wolkism that's invaded things at Capitol Hill What he's allowed to take place

In that space And I've got the quotes and can do all of that But I personally would not Promote that work in an open space

I would not Now if someone were to come to me with the book And say, is this a good book? Should I be reading this?

I would say, listen, you're free to read what you want However, here's where this man is in error

Here's where some things are wrong And you need to be aware of that And know that for your own soul's safety

So that would be the manner In which I would operate Again, I wouldn't prescribe that I'm just telling you how

I navigate That very challenging and difficult issue Yeah, I would just add I'm sorry, when you brought up Dr.

King It just occurred to me Any of you who are interested in reading and studying Dr. King's theological worldview

Or his worldview in general You can do a Google search Just search Martin Luther King Jr.

Stanford University Stanford University has a partnership with the King Center in Atlanta Where you have many of Dr.

King's papers Online at the Stanford University website Many of his papers Going all the way back to when he was in seminary

At Crozer Theological Seminary back in the 40s So you can read A lot of his own words

A lot of his writings while he was in seminary Where you get a clear picture of what his theological worldview is

And when you read those Depending on how thoroughly you want to read them You come to the understanding that King was not a biblical

Regenerate Christian He was more of a moralist He was more of a humanist He was more of a globalist

Because he partnered He was more of an ecumenist He partnered with Hindus, Buddhists Middle Eastern religionists

He was a Matter of fact in his sermon titled I'm sorry a paper he wrote in seminary titled

Preaching Mission He said and I'm quoting I am a staunch advocate of the social gospel

Unquote So King was a social gospel conformist He was more of a moralist

Humanist than a Biblical Christian He named Walter Rauschenbusch as one of his largest influences

If that would tell you anything Alright how do you decide Whether to engage in debate and confrontation on social media

And at what point do you cease from debating I don't debate people on social media I simply put

What I'm thinking Or an idea that I have I push it forward and call it a day

Now what I may do for fun Is I may engage Somebody who's you know

Being a knucklehead or I've got 15 minutes to waste This will be fun

But it's Never for the purpose And let me say this I will never be disrespectful to someone

To the degree that I've called them A name or a pejorative Or something like that But I will make fun of what they've said

Or something that they've shared That's an idea I will expose that for its foolishness

For its folly I will do that But I usually don't resort to name calling That's kind of childish behavior

I do think there's a way to operate From a standpoint of social media etiquette

That I think as believers We should all demonstrate Now am I perfect at it Absolutely not

And if you ever see me demonstrating it In such a way that that's not the case Feel free to check me

Call me on it And I'll do my best to make that right But that's kind of my M .O.

with social media I apply that same M .O. Your battery might be shot

Is that it? Battery shot? Yeah I'm looking at Proverbs 26 5

Proverbs 26 5 says Answer a fool For his folly deserved That he be not wise

In his own eyes That's what I employ On social media

Especially if any of you follow me on Twitter You've probably seen me do this What I'll do is I'll ridicule the idea

I'll ridicule the comment I'll never ridicule the person So a system that I've come up with I have a clown emoji

That I like to use And I'll award you From anywhere between one and five clowns

You know For the absolutely incredibly astoundingly absurd

You get five clowns If it's only Minimally absurd, minimally stupid

You'll get one clown So that's what I'll do I'll just quote tweet you And I'll drop a series of clowns

And I've done that so often now People know, people get it They're familiar with my clown scale

They've actually come to copy it themselves To ridicule the idea

It's only to ridicule the comment In the context of Proverbs 26 5 I never make fun of an individual

I never call someone a fool I never call someone an idiot I never do that But the ideas that they approach us with And try to hook us into a debate

We won't do it I'll quote tweet so the world can see How asinine what they're saying is

And I'll award them a series of clowns Yeah Alright, as a Christian author

I want to promote Biblical truth and combat wokeness I'm concerned about cancel culture being silenced

I'm concerned about cancel culture And being silenced Sure Do you have any advice or encouragement for Christians Facing cancel culture

We're trying to think through those pieces of the puzzle At G3 We have a YouTube page

We've got a lot of content that I just uploaded on there We've got all of our archive material That's been sitting in different spaces

That now has gotten there We're concerned None of what we do is a shying away

Of truth Whether it's biblical sexuality Or wokeism or anything

So we have the concern Of what happens If we've got this stuff on the YouTube page

And all of a sudden it's gone Our thought process is just doubling our efforts In spaces and places so that we never

Lose the material But we anticipate, my thought would be Expect that to take place You should expect to be cancelled at some point

You should expect to be You should expect the persecution That scripture says that you're going to endure

For living a life That chooses to honor God And so with that said I just would make sure that I did

Whatever it took To have duplicates, triplicates Of what you need, where you need it

So that people can access it And the more you can get off of those kinds of platforms And at least have your own

Your own resource For example, I think it would be wise For you to have your own app With all of your materials on it accessible

So I mean that's what GTY does That's what G3 does We have our own application Now that's not going to stop

Google from shutting you down As can be the case But your hope is to try to navigate what you can

Staying connected with those Who want to connect with you In a way that's helpful But you cannot operate from a standpoint of fear

You really cannot You've got to go forward, preach the truth Tell the truth and believe God for the rest

Yeah, I really agree with that Practical counsel there, Virgil As a matter of fact, I'm reading Matthew 5

I would just encourage that person to Number one, guard your mind and heart Against what Virgil just said

Guard your mind and heart against Falling into an attitude and mindset of fear Anxiety, guard your mind and heart against that I would encourage you to go back and listen to Our podcast episode that's titled

Why Are You Afraid? Go back and look at that That's the episode upon which the book is based

But I would encourage you to go to Matthew 5 And read the words of Jesus Especially the latter part

Of verse 12 Where Jesus says, when you are persecuted And insulted, rejoice

That's the attitude you should have Rejoice and be glad For your reward in heaven

Is great, for in the same way They persecuted the prophets Who were before you And I also would encourage you to go look at Philippians chapter 1 verse 29

Where it says For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake Not only to believe in him But also to suffer for his sake

So if you're in that situation Don't be concerned, don't be anxious, rejoice Be glad Be happy That the grace of Christ has shined upon you

Where in his providence and in his Sovereignty he has chosen Providentially to Permit this situation

To come to fruition in your life And you should rejoice in that Alright, I have a black friend

Who has adopted many tenants of CRT And I want to help lead him to a biblical position Any advice or counsel for how

I can help him? No I'm only half kidding That's a difficult question to answer

I don't know all the dynamics Of the situation And there's no one answer fits all

Scenario that I can give you There's not one thing that's going to work With every black person So that now you have the black person answer

That you can go and Take care of The black person card I don't have that Black person alert

I would need a lot more information To deal with that I would simply, in a general sense

Tell you that All of that is about Relationship How are you interacting?

What are you saying? What do those conversations look like? One of the keys that I tried to give you

While I had an opportunity to speak Is the more that you can engage In those kinds of conversations

Devoid of emotion The better off you are That's a better position

That's a better circumstance From which to operate If you're operating from a standpoint Of you can't wait to jump in Nobody's going to want to deal with you

Right? Or you're not that way And they start talking

And you feel yourself just going Just stop Just stop

Figure something else out Because you're not ready for that conversation I will tell you Being here is important Being in spaces like this is important Why?

Because you're getting information That you wouldn't have otherwise And that information is always helpful I think more information

Helps you to calm down When I would teach apologetics classes I would tell people

That would have the tendency To get riled up in situations I'd say, listen, have you ever argued About the fact that 2 and 2 is 4?

I mean, have you ever gotten to a heated debate? Well, no. Well, why? Because you know that 2 and 2 is 4 Now, again,

I know that there's a Whole world of crazy critical thinking Right now that's saying 2 and 2 is 5

Right? But no one's going to get wound up about that debate Why? Because you know the truth What I'm trying to get you to understand is

The more truth you have And know, the calmer you can be Because it's not about you

It's about a defense Of the truth And so you can operate from that vantage point There's probably more to that than I need to say

Yeah, I'll just My counsel to you would just be to Be careful what your motives are

I thought the key word in the question Was help. If you truly want to help The individual, then you'll take yourself and your bias

Out of it. Take your position out of it If you really want to help the person Make sure that the manner in which

You approach them to help them Is rooted in pure motives Rooted in godly motives

You're not trying to win an argument You're not trying to win a debate What you're trying to do is present them with the truth of the gospel

And then what you do is Just do that, stick to that And then trust god to work his word

In the heart and mind of that person If he so chooses But you need to take yourself out of the situation

Be as objective as possible And make sure your motives are right In wanting to help the person

And then you're not In the position of You know, fidgety

And going all emotionally berserk In that situation You've removed yourself from it

What's at stake here is the truth of the gospel You help them You share with them as much as possible

But do it objectively But with a pure motive and intention And I'll let you answer this one

Because it's more kind of your people Next SBC president, Askel or Barber? Askel If he wins, will some of the churches

That have left the SBC come back? No, for clarity, the church that you are part of Has left the SBC, right?

Yes, Praise and Moab Baptist Now you're Praise and Moab Church? No, Praise and Moab Baptist How can you be a

Baptist church and not be part of the SBC? We were Baptists Before the

SBC was That's how that works Our church is older So they should be joining you

Thank you The Praise and Moab Baptist church

Was put in place Or was in place as a church I want to say

At least four or five years Before the SBC actually Formed itself So we're good

If you're interested In why Dr. Josh Bice Has written an article that you can go to G3men .org

And he articulates his thought process Very well In fact, Justin Peters had him on His podcast

And he did a fantastic job Of A, asking the right kinds of questions And unpacking that So if you're interested

In why the church And what the process looked like For the church to leave the SBC You can see what that is

But again, we've got friends Who are still connected I was an associate pastor at a church

That was SBC There are good people Who are still in the SBC I wish the SBC well

There's no ill feelings or harm That we wish them I do hope that Tom Askell is the next president

But even if he is the next president The sentimentalism And pragmatism

Which we'll talk about some tomorrow That has infected the SBC Will take ten years

At least To bring it back to Back to par

Back to zero And then it will take another ten years To push it into a reformed

Idea about worship Where scripture is sufficient To inform all that we do

In every facet of worship and life And Tom is very aware

This isn't a Hey, I won It's over, y 'all come back

It's a process The conservative resurgence Took 25 years To unfold

And people who were there For a lengthy period of time Making sure that every Committee member

Was placed in the right positions So that the conservatives could win This is not a one and done situation

With the SBC So it'll be a part of a process I wish Tom nothing but the best We're both,

Darrell and I Our book was printed with Founders Press Which is over Which Tom Askell is over We have a great relationship with him

We'll continue to have that I texted Tom or sent something out Or tweeted him or something today

Just to encourage him As he's going through the process We pray for him We pray for things to change and turn around In the

SBC It's a long process So question, is it yes or no?

Short answer Yes or no, is the SBC beyond repair? Oh, wow It's more than a yes or no

No, it's a yes or no question I mean, it either is or it isn't If it isn't, there's no need to explain it

If there is, it's self -evident Yes or no, is it beyond repair? Here's what

I would say to that In this public setting I would say that For me

And the role that I've played in that space And what I've experienced And seen in that space

I don't believe I'm qualified To make a judgment like that Are you qualified?

I'm not qualified But my answer is yes It's beyond repair It's beyond repair

It's beyond repair I just I'm Maybe here's where I come from I'm hopeful

I don't want to see it You don't want the answer to be yes I don't want the answer to be yes

I don't think anybody does want the answer to be yes I don't want the answer to be yes If it's yes, no question, I'm answering yes We lived in Georgia for six years

And struggled with Sunday being the most segregated Day of the week What effective biblical responses have you seen to unifying

The white, black, hispanic, etc. church within the same city? Two things One, the gospel Two is the idea that The idea that posited

This quote We did an entire episode on this quote alone When we were at G3 And that If you want to hear the lengthy

Hour long version It's called Woke Church And then we circled back and did

Woke Church part two So if you want to go hear those, hear a lengthy answer to that question You can Simply to say that the quote comes from Dr.

Martin Luther King And the quote in and of itself Is not an accurate assessment Of what's actually taking place

In the church Twelve o 'clock is not the most segregated hour Not from a standpoint of you not being able to go

And experience church Wherever you There's no church that I can't walk into As a black man

When you're talking about segregation You're talking about a law That requires me to stay on the side of the street

To drink from a specific fountain To do some specific things Now if people are choosing

To go where they're located In a particular city To a specific church

That's a choice you're making Segregation is something that was enforced So the idea

That it's the most segregated hour That's a nice little quote That King popularized

But it's not an accurate assessment Of where we are today The idea behind that is a reproblematizing

You've heard us use that word It's a reproblematizing of something That took place historically speaking

As if it's the same way Today and that's absolutely Not the case

Now the other aspect of the question Which is what do we do To fix the segregation

Again my premise would be People are choosing to go where they go Based upon what they desire to do

They're not forced to do so I was free to walk into this church I had no inhibitions about doing that There was no sign on the wall

That kept that from taking place So I go where I want to And if someone is staying at an all black church

It's because that's what they choose to do It's not because That's the only place that they can go

They can go wherever they choose to go So the nature of the question I think needs to be

Looked at from a standpoint of how it's framed And because Based upon how it's framed

It deposits the next idea Which is this is a problem Now what can we do to fix it

And my argument there would be There's nothing for you to fix The church is not yours It's Christ So what you and I are to do is

We're to go and be obedient to what the word says Which is to go and preach the gospel to all men And as the gospel is preached

Hearts will be transformed And the power of that gospel will draw them into a church And if you're the one that shared the gospel with them

Guess where they're probably going to go They're probably going to go to church With you

And so that'll be the opportunity What do we do? We preach the gospel This is the kind of thinking that if we're not careful

Lends itself to the idea that A. The gospel isn't enough And B. I've got to do something more And those kinds of things

Are things we need to Push back against And really open the scripture and think about it

I'm thinking about the episode we did on the Leave Loud movement With Jamar Tisby Who's spearheading

That movement where he's urging Black evangelicals To leave predominantly white churches

If that's where they are To leave loud, to protest on your way out We did an entire episode

On that issue, we titled it Activist Theology So I would encourage you to go back And listen to the episode that's titled

Activist Theology Personally one of my favorite Episodes that we've done Where we kind of walk you through Why that whole

Leave Loud movement is unbiblical But I think the question presupposes

It's presuppositional It's presuppositional On its face The presupposition is that In order for a biblical local church

To be truly biblical It must, like we said this morning It must represent multicolored It must be multicolored

And Virgil just nailed it The church doesn't belong to you God Every truly

Every true believer in Christ Is by faith Automatically A part of the universal church

Automatically a part of it So what right do we have At the local church level To put these stipulations on Something that Christ doesn't

Apply to his universal church You become a member of the church by faith And that Occurs monogistically

By God alone 1 Corinthians 1 .30 says That by his doing That is by God's doing

You are in Christ Jesus By his doing So who am I to say Well your church at the local level

Needs to look like this See there's a difference between having A multicolored or multiethnic church

And having a multicolored Multiethnic congregation That's good

We're in a church right now Multiple ethnicities represented But unless these

Multiple ethnicities are believers You don't have a multiethnic church Yep The church by definition

Is comprised of believers Not attenders So that's the distinction that we have to make

And whomever God wants to bring Into his church He's gonna bring them

Absolutely If you recognize at the end of my talk I read from what was it Revelation 7 and 9 and following This idea of Many nations

Many ethnicities That's the work of Christ That's the work of God the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit All you have to do Is go do what you were Commissioned to do which is to go

And preach the gospel Be faithful to the preaching of the gospel And all of that color stuff

Takes care of itself in the end I can take you to some churches On the west side of Atlanta where I grew up They're predominantly black churches

They're all black But this question whenever it is raised

You touched on this earlier The onus is always on the white church To become more dark It's never on the dark church to become more white

And in the area where I grew up 30314 zip code You're not gonna find

Caucasians Living over there No Hispanics live over there No Asians live there You know

So this whole idea Listen, let me just say this With all due respect to how

God Used Dr. Martin Luther King when he did And I get that But Dr.

King's His world view was just wrong He throws out this Statement like this from a speech

That he gave And here we are six decades later Still talking about it

Needing to reproblematize it I mean, come on Really? I mean So With all due respect to the questioner

Who lived in Georgia for six years I lived in Georgia for all my life With the exception of the past three years

I know that state like the back of my hand I know that city of Atlanta where I grew up Like the back of my hand

Churches are not segregated Because to say that a church is segregated Presupposes A standard

Or a benchmark That Christ doesn't apply That's good To his church

So we need to get rid of this question We just need to stop asking it With all due respect Alright, this is the last one from the audience

We had a couple others but I'll save those Because I'm going to wrap them up with some other questions Here in a moment Could you please help my pastor

And teach him how to tie a bow tie I got you

I got you It would strongly compliment His fedora that his wife loves Awesome Awesome Yeah, we could both do that By the way, these ties are the ones you have to tie

Yeah, these are tie ties We don't do clip -ons Alright, what do black people experience

That white folk don't know about or understand Are white people blind to racism I don't know what black people

I have no idea If you find out Come tell me what they get

So are you profiled Can you go for a walk without an ID Did you have to teach your kids how to Respond when an officer pulls them over Are you treated differently

On the basis of your color Are you pulled over for driving while black Are you expected to vote a certain way

Is voter ID racist Are you too incompetent To get voter

ID I have no idea To every single one of those

I have no idea how to respond to any of that Because any issue that I run into Related to that I've never experienced through the lens

Of the color of my skin None of it Ever So, I mean

Even if someone came to me And said something Blatantly What we would all identify as Racist I would attribute that to they're stupid

Not to anything related It says more about you Than it ever says about Me So it's not even a conversation

Like I'm not even going to spend the time Entertaining What the motivation was It was stupid

And that's about as much time as I have For that Yeah, that's a five clowner right there I mean If we were on Twitter right now, that would get five clowns

So you can go for a walk without ID I mean, I pulled over for that reason You've been pulled over I have been pulled over How'd it work out?

It worked out I'm here, right? Yeah, so it worked out

Do you want me to tell the story I told you? I do, yeah, go ahead All right I was telling

Pastor Jim a story I gotta say this, can you give us the The snippet He wants me to give the snippet

Okay, let me give the snippet I got pulled over By an officer

I was headed out Driving too fast, passed the stop sign Didn't stop all the way The lights go up So apparently

I mean, I wasn't afraid Obviously, because I had my cell phone And I literally

The cop is behind me And I literally, in the car, I took a picture And the picture, I can show it to you if you want to see it

It's of my face And the lights behind me I took the picture because I thought, dang it, this is going to be funny

That's the real reason I took the picture I took the picture and I put it down And then he comes up We do all the stuff

And you blew through the stop sign And I was like, I know I'm headed to such and such He's like, alright, let me get your license

Fills out the thing, comes back And I took the Ticket from him and I said, listen

This is 2020 I said, listen With the, you know, the verdicts

And all this stuff happening The officers are getting a bad rap And we just had an exchange, black guy, white cop

You know, this is the narrative I said, so why don't you do me Why don't you do me a solid And let's take a picture together

There was absolutely no fear I just thought this would be cool I took a snapshot of he and I And him giving me the ticket

Took a picture And I took that picture and I did a side -by -side Of A, the police officer

Car behind me And B, me and the police officer And I'd written something up on social media

Thinking this is probably going to go nowhere My friends will get a laugh at me and that'll be it But this thing blows up About 80 ,000 likes and shares

And it goes all over the country In fact I found out later from the officer

That there were police stations Around the country that reached out to him And just said, hey, great job

You know Basically because I had said in the piece I said, you know, I didn't fear for my life

All the stuff that you named I didn't fear for my life, I wasn't afraid I knew I'd done wrong, I knew that All of that stuff

And the exchange was respectful But I did get the ticket, you know I was trying to make a joke of it

Well, needless to say The news media in Omaha heard about it And they actually called me

And said, hey, we want to put you and that officer together And do a news story So they did, they did a news story

I went down and saw the guy He hugged me, he's like, man, thank you For the positive feedback

And all these officers, I was like, man, that's great But then I still had to pay for the ticket Verge, what

I want to know Is how much was the ticket? I think it was about a hundred bucks I paid it though I was in the wrong

To what extent is your experience In America contingent on the color of your skin? I have no idea

That depends on the individual I have no idea, like, I have no There's not like, okay,

I'll be right back You know, I'm keeping record Let me look, let me check my records I, that's not

I don't I don't have that Like, I don't, like, I don't

I have no answer for that Was that, I didn't even know it was that funny Your life wasn't better when you were a white man

Right Yes So you have no bar by which to judge No, no,

I didn't, I didn't, I've been black my whole life I don't have a clue Let me check my records

Of how this has been How this has been going I'll be right back Alright, on February 27th

It was Racial Reconciliation Sunday In the SBC We all reconciled, did y 'all know that? We're all reconciled

Did y 'all know the SBC reconciled us All on that day The nomination did it Lookie there

Wave that magic wand Y 'all are reconciled I saw that and I could not believe

That they were doing that It was Racial Reconciliation Day So let me finish the question I'm sorry This is going to come as a shock to most people

But I saw both of you post negative twitter comments On that subject What's the issue with that Are you opposed to racial reconciliation

I am actually, yes I am I am opposed to it It's nonsense

We both subscribed to the idea that races don't reconcile hearts do In fact, Darrell coined that And I took it a step further

When we were being interviewed by Allie Beth Stuckey And gave the example of Okay, let's say that this is a real thing

Right Who is the black representative That's going to represent all black people

And then who's y 'all's white representative That you're going to send To reconcile on behalf of all white people

What are going to be the terms of the reconciliation And how will it be reported to us all That we've now been fully reconciled

You see how silly this all is And reconciled from what Absolutely Reconciled from what

So this whole idea of racial reconciliation I think I made that clear in my position In the message that I just gave

The whole idea of racial reconciliation Is totally nonsensical So for instance, let's pretend today is

Racial reconciliation Friday What are we

What are Jim and I being reconciled over Yeah, that could be an issue

But We We don't need to be reconciled over that So the point

I'm trying to make is this The whole idea of Reconciliation Presupposes that there is

An objective Issue of conciliation That needs to be resolved

What What the idea of racial Reconciliation bids you do First above Everything else is to acknowledge

Who this person is based on the color Of their skin That's what the racial and racial Reconciliation Forces you to do

That's the problem at the heart of it Exactly right So white people go find a black person

And reconcile with them Black people go find a white person And reconcile with them

Just because they're white It makes no sense It's just the dumbest thing

And my hope is that I hope everywhere we go To debunk this to the degree

That every time you see it You laugh It's five clowns Every time you see it

That's garbage It's ridiculous Alright, this is the last one for tonight

And then we have some more to tackle tomorrow What is happening In our seminaries, in our churches

In our denominations We used to have Coalitions around the gospel

People used to get together For the gospel And now some of these people Who have gotten together for the gospel

And coalesced around the gospel Are embracing some of the very things

That you guys are here Criticizing and taking issue with And that is not how

It should be And that's not how it was even ten years ago So there is a drift taking place

Would we call it an apostasy? What's happening? What's going on on a large scale?

I think they were captured Those organizations you mentioned Were captured in this wave

With regard to wokeism And they went there And really it caused the downfall of one

And the teetering of the other The issue really now Is what's happening

What's happening in their What they're doing To rebrand themselves

So what TGC is doing To rebrand itself Is they're trying to find this middle ground

So they'll do a video now Where you've got both sides Someone who's a proponent of CRT Someone who's antagonistic

Against CRT And they'll be kind of going at it In a debate You see this format

Where they get all of their issues out And they get all of their issues out And then they sit down and talk And it's not really a debate

In fact if you watch the quote unquote debate It's a man who steps up Who's supposed to be standing against CRT See they won't ask a

Daryl Harrison to come debate They won't ask a Virgil Walker A Bode Bauckham To come and have these kinds of conversations

And set it up in the real debate format They won't ask a James White Who can handle himself in that space

To come and debate these issues Because that's not really what they're after What they're now after In these arenas

Are for you to be They're really wanting to be tone police And so now the issue is

Thou shalt be nice It's never It's never about what's right

And wrong about the issues And the subject matter It's oh you had some good points And you said it in a nice way

Oh you had some good points And you said it in a nice way Now what would you say to the people who are on your side

That they could do better to be nice And that's the conversation That's now being had

So it's this kind of third wave Niceness that's supposed to Permeate all of what we say

Rather than saying no There's some real distinctions here That need to be talked about Even passionately if need be

In an effort to examine what Scripture has to say about these And either we need to accept one

And reject the other Or accept the other and reject the one But we're going to stand for something

Regardless and that's not what's actually happening There's a rebranding That's actually taking place

That you're going to see They recognize Wokeness will leave you broke They recognize that So now the next step in the phase

Is a rebranding of things It's kind of the idea Hey we went too far here

Here's the middle ground that we can Find ourselves in And proceed forward There's a lot of terminologies

And jargon around that I won't bore you with all of that this evening But just know that that's what's happening

And that's what you're going to be seeing To that note, just real quick To Virgil's point, I would encourage you to go back

And listen to our episode titled A Nuanced Gospel Because this is what Virgil just described Is the integration of nuance

As the new Hermeneutic Nuance, and the irony is that Nothing that's nuanced

Can be hermeneuticized If that's a word But that's what they're trying to do They're trying to use nuance as a play

On a way to offer a more Palatable Hermeneutic so as to make the gospel

Less offensive Make standing for truth less offensive Under the guise of what

I call The 11th commandment that thou shalt be nice So check out our episode A Nuanced Gospel So in all of the

Gospel Coalition events That they have And all of the Together for the Gospel events

That they have combined How many times have you guys been asked to come speak? Zero And again,

I don't know at this point Because of what they stand for That I would take an invitation From them

I would question why I was there To be honest with you Dallin or I Seek a platform

We've never been one to Seek a platform Trying to get somewhere That's not how we operate

We're grateful for any opportunity that we have And we try to deliver Something that's beneficial for all those

Who are listening So we're not chasing anyone's platform At the end of the day

We want to do what we talked about Which is just stand for truth We want to be about that And if you hear us

And believe that what we bring is going to be of value Then there's mutual benefit

In that And if not, we're fine with that Neither of us are losing sleep Because we haven't received an invitation from them

But I do recognize who they do platform And what they do platform And that gives me all the information

I need To know exactly where they're going Yep All right One last thing

Josh Uh oh What is he up to Uh oh

What I'm afraid of what's going to jump out of it

It's a clown It's five clowns Five little clowns Oh that's good

Would you please open that up for us I don't know if I want to open this thing It's not that I don't trust you

Jim I'm just saying Watch Black Lives Matter Well that's a noose

If you call it a noose We could have 15 FBI agents here tomorrow Investigating Dude somebody went in on that What they were doing

Wow that's impressive I had to go back to the hotel

There was glitter all over Well at least your wife's here So she knows Yeah she know

I wasn't at the club That's right She know

I wasn't in downtown Kootenai Man you don't need a knife for that I know y 'all saying man hurry up with this

Keeping them in suspense I'm going to need a knife for this All the hunters

Oh snap Will you open that Don't ask for a gun

Everybody in this room would have got that Don't come mess with nobody here

Don't be messing with these people up in Idaho They are prepared They are prepared

Amazon Amazon No y 'all didn't

No y 'all didn't No y 'all didn't Oh my gosh You know what they've done

You know what they've gone and done Man you guys are going to make me tear up up here

Oh wow Look at that I finally got my talk

Look at that Did you know about this

You didn't know about this It was our little attempt at racial reconciliation We're reconciled

We're reconciled Once you said it was my fault that you didn't have one I was like we have to do something about it

That was not my idea Thank you all This is awesome Alright ladies and gentlemen we are done for tonight

So you are free to leave whatever you want here Please take any valuables that you have Weapons that you have home with you

But anything else you can leave on the tables for tomorrow And doors will open at 8am We will have food out

Coffee again And session starts at 8 .45 Tomorrow morning Have a good night

Thank you The Lord is

The Lord is The Lord is my shepherd The Lord is

The Lord is The Lord is My shepherd The Lord is

The Lord is The Lord is My shepherd The Lord is

The Lord is You are my shepherd I shall

Not walk May God be

Gracious to us And bless us And make

His face to Shine upon Us That your way

May be known On your

Saving power Among all Nations Let the peoples

Praise you Let the peoples

Praise you Let the nations

Be glad And sing For you

For you For you For you

Iniquity And guide the nations

Upon His feast

Let the peoples Praise you Let the peoples

Praise you Let the peoples

Praise you Praise you