WWUTT 1225 Q&A Black Lives Matter, Social Marxism, The Gospel Solution?

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What is the Black Lives Matter movement? Is it fair to equate it with social

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Marxism? How should we as Christians view the civil unrest in our country right now? The answers to these questions and others when we

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Understand the Text. This is

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When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For everyone who calls on the name of the

00:31

Lord shall be saved. Share our ministry with your friends. Our website is www .utt

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.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. In James chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, we read,

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My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the

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Lord of glory. We see a whole lot of partiality going on lately. Oh, yeah.

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And we're going to be talking about that today as we get to our questions. Yesterday, as I was going through Psalm 119,

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I mentioned something on the podcast I don't know if I've mentioned before. I was trying to think if I'd ever talked about this topic before, and in over 120 episodes, 1 ,220 episodes,

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I don't think we have. And that was the subject of Black Lives Matter. It may have been the first time

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I mentioned it yesterday. So one of our questions here today brings our attention to Black Lives Matter.

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And then we've got a couple of other questions as well, if we're able to get to all of this. Our email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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That's where you can send your questions. On the Friday edition of the broadcast, we respond to those questions from the listeners.

01:44

A lot has happened. A lot has happened. A lot. Since last week. Welcome to June.

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June of 2020, to be precise. So the last two

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Friday episodes, we've talked about Hawk Nelson and John Steingart. And last week, you weren't on either.

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But when I – Sorry about that. I had a bad mic. Yes, you did. Yeah. But when I recorded all of that, of responding to John Steingart and some of the comments that had come as a result of that blog that I wrote, the riots were just beginning.

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So there wasn't even like a big riot scene going on yet as a result of the death of George Floyd.

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But now we have just this massive unrest going on in the country. And even if I wasn't watching the news – because this stuff isn't happening in Junction City, Kansas.

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We don't see – Not that kind of stuff. Yeah. We don't see any of this going on with the civil unrest and whatnot.

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So if I was not watching the news, I would still know it's going on because I've received messages and emails from people saying, boy, the stuff that's happening in America right now is crazy.

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And we're praying for you guys. Thank you. Yeah. So I thank you for offering us the prayers and even asking the questions that you've been asking.

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One of the questions that I'm hoping to get to today is in regards to like, can I go out to the riots and try to share the gospel?

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Is that a good idea? But this first one, this comes from Zach in Virginia. Okay. And he says,

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Pastor Gabe and Becky, I wanted to just say thank you that you all take the time to go line by line with teaching the scripture.

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I did not grow up in church and I didn't step foot into a church until the age of 23.

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That's awesome. Can you imagine that? I am so grateful that you did. Me too. Amen.

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That's awesome. I grew up in church. So I can't imagine living 20 something years of your life and not setting foot in a church.

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We weren't that. You were the nominal Catholics. Yeah. Yeah. So I can kind of really.

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Yeah. It's not common though. In America, you don't encounter people who have not been in church in the first 20 something years of their life.

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We just kind of assume it's the American way of life. Somebody at some point has gone to church and at least figured out

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I don't like this. And then they don't go anymore, you know, right. But now it's the it's the next generation.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, going line by line through the scriptures here to Zach, as you mentioned that.

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So we we started by talking about Black Lives Matter and the riots that are going on right now.

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I'm not the best at responding to a matter or an issue when it happens.

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Yeah. I tend to wait a while before I finally get to it because it's just kind of like,

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I don't know, especially this subject in this issue. I just don't know that I have the expertise or the knowledge to speak into that particular circumstance.

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Well, and also it takes some time to get past the surface. That's true. And OK, I see something going on.

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Why is this happening? I mean, you can make an opinion, but you can't really hold fast to that opinion until after more develops.

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Yeah. Even when it's you. Yeah, that's right. We're going to be right.

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We're going to be looking back on this situation now and you're going to be a different person then. Yeah. See who you are now.

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And and that sort of thing. But anyway, so the best thing that I can do in this particular situation is just stick with with with preaching, preaching, preaching the scriptures, preaching the

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Bible, going line by line through the scriptures, the best thing I can do. And it's the most relevant to any kind of situation or circumstance that's going on right now.

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I agree. Like I said to my church this past Sunday, when the riots were just, you know, a couple of days in,

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I said, the best thing that I know to preach on right now is the subject of prayer, which is exactly what we're in as we're going through Matthew chapter six.

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Yeah. I appreciate that, Zach, and I hope that everybody finds this relevant as we go through Romans on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the

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Psalms on Thursday. And then, of course, we do this Q &A on Friday. Anyways, that goes on here. Now I'm 33 and I'm a husband and a father of two, soon to be three in just one more month.

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And this podcast has been a great resource to help guide me in being the husband and head of my household that God has ordained in his word.

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Sorry, I couldn't help it. My emotions. Becky's excited for you.

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Becky's doing the mommy Gus thing over here. I do have to be honest. At first, it was a little difficult for me to listen to your podcast because it was so convicting, mainly because the first church that I stepped foot in and I'm still a part of was a non -denominational church that at the beginning favored a charismatic style of preaching and the whole speaking in tongues thing.

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And that was drilled into my head. It has become better and the whole speaking in tongues has calmed down, but it's still practiced.

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That's why it was pretty difficult to listen to you properly exegete the text. And I thank God that he helped open my heart to hear the true words, teaching of the

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Bible, which makes for fun conversations within my church family. Yeah, I'm sure.

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Amen. Amen for that. Yes. I hope you don't mean that sarcastically. But it has been encouraging to have these conversations.

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I also want to say that I have started from the beginning of your podcast.

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My goodness. Now Zach is not the only person to email and tell us that, but that still blows my mind every time.

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Yep. Definitely. And I'm totally honored by that, that you would even care to listen to me that much.

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To go all the way back to the beginning. My wife has to listen to me, but I love it.

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So thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm glad that even five years ago, the stuff I was recording five years ago is still beneficial to you now.

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That's the benefit of just preaching through the scriptures. It's relevant no matter when. Exactly. He says, now

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I'm right around episode 680. I remember which episode that was. And with the crazy times going on, it just continued to affirm that God's words are true and timeless because the episode was about MLK 50.

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Wow. The Martin Luther King Jr. That was five years ago? No, no, no. No, no, no. No. No, that was only about, that was in 2018.

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Okay. Whew. I thought I lost a few years there. I was like, whoa. No way. Yeah. The MLK 50 was on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s

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assassination. So that was a couple of years ago. Right. Okay. Anyway, with the crazy times going on.

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That still feels like forever ago. It does. Well, in 2020. Especially 2020.

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Yeah. Bing. It's our decade. It's like we started a new decade, but it's like we've been through a whole decade already.

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Oh boy. So he said, that episode was just as helpful in today's time as it was back when you recorded it.

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It helps me to stay focused on the only thing that can change hearts, and that, of course, as you know, is the gospel.

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It's disappointing to see certain teachers slash pastors not focused on that, but focused on the worldly attempt for social justice through the

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Black Lives Matter movement. With all of that said, I hope our paths meet one day and I can shake your hand when it's allowed and bless y 'all with a meal because that's what we do around here.

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Again, thank you. I pray that you and your family stay safe from COVID -19 and what's going on with the world.

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Please keep up the awesome work. And I also love that Becky is a part of the Friday podcasts,

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Zach and Virginia. Thanks. Well, on the subject of COVID -19, Zach, our oldest daughter,

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Annie, was tested for it earlier this week because she's had some respiratory problems.

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But before we can find out what is wrong with her, we have to eliminate the possibility that she has

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COVID -19. So they had to do a COVID -19 test and we're still waiting for the results, which

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I'm hoping is going to be today. Yep. I hope so too. That would be awesome. We were told Friday at the latest.

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Yeah. Well, we'll find out. So you can be praying for us in that way.

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We would appreciate that. I talked to my aunts tonight and they said that whenever my other aunt tested positive, her results came back really quickly, quicker than they expected.

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So they're kind of hoping that since it's taking such a long time to get the results back that it's just not something to worry about.

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So I'm going to kind of lean towards that side. You can also go the other way with that.

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It's taking a while because they're going, how do we break it to them that we have to steal their 12 -year -old from them? No, stop.

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No, we really don't think that it is. No, she's not getting worse.

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No. And since COVID has such a long list of symptoms now,

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I mean, super lengthy, that any symptoms that you come in with are going to be like, oh, yep, it's on this list.

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It's COVID. Oh, yep, it's on this list. Oh, yep, it's on this list. You have too many that said yes, so we have to test you.

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So I think it's just kind of one of those things where unless you can treat it at home, if you have to go to the doctor's office, then we're going to test you for COVID.

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That's pretty much it. Yeah. If you have to come in, you get tested for COVID. You've probably seen that list that's been floating around on social media that has symptoms of a cold, symptoms of the flu, symptoms of allergies, and symptoms of COVID.

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It's pretty much all exactly the same. Yeah. Well, you might have allergies, or you might be dying, or you could be dead in two days.

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Well, that's not something to joke about. I was just kidding, whatever, you know, because you feel like you're dying from the man cold.

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Hey, that is a legitimate, that is a serious, it's serious. Yeah. Okay.

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It's like contracting Ebola almost. No. The man cold. No, it's not.

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Anywhere close. It's like being in labor, having the man cold. Oh, yeah.

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We're going to go there. Nope. I've seen you in labor. I don't envy it.

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I was going to say, we'll trade next time. So in trying to balance everything that's going on,

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I mean, people say that the riots that are happening, the looting that's going on, the protests that are taking place, all of this has to do with a -

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Wait, no. No, it doesn't have to do with COVID. And everybody's celebrating the protests, like, oh, look at how wonderful it is.

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All these people gathering together, the same media. That's because we haven't been together in forever.

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Yeah. It just looks nice. No, that's not why. I know. The same media that was lambasting even two dozen people getting together for church a couple of days ago is suddenly celebrating the fact that there are protests going on on behalf of Black Lives Matter.

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Thousands of people together. Yeah, thousands and thousands of people. So there are massive crowds of people that are gathering to bow a knee or chant some sort of thing.

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Anyway, that's the videos that you see. All of that stuff is extremely ridiculous. It all irritates me so bad.

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I just want to avoid it all. Avoid talking about it. I seem a little bit out of sorts.

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That's why. Man, I'm telling you folks, if you can go back to church, go back to church. Seriously, open the doors, go to church because this is silly.

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It is absolutely ridiculous. But there are people that are saying everything that's going on, this is racial related.

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We're working out the racial tensions that exist in America. It isn't that at all. Folks, every election year, we have race riots.

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Every election year. You can't see the connection that's going on there.

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Why? Why is it that every time we get to an election year, there's a race riot? Yeah, I don't

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I don't get it. There is an underlying narrative that's going on here and something that is meaning to be achieved.

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The Black Lives Matter movement, of course, started I mean, this was back when Trayvon Martin died and then it was kind of heightened with Eric Garner's death and then

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Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri. There was I wanted to play a couple of clips for you here today.

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This is from Votie Bauckham. And I went back to a conversation entitled

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A Time to Speak. And Votie Bauckham said some things in that particular panel that even though it was five years ago, just like Zach is saying here, something that I talked about a couple of years ago, still relevant to the current times.

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Even though this conversation was five years ago, Votie Bauckham said some things that are exactly what's going on right now.

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And I wanted to play you a couple of clips from that conversation. So first, I got to set this up, though. OK, sure.

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So in August of 2014 was when 18 -year -old Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson.

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Now, many of the myths that came out from that we know now to be false.

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The whole hands up, don't shoot did not actually happen. Michael Brown did not do that.

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And that's a myth that continues to be perpetuated. Even among the riots and the protests that are happening right now, you'll see lines of people walking around with their hands up going, hands up, don't shoot.

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And that comes from the Ferguson, Missouri thing, even though Michael Brown did not do that. Brown had robbed a convenience store when he was confronted by Officer Darren Wilson.

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He tried to take Wilson's gun. Brown was shot in the hand. After that, he did not let up and he was killed attempting to assault an officer.

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That's what happened with Michael Brown. Later that month, in August of 2014, were the

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Ferguson riots. And they started up again in November when a grand jury did not indict

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Officer Wilson. But the fact of the matter is that justice was done in that situation.

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Darren Wilson was investigated and he was found to have not been guilty of a crime.

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Yet, the people rioted anyway and said that justice had not been served. The same was true a year earlier in the trial following the death of Trayvon Martin.

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George Zimmerman was tried by a jury of his peers and he was acquitted.

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That's justice. But people say that justice was not done for the life of Trayvon Martin.

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The system of law was implemented and what was found is that the altercation that happened between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman was right to defend himself the way that he did.

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So then it was after Zimmerman, it was after that whole trial, that the Black Lives Matter campaign started up.

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And the two women that started it were extremely liberal women and socialists.

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And that's important as we come to this clip that I'm going to play here, and that's why I mention all of that,

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Zimmerman, Black Lives Movement. Black Lives Matter lionized Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner.

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Wait, what do you mean by lionized? So to lionize someone means to give a lot of public attention and approval to someone or to treat them as a celebrity.

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And Bauckham is going to mention that in this clip. He's going to mention that word, lionization. He doesn't say it that way.

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He says, anyway, I'll let you hear it. But in response to the second string of riots in Ferguson, Votie Bauckham was asked to write an article for the

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Gospel Coalition. It was entitled Thoughts on Ferguson, and it was published in November of 2014.

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November 26th, actually, to be exact. I loved the article, and I still have it. It also crashed the

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Gospel Coalition site. They got so much traffic for that article that you couldn't even access the site anymore.

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That's crazy. Anyway, it was a huge, widely popular article. Votie Bauckham was on Fox News for it.

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But it also made a lot of people angry because Votie, though he shared the gospel in his article, concluded by saying that Michael Brown lived as a criminal.

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And according to the passage in Galatians, he reaped what he sowed. The lesson in Ferguson, according to Bauckham, was not look out for white cops.

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But the lesson was, look then how you live. By the way, Votie is a black man, in case you didn't know.

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He grew up in Los Angeles in the 70s and 80s. So this is a guy who saw black crime on his doorstep and tensions between black and L .A.

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cops on a daily basis. Yeah, he's like totally against rap, even Christian rap.

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I played that clip. Yeah. I've played that clip before. Oh yeah, we did. Yep. That was here. Where he talked about hip hop.

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Now, I don't know that I totally agree with him on that. But his. But he's that. He's been that close.

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That intense. Yeah. Yeah. That close up. He saw where rap came out of. Yeah. And what it was birthed out of.

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So that's why he has no love for it at all. Right. And really.

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A lot of disdain. Yes. And like I said, when I talked about that, I think that it's something that can be redeemed.

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So you can use it as a poetic way to convey truth. But yeah, because of what it came out of and what it represented.

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And what it was. Like that's how close he was to all of this. That's how. Exactly. So. So now fast forward from that article in 2014 to May the following year.

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So this is 2015 now. And Ed Stetzer hosted a panel of Christian teachers in a conversation entitled

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A Time to Speak. The panel was divided into two parts. It's two. If you find it on YouTube and you can still find it.

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But there is one panel of speakers in the first hour and then a different panel of speakers in the second hour.

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OK. So in part one, the speakers were from left to right. Darren Patrick, Thabiti Anwubwile, Matt Chandler, Votie Bauckham and Brian Loritz.

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Votie was clearly the odd man out in that group. Every other guy in that group was

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Black Lives Matter. And Votie, a black man, very much was not Black Lives Matter. He's always spoken out against it.

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And now there was a time when Thabiti Anwubwile was totally against Christians hopping on board hashtag movements until Black Lives Matter became a movement.

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And then he jumped on board with it. And you can find a sermon of him preaching against these

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Internet hashtag campaigns of a Christian being duped into something like this. You can find that sermon, which

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I believe he preached at a Ligonier conference. Totally different than the way Thabiti is now with how

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Christians are influenced by stuff that circulates, the things that get popular, the stuff that goes viral. He's very much into all of that now and will even instigate it if he can.

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So anyway, I'm going to play two clips from this conversation. And I come back to this conversation because this was really a dividing point for me when

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I saw men that I respected going in two completely different directions. But what was said here five years ago is still just as relevant to what's happening now.

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Vodhi saw something that the rest of these men clearly did not, and they did not heed his words.

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And you can see among these men completely different outcomes in their ministries. Just in a half decade later,

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Vodhi has remained faithful in the gospel ever since. He is the reason why

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I'm an expository preacher today. Which is the line by line. There's probably not a man who has had more of an influence on my preaching other than my dad, than Vodhi Bakkam.

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So the two voices that you're going to hear, this is Vodhi speaking first, and then

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Thabiti is going to respond, and he's the other voice that you'll hear come in to this clip.

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So this is Vodhi responding to Thabiti's point that Vodhi did not end his article with the gospel.

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But let me respond to Thabiti's point. There's a difference between lack of gospel content, lack of gospel conclusion.

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Where we talk about the gospel is not mandated. The conclusion there was for effect.

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The conclusion there was not to say that this is the message of the gospel, because there is no understanding of the message of the gospel without the law.

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And so, yeah, that was, absolutely. But the law's only the beginning. You get no disagreement from me in that perspective.

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But my other point that I want to make here is that what I'm talking about is how we take these issues and how we lionize certain individuals who are not individuals to be lionized.

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How we take certain individuals and put their names on T -shirts, you know what

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I mean? To the exclusion of other individuals. Because there are other people who did not live those kinds of lives, who have also lost their lives.

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They're police officers. Death of police officers is up 65%. Wear their names on T -shirts.

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And I think when we shape things in this way, that's what keeps the division among us and between us.

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The other thing is, you said that there were these two ideas that we had to get in contact.

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You can't talk about these personal responsibility issues without talking about systemic issues. I reject that.

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I reject that completely. You can absolutely do that. Just to be clear, I didn't say that conceptually you can't do that.

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I said if you want a full picture, you have to talk about both. You don't have to talk about them at the same time, but you have to put both of those things on the table.

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I reject that as well. Yeah, I reject that as well. Why would you reject that? Here's why I reject that. Because we're assuming.

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You see, we look at what happened to Mike Brown and we assume that there was injustice there.

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That's an assumption. And that's part of the problem. Part of the problem is we sit around and we say, oh yeah, black folks, we know something like that happened.

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We know what happened. That's what I refer to as ethnic gnosticism. We know. Why? Because we're black and black folk know what happened.

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Nobody has to tell me. I don't need a grand jury. I know what happened. No, we don't know what happened. But voting. We can't assume that there was injustice there.

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And the same thing is true with the case regarding George Floyd. Doesn't matter what you saw in the video.

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We cannot assume that was racially motivated. And so the whole like riot and outcry that's going on right now is that justice needs to be served.

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And we're responding to racial unrest and all of this thing that had like cops that have constantly been after black people.

24:59

That is not true. That narrative is a myth. It is not a reality in the

25:06

American system. That was five years ago. That was regarding Michael Brown. Nothing's changed since then.

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It's still the same stuff that's going on now. Now, the interesting thing there is where Votie was talking about,

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I'm not for lionizing people that don't deserve to be lionized. Thabiti is sitting there with a

25:27

T -shirt on that has the names of all of these people on it. Gotcha. The ones who.

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That's what he was referring to. Right. Got it. The ones who went viral online and had videos or, you know, news stories about or something like that.

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A black person, another black person, an unarmed black person was killed by a cop. And those are the names that Thabiti had on his shirt.

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And Votie was essentially saying to them there, where's your T -shirt with the cop's names on it? Yeah. When a cop is killed.

25:57

Why are we talking about George Floyd, but not David Dorn? Right. Who was the police officer that was killed over some thugs who were stealing used televisions.

26:07

Yeah. He was a security officer, but he was a retired police captain.

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Yep. If I'm not mistaken. And was working security. Yeah. But he was responding to an alarm at a pawn shop where the pawn shop was being broken into and he was killed by looters.

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Like the deaths that have happened right now by these rioters and looters far exceeds the deaths of unarmed black men by cops in the past year.

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How on earth do they, well, in Votie's term, the lionize

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George Floyd, but don't don't even care about these other people. Because it doesn't serve the political narrative.

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Oh, it makes me sick. The death of David Dorn does not serve the political narrative. So that's why his black life doesn't matter.

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But George Floyd's does anyway, where I'm going to come to that here in a moment, because we're going to even play some clips from some people who have been victims as a result of this whole thing.

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And they are black people saying you say that black lives matter, but clearly black lives don't matter.

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Right. But I'm going on here because Votie Bauckham shares in this next clip about how black lives matter.

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Here's what I want you to pay attention to, because this is really, really important. Black Lives Matter is white supremacy.

27:24

Now, the voice you're going to hear first is going to be Ed Stetzer. OK, he's he's gone through the different persons on the panel and has asked them, what do you want?

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Oh, so he's like the emcee. Yeah, he's kind of emceeing. And he's going to interrupt Votie a lot in this particular clip.

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It's obnoxious, but I suppose he was doing his job. I don't know. You really like what it is that Votie's saying.

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But you can't hear it sometimes because Ed Stetzer is trying to talk over him. But anyway, so Ed is asking.

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He's opening this question up to Votie now saying, what do you want to see come about as a result of all of this, as the outcome of this?

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Do you want to say, well, that's not real or that's because there's a disproportionate percentage of African -Americans who are involved in things they shouldn't be?

28:12

What? How do you respond? No. Like I said in my article, those things happen. Yeah.

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And it happens because those things happen. It's a hard word to hear. It happens because people are sinners. People are sinners. And all the answers that we've been hearing are the right answers.

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They're the answers that are about the gospel and individuals. They're the answer that are about the gospel and people entering into one another's lives.

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Yes, those are the answers. But what I'm saying is, and this is a much more technical discussion,

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I want to be clear, too. I know Matt, Matt and I are friends. We go way back. My statement about Gramscian Marxism and the concept of white privilege was not directed at Matt.

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It was directed, it was directed at that concept, which did come from a Marxist professor.

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Gramscian Marxism, cultural Marxism is the new white supremacy. Divide everybody into race, class and gender.

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They're preferred minority groups. You gain power by claiming to represent preferred minority groups.

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So the race, you know, this whole racial issue, it's a multibillion dollar industry when you can represent the oppressed group.

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And what that does is it keeps us divided. That's what's keeping us divided. But I think to be fair, you also know that the idea of psychological wage goes back to W .E

29:31

.B. Du Bois, that the idea of white privileges really doesn't come to the surface until 88 with Peggy McIntosh's article on the invisible knapsack.

29:39

These are not Marxist issues. Marxists, Marxists also believe in a graduated income tax. So do we say that that's a

29:45

Marxist issue as well? Yes, it is. So the flat tax is Marxism, repeal.

29:50

Again, understand cultural Marxism is different. Gramsci's approach was different. And this idea of dividing people into preferred minority classes is part of that system.

30:00

Which is not how most people use the term white privilege in the conversation. And it keeps people divided. But it's rooted in that. I wouldn't say it's rooted in Du Bois.

30:07

That's the point that I'm trying to make. And see, it used to be that we dealt with social

30:12

Darwinism. White people said, I'm superior to you because I've evolved more than you. Now, the same people are able to say

30:21

I'm superior, but it's not because of evolution. It's because of my privilege. I'm still being patronized.

30:27

I'm still being insulted. So I'm still being told I need help. OK, yes, yes.

30:32

I'm still being told that I can't get there. Matt, I come from a proud people who have gotten there in spite of.

30:39

And there are people who are white, who are absolutely racist, who need to be challenged on their racism.

30:47

There are people who are black, who are absolutely racist, who need to be challenged on their racism. But we need to understand that what we're doing is that we're dealing with two different issues here.

30:56

We're dealing with the issue of these interpersonal relationships and how the gospel breaks down walls and unites us.

31:03

And we're also dealing with this issue of a culture that for a long time has been intentionally divided by individuals who profit from that division and that there is a long standing narrative that is not going to go away if it is not challenged.

31:21

I just hated that Ed Stetzer was constantly talking over him there and not listening to what he was saying at all.

31:30

It seems like. Yeah. And after that conversation, after that whole a time to speak conversation,

31:35

I never heard anything about that again. I mean, Votie was he was basically ostracized.

31:41

And at that point, he you know, eventually he resigns from his position at Spring Family Baptist in Houston.

31:48

And he goes over to Africa, where he's been for the last several years doing ministry over there.

31:54

All of that was good, you know, and it wasn't like he in shame resigned from his position. Yeah, no, it was wasn't anything like that.

32:00

Her choice, I'm sure. Yeah. Good thing. But he's gone over there to African Christian University and has done some tremendous work working also with combat from combat

32:12

Conrad and Bayway. That's that's a great preaching team right there. Conrad and Votie Bauckham.

32:19

Oh, yes. That is a fantastic duo. Anyway, so the ministry that he's been doing over there and he still had some guys that have videoed the talks that he's done or recorded them and they've been on sermon audio.

32:29

So I've still been able to get my Votie Bauckham fixes every once in a while, even though he's been doing ministry over in Africa.

32:35

But that whole thing that he mentioned right there just kind of went completely unspoken again after that particular conversation.

32:42

So he mentioned something in there and him and Ed kind of started going back and forth and they're talking over everybody else's heads.

32:48

No one's really grasping what they were saying there regarding Gramscian Marxism. There was an Italian Marxist thinker named

32:55

Antonio Gramsci who took the ideas of Karl Marx along with Friedrich Nietzsche, probably

33:03

Darwin. I can't remember who else was kind of in that group, but he expounded upon a lot of these philosophical ideas.

33:11

And and then you have the style of Marxism that's called Neo Marxism or also

33:17

Gramscian Marxism. OK, now when it comes to understanding Marxism, the ideas of Karl Marx, the best way to understand it is like this in a capitalistic society, which is what

33:27

America is. Capitalism is about equal opportunity. Right.

33:32

And that's what we have right all across America. We have equal opportunity. Ultimately, that's what the

33:39

Civil War was about. That's what women's suffrage was about. Right. That's what the civil rights movement was it was about.

33:45

And it's what the fight against abortion is about. It's that everyone under the

33:51

Constitution of the United States gets to have the same opportunities. Right. The union in the

33:57

Civil War, of course, was for the blacks to be freed so that they would have the same opportunities as whites.

34:03

That's why I say the Civil War was even about that. Yeah. So this is this is a capitalist society that we all have the same opportunities while capitalism is about equal opportunity.

34:14

Marxism is about equal outcome. Ah. So look at just about every liberal cause that doesn't work.

34:24

No, it doesn't work. It's like you don't even have to do the work, but you get the same outcome of the person who did do the work.

34:30

No. Yeah, that's that's Marxism. You look at just about every liberal cause and they're

34:36

Marxist in their ideology. New Age feminism is about equal outcome.

34:42

Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody gets a trophy. Yeah, that's Marxist in its ideology.

34:47

Wow. We want the same results, but we don't want to have to do the same work. The LGBTQ movement is about equal outcome.

34:56

Gay marriage is not about marriage at all. It's about we want the same outcome that normal real marriages have, even though that's not actually a marriage at all.

35:06

A man and a man together is not a marriage. Socialism is about equal outcome. The state is going to take what you make and redistribute it equally to other people.

35:15

Now, Ed and Votie, we're going back and forth there about like the tax system, how the rich will pay more taxes.

35:23

The poor will pay less taxes. Right. Votie is saying there now that's Gramscian Marxism. Yeah. Ed was like pushing that out there to go.

35:30

Are you saying this is wrong? No. Yeah, it's Marxist. Yeah. That's unfair to say the rich have to pay more of a higher percentage more than the poor have to pay.

35:40

They don't have to pay as high a percentage. It should be the same percentage for everybody. Wait, because if they get bigger tax or have to pay a bigger tax percentage, then that means that they'll have less.

35:54

Right. So everybody will be equal then. Is that what you mean? Yeah. The rich have to pay 50 percent, but the poor have to pay 2 percent.

36:01

Oh, wow. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. OK. So what's the point of making more? Precisely.

36:06

Why doesn't everybody just do the bare minimum? Exactly. Exactly. It takes away the incentive. It's not emotive.

36:13

No, it's not. It's not a motive. Yeah, right. That's what I mean. Yeah. When you first said that was like emotive.

36:19

Yeah. Oh, it stirs emotions. All right. Funny. But it's all about equal outcome instead of equal opportunity.

36:30

Yeah. And then you're going to be forcing people to do the jobs they don't want to do that are harder, that should be paid more because nobody wants to do them.

36:39

That's right. Wow. Yeah. There's no incentive to work hard with those people. Exactly. There's no incentive to work hard in in a

36:47

Marxist ideology implemented upon, you know, income and working work ethic and all this other kind of thing.

36:54

Free health care is about equal outcome. Yeah. And when you hear politicians say things like everyone has the right to health care, everyone already has the right to health care.

37:05

What no one has a right to is free stuff. But when you're taking it from those who have and you're giving it to those who don't have as much, then you're trying to redistribute so that everybody has an equal outcome.

37:19

Everybody gets a trophy. And likewise, the Black Lives Matter movement is about equal outcome.

37:25

It is not about equal opportunity because every person in America already has equal opportunity.

37:32

Think about this. The previous president of the United States was biracial, but accepted as a black man.

37:40

And he was elected to the most powerful office in the world twice. Yeah.

37:46

Elected by the American population to be president of the United States of the six highest grossing movie stars in the world.

37:53

Three of them are black. Exactly. Do you know who they are? Can you name them? Oh, fiddle.

37:58

It just went. Nope, that's not one of them. I'll give you one.

38:04

I see his face. Oh, yeah. You see it all the time. The Capital One commercials. Yeah. Nick Fury and the

38:10

Avengers. Yeah. The Marvel films. Samuel L. Jackson. Yes. OK, that's not the one

38:16

I was thinking of. But yes, one of my friends is a movie critic has said, have you did somebody was asking who

38:24

Samuel L. Jackson? He said, have you seen a movie with a black guy in it? Yeah. Samuel L. Jackson. Yeah.

38:30

An action movie with a black guy. And because he works hard. He does. And he he's he does extremely good work.

38:37

People like seeing Samuel L. Jackson in a movie. Morgan Freeman is the other one. Eddie Murphy.

38:42

Those three guys. Morgan Freeman. That's the name I was trying to think of. You were actually trying to think of Morgan Freeman. Yeah. Yeah.

38:48

Yeah, I was. So those three men are the six highest grossing movie stars in the world. Three of them are black of the 10 richest, most successful athletes in the world.

38:59

Six of them are black. Mm hmm. The first number one, you probably name right off the top of your head.

39:06

OK, I was asking too much. Yeah, it's late. Michael Jordan. Oh, well, duh.

39:12

That's what I was saying. Shaquille O 'Neal. Shaquille O 'Neal's in there. Yeah. Tiger Woods.

39:18

Yeah. LeBron James. Floyd Mayweather Jr. And before he died in January, Kobe Bryant.

39:26

So there are your six, six black athletes among the 10 richest athletes in the world.

39:32

Folks, it is a myth that black people do not have equal opportunity. Yeah. And that's what

39:38

Vody was getting so worked up about. My family, he says, worked hard to get where we are. And suddenly there's these neo

39:44

Marxist terms like white privilege and black lives matter, which at the core of these ideology says that black people are not smart enough.

39:53

They're not capable enough of getting what white people have. So white people need to give white people privilege to black people.

40:03

And this is a narrative that white people love because they get to virtue signal and they get to have all the power to be able to say here you can have some of the power now.

40:15

And that's why Vody was saying it's it's patronizing. You're patronizing me to say that you've got all the power and I can't do this on my own.

40:22

So here here's a little bit of my white privilege for you. I have no privilege to give.

40:29

I have no power to give. There are there are black people that are more privileged than me.

40:34

Yes. And I don't care about that. Good for you. Make the most of what it is that you've got. But remember, Vody said that that these categories exist to keep us divided, separating people out in a different constituency.

40:49

So a constituency is a is a voting bloc. So people are divided into these different voting blocs.

40:54

That way, politicians can promise things to different groups of people. But the narrative keeps people divided.

41:02

There's never going to be unity as a result of this particular narrative or this ideology.

41:10

Notice something else about this. This conversation is just about blacks and whites.

41:16

I know. Where are the other races? Right. Because that's the narrative that's been constructive. And it's built upon the past sins of American slavery and later segregation.

41:25

And furthermore, this is based entirely on skin color. Right. We used to be told that we're supposed to be colorblind.

41:33

We're not supposed to identify color at all. You know, now it's offensive. Yeah. Now it's offensive to say that.

41:38

Yeah. Now, in order to rightly love your neighbor, you have to identify their color and you have to show partiality based on your neighbor's skin color.

41:48

That's how you rightly love your neighbor. Called being a race that's being racist, inherently racist.

41:55

Yeah, but that's being preached from American pulpits. There are pastors preaching backwards.

42:01

Yes. It's totally opposed to what we just read here in James to one show. No partiality as you hold the faith in our

42:10

Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. It's all based on appearance, not anyone's actual heritage.

42:17

An Egyptian is not considered African -American. Someone from South Africa is not considered African -American, even though they're more

42:24

African than most black people in America. I have two cousins who are actually

42:29

African -American. They were born in Africa. They were adopted by American parents. They are American citizens.

42:35

They're African -American. Literally. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, back to the Gramscian Marxism.

42:41

So Antonio Gramsci expounded on Karl Marx philosophy. And it's from Gramscian Marxism that we get this idea called hegemony, which is leadership or dominance by one social group over another.

42:56

But in hegemony, one group agrees to be dominated by another and they don't even realize they've agreed to it.

43:05

That's part of hegemony. So what's going on with Black Lives Matter? Black people are being convinced that they're being dominated by white people.

43:13

They're not. And that idea is patronizing. Now, it looks like in the Black Lives Matter movement that an attempt is being made to shift this pretend dominance from white people to black people.

43:24

And white people receive sort of this moral satisfaction when they kneel down and they make some sort of pledge to black people.

43:34

But what's actually happening is not that white people are shifting dominance to black people because that dominance never actually existed in the first place.

43:42

Right. What's actually happening? People are willingly separating into respective classes and the entire culture is giving dominance to socialism.

43:56

The dominance is being shifted from capitalism and being shifted from an

44:01

American constitutional republic into socialism, and we don't even know we're doing it.

44:09

So what does socialism mean? Socialism is with I mean, it's Marxism. It's the it's the state taking what you have rightfully earned and redistributing it out to everybody else.

44:22

But this is this is strictly a political ploy for power. Those people who are on top, who are moving the gears and manipulating this mechanism, they are dismantling the

44:34

American Constitution. And you don't even know that it's taking place. It's not until this is all over and the entire

44:40

American landscape has changed, a future generation will be looking back going, you were all duped.

44:47

There are people behind what is happening right now. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

44:53

I'm telling you, that's what's going on. Yeah, all of this is being moved by a certain political ideology to change this country from capitalist to socialist.

45:04

That's what's happening. But you don't even know that it's happening because that's hegemony.

45:10

They're moving the balance of power and getting you to agree with it. And everybody's literally bowing a knee and agreeing with this shift of power.

45:21

And they don't even know that it's happening. It is a myth that unarmed black men are regularly killed by cops.

45:28

That's totally a myth, but it's a myth that is perpetuated to keep this mechanism moving, to shift the balance of political power in an election year.

45:36

They're trying to take it away from Trump and give it to Joe Biden. Joe Biden, by the way, all of his policies are exactly like Bernie Sanders.

45:46

Exactly. There's no difference between the two men. The only difference between them was Bernie Sanders was willing to honestly stand up and say he was a socialist.

45:57

Joe Biden is not using that term, but their policies aren't any different. Biden had to change his policies from the from kind of the the waffling moderate that he used to be years and years ago.

46:09

Now he's even more liberal than Barack Obama was. And he had to change all of his policies in order to beat

46:15

Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders shifted the entire liberal landscape. Joe Biden is more liberal than Hillary Clinton was when she ran against Trump four years ago.

46:26

That's what's going on here. All of this is political. It's all happening in an election year for a reason.

46:32

And it's all to gain political power. And everybody who's bowing the knee to this whole thing is not even aware that they're they're playing right into the hands of it.

46:42

OK. I am to be like, I don't know.

46:48

It's head spinning. It is. And and you can't smack anybody because you'd be smacking everybody.

46:55

Well, not every everybody. But you know what I mean? The vast majority of everybody. Sure. I mean, yeah, we have willingly given up going to church.

47:04

And by smacking, I mean, like, you know, the whole like, come on. Get your head in the game.

47:10

Get your head in the game. Right. We know what you mean. I'm speaking on behalf of all the listeners. We know what you mean by smacking somebody.

47:15

Just just to clarify. Yeah. I mean, we have willingly given up going to church over fear of a virus, which we were shamed into thinking we couldn't go to church because that would be not loving your neighbor.

47:28

Oh, it's terrible. But these massive crowds of people by the thousands are getting together in these race protests, and they're being celebrated by the same media that was lambasting churches.

47:41

And I have seen nothing but heads and heads and heads of people. Yep. I mean, I thought if I didn't know any better,

47:48

I thought they would be at. Oh, what's that concert out in the middle of nowhere back in the 70s?

47:54

Oh, Woodstock. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, you just see the sea of heads and pictures.

48:01

By the way, that's what I see whenever I'm scrolling, quickly scrolling through to avoid that.

48:07

And people, people will say, even talking about Woodstock, people will say, oh, that was such a pure movement. We just love the music.

48:13

No, somebody made a fortune off of Woodstock. Yeah, they did. Somebody's making a fortune off of Black Lives Matter.

48:19

And you're being duped into thinking that this is about black lives that matter. They do not.

48:25

The black lives do not matter to the Black Lives Movement, except those black lives that are politically beneficial.

48:32

Those are the only lives that matter to the Black Lives Movement. I mean, what about the black lives that are being affected for the ones who are trying to clean up or the the ones who are trying to like the the captain, the retired captain

48:46

David Doren that got killed? Yeah. Trying to protect the the businesses and things like that.

48:53

Let me play a clip from one of these ladies. So here's a gal who had her business messed up by a

48:59

Black Lives Matter protest. Look, look what you did to my store.

49:26

Tell them, sister. That's right, because I got their back. These are my clothes right here. Look at the things you've done.

49:31

Good man. Look, the Black Lives Matter. We've been here all night cleaning up.

49:37

All night cleaning. And you got black people standing right here with them. Black people. Tell me.

49:43

Black Lives Matter. You lied. You wanted to loot the store.

49:49

You needed money. Get a job like I do. Stop stealing.

49:55

It's the neighborhood. We try to build it up and you turn it down. Sounded like she was preaching from Ephesians four there for a little bit.

50:03

Yeah. So Ephesians 428. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

50:14

The Apostle Paul said of the Thessalonians, if a man is not willing to work, then he should not eat.

50:21

The Bible is anti -socialist. Yeah. But the whole Black Lives Matter movement and everything that is pushing in this particular direction, it is manipulating people.

50:30

And I mean, some people are very, very well -meaning. I don't mean to I don't mean to say that if you're participating in Black Lives Matter, then you're a socialist.

50:37

OK, that's not what I'm saying at all. Some people are getting wrapped up in this narrative because they legitimately feel for black people.

50:44

They really care for them. But you don't need the Black Lives Matter movement to care for people because Black Lives Matter doesn't actually think that black lives matter.

50:54

You've got 400 ,000 black babies being aborted every year.

51:01

Yeah. Nearly 40 percent of all the babies that will die by abortion. And yet Black Lives Matter doesn't care about them.

51:08

Black Lives Matter is pro Planned Parenthood. So, yeah, they don't care about black children. Black Lives Matter does not care about black lives.

51:16

Stop feeding into this narrative, which has been conjured up and perpetuated to give rise to a certain political power.

51:26

And you're playing right into that hand. That's the whole concept of hegemony. Go back to the

51:32

Bible. And black lives do matter. Right. White lives do matter.

51:37

Everybody's life matters. Because lives are made in the image of God.

51:43

And we love our neighbor. If you want to overcome racism, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist.

51:48

I've witnessed it. Yep. But if you want to overcome racism, love the Lord your

51:53

God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

52:00

Preach the gospel. Follow Jesus and obey his word. And I promise you, if you do those things, racism will be destroyed.

52:10

Yeah. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's you. That's me.

52:15

That's the message that I proclaim in every episode of when we understand the text that we do.

52:21

You have sinned. You are under the judgment of God. Jesus Christ was sent by God to do the will of the father, to die on the cross for our sins, to rise again from the grave that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

52:39

And we, though we were previously separated from God because of our sin, we are now reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

52:46

Furthermore, we were divided from one another because of our sin. But we are reconciled to God's people in Jesus Christ.

52:55

The only unifying thing that there will ever be between people is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

53:02

Repent of your sin. Believe in Jesus and live. Unity that is manufactured is not real unity.

53:09

There's still division that exists there. And like Voti pointed out, this whole thing has been created to keep us divided so that we will be clamoring after and depending upon those political powers that are promising us the things that they will never actually deliver.

53:25

I know it seems like they care, but this is why Paul said in Colossians chapter two, do not be deluded by plausible arguments.

53:33

Don't go after the philosophies of this world, but rather be after the gospel of Jesus Christ.

53:40

Share that with others as well, because that is the solution to our sin problem.

53:47

Let's conclude with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness and your grace. All of us deserve to perish, as it says in Titus chapter three.

53:57

Before we came to Christ, we were hated by others and we were hating one another. This is who we were before we came to Jesus.

54:04

But in Jesus, that dividing wall of hostility has been broken down and we've been united into one in Christ Jesus, that we may worship the

54:12

Lord, our God, and be reconciled to the people of God. And so may we love one another as you have loved us.

54:20

We love because you have first loved us and help us to have opportunity to share the gospel with others, even in the midst of this civil unrest that exists in our country, in our nation.

54:33

I pray that you keep people safe. I pray that as people are looking around and they're seeing that certain philosophies and discourses and hashtag campaigns and all this kind of stuff is not the answer to the world's troubles.

54:46

But they will hear the gospel proclaimed and they will know that the answer to all of the sin, all of the destruction, all of the evil that exists in the world right now, the answer is

54:57

Jesus. He's also the answer to our sorrows and our griefs that are shared by so many people right now, whether they've lost family members or they've lost property.

55:10

May they hear the good news of the gospel, the promise of a forever kingdom where these things that we're struggling with and suffering through now will be no more, but there will be life forevermore with God in glory.

55:25

Teach us to love one another as Christ has loved us. We ask this in Jesus name we pray.

55:31

Amen. I got some in my left eye.

56:39

I had to take my contacts out and it's still there. Well, we've ruled out your finger.

56:51

I'm sorry. Are you going to be able to see? I can see fine.

56:57

Read everything for you. Yeah. I can see all right. It's just I mean,

57:02

I know if like if I go to sleep and I do REM, it's just going to scratch it all up because I can feel it in there. Somehow I'm going to have to flush it out.

57:09

Use your contact solution stuff. I only have enough left to put my contacts in.

57:15

You should have added that to the list. I know I should have, but I have I have no contact solution left.

57:21

I didn't remember. I didn't remember that I was almost out of contact solution. I just use water, water, just flush my my eyes out.

57:31

This is why swimming is good if we could go to the pool. But they're everybody's afraid there's COVID -19 in the pool.

57:38

I don't know how chlorine couldn't kill everything. No joke. That doesn't make any sense to me.

57:44

I mean, chlorine bleaches your hair, turns your hair green. Doesn't kill

57:49

COVID -19, though. Bathing suit stretches out your your elastic and your bathing suit.

57:56

It's it's some serious chemical. I just jump in the pool with my eyes open and just flush out.