WWUTT 1235 Q&A A Peaceful Quiet Life, Phil Vischers Race Video, A Chance to Share the Gospel?

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Have you seen that Phil Vischer video? What would be a biblical response to that? How do you live peacefully in an unpeaceful time?

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And how can you share the gospel with someone who is too woke for their own good? The answer is when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For there is one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony we proclaim.

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Visit our website, www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you,

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Becky. You're welcome. So you're quoting there in the introduction from 1 Timothy chapter 2, and the apostle

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Paul says there, first of all then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.

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We talked about that in a recent sermon, the kinds of prayers that we pray. For kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

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This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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You know, this desire to live a peaceful and quiet life.

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I really think most people want this. Yeah, it's in our nature, in our makeup.

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Despite the fact that there's so much chaos going on, and there's just a crazy amount of activism, and lines are being drawn, and people are telling you, you have to be on this side of the line, you gotta be on this side.

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What side are you on? You have to hold up a fist and say, Black Lives Matter. You have to bow a knee and pay homage to me.

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All of this crazy that's going on that you see on social media, that you see in the news.

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I think most people, for the most part, just want to get on with their lives.

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Get out of their houses. Yes. They just want to get out of the house, not have to have anything over my face.

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And have somewhere to go. That's right. So, speaking of that, last week, last weekend, on Saturday, I went to Walmart to get some stuff to spray for weeds.

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Oh, yes. You remember this? Yes. Yes. This isn't just about lawn care.

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It's wife and daughter care. Yeah, because we have really, really bad allergies.

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We figured out that Annie's cough is because of her being so allergic to these plants that are -

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Is it goldenrod? Is that kind of the big one? It's either goldenrod, or it is ragweed.

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Yeah, it's one or the other. Because everywhere we've seen goldenrod, we turn around and there's ragweed.

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So, they kind of grow next to each other. That's true. I don't think it's ragweed, though.

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I just think it's immature goldenrod. It may not have had the yellow buds on it yet. Oh, okay.

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Because you and I are really allergic to ragweed, according to the outbreak we had last year.

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Oh, it was bad. It was everywhere. Yeah. It was a very, very wet year, which was not characteristic for our area.

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So a lot of ragweed. Somebody told me this later. So, they said the reason why you're having so much allergy problems is because this is a really bad ragweed year.

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We have not had that. I know that you've had the headaches and everything, but you get that way with goldenrod. And I've not had the massive reaction that I had last year to the ragweed.

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Well, I have goldenrod and trees and cottonwood, trees and other trees and more trees and grass and you name it.

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I go outside, you know, breathe in. Oh, morning glories. Oh, morning glories are bad.

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That's another one. Yep. And whatever those little burrs grow on with the little itty bitty yellow flowers.

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Yeah. Are there stickers on those flowers? They're the little burrs. They're not pokey. Oh, that end on the dog.

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But they stick on the dog. Yeah. Right. End up on the dog. Those. Once you killed all those and the morning glories,

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I can go outside and breathe now. Oh, you're fine? Well, not 100 % because I still have everything else.

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But yeah, I'm much better. Part of the problem or part of the problem, part of the benefit, part of the current benefit that you're experiencing is that it hasn't rained in a while until today,

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Thursday night. It rained. Yes. Yes. And all weekend. It's supposed to rain all weekend.

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Right. So now you might get the buds coming back and you're probably going to get those headaches again.

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Yeah. But I haven't had the ragweed issues. So I think it's really more on the side of goldenrod.

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I think that's what's bothering Annie so much right now. Poor thing. So I was going to Walmart to get some weed killer.

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That way my wife and my daughter could get some relief. Yes. I think they even name a weed killer that relief weed killer.

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You have to go to the home and garden section at Walmart. They still have things sectioned off a certain way because of COVID fears and whatnot.

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Yeah. And if you've been to Walmart, you've probably seen they direct traffic. You can walk down this aisle this way and it's one way traffic down an aisle.

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Oh. You probably haven't been. No. I was yesterday and I did not notice.

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Okay. Well, that's part of my story. Okay. But if you're looking down at the floor, there's arrows directing you.

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Which I'm normally looking at. So you don't want to look at people. I normally find everything. No, spiders.

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Remember, I see everything spiders. Oh, yeah. That's true. You do see everything spiders. I don't get that. Every little itty bitty spider.

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She sees. Yeah. I mean, yeah. The very super tiny spiders. The tiny ones. I feel them watching me.

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I kid you not. I'm like, something's in here. I feel a presence. It could be just paranoia.

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But you know. Your general paranoia about spiders. We'll just go. We'll just go with it. Anyway, I'm walking down these aisles.

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You have to walk one direction. It says you can walk this way and then you get to the end of that aisle and you have to go to one direction. back the other direction and it'll have an

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X at the start of the aisle. Nope. Can't go in here or an arrow at the start of the aisle.

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You can't go in this way. I've seen pictures on social media about that. But you've been to Walmart. You've not actually paid attention to the signs yourself.

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That might account for some of the looks. Yeah. It might be. I'm sorry.

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I didn't mean to. No, you're not funny looking. You're just not going the right way. Anyway.

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Who knew there was a wrong way to shop? I mean, really? Well, as I was going down an aisle,

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I think I started in the toy section because our son has a birthday coming up. So I was looking at some toys. As I was going down an aisle, the messages are playing on the speakers overhead.

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Well, it's music at first. I was even bobbing my head to the song that was on. I heard somebody an aisle over actually singing along with it.

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And I'm surprised that wasn't me. Yeah. Then when the song ended, there was a low male voice that came on, and he started saying something like, we know that times are really hard for people right now, and there's a lot of hurt and a lot of pain.

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I'm just kind of like, really? Okay. He said, we at Walmart just want you to know that black lives matter.

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I'm going, all right. And then whatever he said after that, I wasn't really paying much attention. I'm there to get weed killer, not to be preached at.

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I really wasn't paying attention to the message. So you go into the home and garden section. I went down the aisle where I'm looking for weed killer and...

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Wait, wait, wait. That could be a sermon in itself. What's that? People come to church for other reasons. Not to get preached at.

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You lure him in with whatever you're going to win him to. Yeah. Well, I'm grabbing my weed killer, and I noticed that I went down the aisle the wrong way.

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Beep, beep, beep, beep. And as I'm turning... Just back up. Yeah. Just do it in reverse. As I'm going back to the place where I came in from, because now

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I'm walking the right way, there was a guy that came in the aisle doing the same thing that I did.

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So he's coming backwards. And I looked at him and I said, I apparently don't know which direction to go here.

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And he laughed at me and he said, I don't know, man. I'm not looking down there.

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I'm looking up here. Yeah. I'm just trying to shop. And the thing about that is,

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I never mentioned this. I never mentioned, I never talk about this. And I'll explain why here in a little bit.

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But this man was black. Okay. I'm a white guy. He's a black guy. We're both doing lawn work on Saturday.

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And we're not even caring about the messages that are going on around us.

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The message on the speakers, the messages on the floor, the signs that say social distance, stay six feet apart.

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We don't care. Bombarded by messages from all over the place. We're just two normal guys trying to do some lawn work on a

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Saturday. And as I walked out of the store thinking about that, I was like, I think this is what most people want.

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The crazy that's going on in the world. Nobody wants to be a part. I mean, there are people that want to be a part of that.

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There's people there. But the majority of people, even though you'll see massive crowds on the news of a big protest that was, or whatnot,

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I don't really think that represents the majority of America. I think the majority of us just want to get along with quiet lives.

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And we want to do our regular thing. Activism is exhausting.

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It's difficult to be an activist. Yes. Having super enthusiastic opinions that you've got to yell or defend and gather up all your information and facts and all this.

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That can be exhausting. Yeah. It's tiring. Becky knows how grumpy I was for the couple of days that I was working on that article in response to that Phil Fisher video.

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Yes. I don't enjoy it. And then I have a, I've got a one track mind because I'm thinking about this and I'm looking for him and then the kids come down and they interrupt me and well, there went my train of thought, you know, and then you get grumpy over it again.

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All of this stuff. Yeah. All of this stuff just gets terribly exhausting. People just want to get along with quiet lives.

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And I think that we as Christians need to really take that into consideration, especially when it comes to our witness in this world.

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No. Yeah. After all, it is in Philippians chapter two, beginning of verse 14, where it says, do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

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There's another translation that says holding out the word of life. Now while we have a, while we're being told here to do everything without grumbling or disputing, we still also, according to first Peter three 15, need to set apart in our hearts,

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Christ as holy, always being ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us.

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But doing this with gentleness and respect, we do this without grumbling or disputing, but we're giving an answer for the hope that is within us.

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We're pointing people to Jesus. We are sharing the gospel with others. There's still a call to do that.

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And doing that is sometimes going to make people angry because they hate

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God. They hate Christ. That's the reason they get angry about it. I don't want you to tell me

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I'm a sinner going to hell. I want you to affirm my lifestyle. You know, let me do what it is that I want to do.

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I don't, I shouldn't have to change anything. I don't want to bow to God. I am God. That's the, that's the pushback to the gospel really, when a person doesn't want to listen to the proclamation that Jesus is

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Lord and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

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So people in their rebellion, in their hatefulness against God and the sin that they love, they're going to push back against that message of the gospel.

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And we're going to be facing that. But for the most part, we as Christians should desire to live peaceful and quiet lives.

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That means that it's full of grace, mercy, and love one another.

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Absolutely. Not bicker and gripe and snap at one another.

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Which for me at one point in my life, that was like a hobby. Griping. Oh yes. And snapping.

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Oh yes. I mean, I went to. I mean, everybody went through their teen years, but are you talking your teen years? No, I went to junior college on a debate scholarship.

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Ah. That is right. So I had to keep in practice.

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Yes. I wanted to argue about everything. And that was kind of. How exhausting. Yeah. Well, see, that's the thing.

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There really came a point where I just did not like where my mind was most of the time. I hated that I was constantly negative and constantly analyzing and skeptical.

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Yeah. And I realized I really wasn't enjoying myself. I feel myself right now getting very critical about things.

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If anybody shares something with me, I'm automatically on, okay, is this legit?

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Yeah. Or is this just junk that you're sending me? Jargon. Don't put this stuff in front of my face.

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I don't have time for this. Yeah. It's so frustrating that I have tried to step back from social media for the most part because I just get so upset and angry about things.

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And I'm like, I don't want to be that person. And I don't post whenever I feel that way because I feel like it's going to come across wrong.

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Even though I meant it well, and I want to reword that a different way. But in my mind,

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I can't think of a different way to word it. Does that make sense? No, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. So there are times that I just don't post anything.

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Well, we need to have – I mean, we as Christians need to have minds that are meditating on Christ anyway.

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Right, exactly. When it comes to – That's why I go to social media and follow all these people who quote

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Bible verses too. Yeah, some great teachers. Absolutely. And sum it up in a great sentence or two. And I'm like, yes, thank you.

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And then I'll go over to the Bible and I'm reading the passage. I'm like, yes, thank you. But it is less and less and more and more grumps.

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Most of the time. That's something I have to remember, though, too, because I know that a lot of people follow me on Twitter to hear some of the pastoral things that I will say.

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So I have to keep in mind. Okay, I might be – I've spent the last couple of days being a little neg.

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Yeah, a little neg. A little neg. Neg. I need to be more pause. Oh, dear.

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That's shorthand. Social media speak there. All right. Yeah. You can't finish the word there.

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That's right. On social media, you only have so many characters. So you got to try to get it into a brief spot there.

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But anyway, I really hate talking about race. I hate talking about it.

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And that's why I mentioned when I was – Yeah, ethnicity, race, skin color, any of those kinds of things.

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Because I thought there was only one. There is only one race. Right. There's the human race. Just that I clarified. Well, it's – and I agree with Voti.

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And I agree with Daryl Harrison on that. Absolutely. But there is – which, by the way, we've been talking about these subjects for the last couple of weeks.

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And we haven't plugged the Just Thinking podcast. No, we haven't. What is the matter with us? I don't know. We're crazy.

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Yeah. I told you. You get in the grump mode and you're just grump, grump, grump, grump, grump. That's right. Not like, yes, go follow this guy.

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I need to hand you my good brothers. And this guy. Who have plenty of good words to say and in a much wiser way than I'm able to put it.

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So, check out Daryl Harrison and Virgil Walker at the Just Thinking podcast. There was, at one point, they were the number two.

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I don't know if they ever got to number one. I don't know. I didn't hear anything about number one. But number two. The number two

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Christian podcast in the land. Number two. According to Apple, right? Yeah, according to Apple.

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That was awesome. Yep. I was celebrating with them. The only podcast that was ahead of them was – it's not the

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Duggars. She's a Duggar, but her husband is not. But it's the husband and wife.

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She came from the Duggar family. Got married to this guy. He's spoken at G3. I hate that I don't remember his name.

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Anyway, somebody will go – I'm sorry. You go look this up and you tell me what it was. And then

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Just Thinking was right after that. And number three, if I remember right, was Joel Osteen. Yes, I think so.

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So, the top two – Because I didn't recognize the first one. Yeah, the top two podcasts in the land were sound teachers.

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Top two Christian podcasts. Oh, now I'm sad I didn't recognize the first one. But I don't listen to podcasts.

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That's who that was. I know you don't. But I do like Just Thinking. They're amazing. Yeah, Just Thinking is great.

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Be sure to check them out. Subscribe, especially in these times. Because, I mean, this podcast came about at just the right time, and things just got worse as the whole race conflict has kind of continued.

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I've never seen a conflict regarding race in my lifetime, anyway, like I'm seeing it right now.

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I know that there are some people that lived through some legitimate racism and saw it on a much deeper level than I did.

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But the way that there's so much unrest and so much squabbling and quarreling over this, especially in the church, it's absolutely astounding.

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So, Daryl and Virgil are just the perfect voices in this particular time, and I think that they respond to this with a lot of grace and a lot of wisdom.

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If you just listen to Virgil, sometimes I'll be going, man, I didn't even think about responding to it.

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I would have responded to that, I think, in a much— Grumpier tone? Yeah, that's probably the way to put it.

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But they just respond with such gentleness and humility, knowing, hey, who are we in the scheme of things?

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Christ is great. Whatever way that I can serve him by proclaiming his gospel and the wisdom according to his word.

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That's what you get on the Just Thinking podcast, which is not only the second greatest

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Christian podcast in the land, but the first greatest podcast name of any podcast.

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Just Thinking, they got it. Yes. Well, I had mentioned the Phil Vischer video in here, too. And this first email that we have has to do with that.

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The email address, by the way, is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Friday, we answer questions from the listeners.

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And Amber says, Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I'm a longtime listener of your podcast. I really appreciate your thorough handling of the word and dedication to exposing the lies around us, both within the church and without.

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I recently came across a video from Phil Vischer, the Veggie Tales creator, also creator of the

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What's in the Bible DVD series, entitled Race in America from his Holy Post website.

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I'm going to link this below. It's about 18 minutes. In it, he goes on to reference some of the public policies that contributed to black

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Americans being mostly relegated to living in the cities where there was little opportunity for employment, which ultimately led to widespread drug use, crime, imprisonment, and the breakdown of the family.

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He also compares this to what is happening in mainly white rural towns where the opioid crisis has become a major issue.

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When I watched this, it made a lot of sense, and I felt like maybe I was starting to understand why the widespread breakdown of the black family had occurred.

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But I watched it a second time, and I can't help but think that this is not the whole story.

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A biblical perspective is missing, and that personal responsibility is never addressed.

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I also want to add, while I am white, I grew up in poverty, and I am from a broken family as well.

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I can understand how hard it is to get out of that cycle. I know people see me as a success in overcoming my upbringing, but the truth is,

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I had the Lord and all the people and circumstances that he brought into my life to lift me up out of that pit.

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If it were up to me, as determined, as I was at times to not live like that,

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I couldn't have done it. All I am today I owe to Christ. So I guess I am just wondering, what is your take on the video?

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I can imagine many Christians watching this video, since it comes from the VeggieTales creator, and feeling this same sort of confusion and uneasiness, maybe leading to some even sympathizing with the

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Black Lives Matter movement? Can you help me unpack the video, Amber? Well, I did respond to this video in a blog, and I felt like this was the best way to do it.

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There was, at one point, I was thinking about, maybe I could cover the video, maybe we could do it on the podcast, and we'll do like we usually do, where we'll play it, interrupt, and kind of address what's going on there.

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But the problem with the video, there are some things he does highlight there that I would say are legitimate problems.

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But then there's other things that he makes problems that actually aren't problems. Because the real problem with the video is that it's a narrative.

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He has his objective in mind of what he wants to communicate to you, and he has certain sources that are guiding his bias in what it is that he's attempting to communicate.

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Those sources are listed at the end of the video. There's an awkward care stare at the end of this video.

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So he makes this statement about, he says, what are the solutions to this? I don't know.

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Oh, that's helpful. I know. It's like you spend 18 minutes pointing at problems, which you say are social.

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And then no solutions. Yeah, you say these are social justice problems. He doesn't use the term social justice.

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He doesn't say Black Lives Matter. He doesn't even say white privilege, though all of those things are incorporated into the video.

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Implied even, yeah. Implied, right. The whole rhetoric is there. But he points at all these problems and doesn't give any solutions.

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That is so weird. Yeah, it's exactly the way that you, this is how you create suspicion among each other.

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Okay. You're looking at each other going, because he talks about unconscious bias. He tries to be gracious and say, white people may not be racist, but they are biased.

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Okay. But black people are not as biased as white people are. Say what? Oh, yeah, he even goes that far.

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Oh, goodness. So they're more. So people are different because of their. Of their color, apparently, right.

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Okay. I mean, he would probably call it culture, because at one point he says the majority culture caused this problem.

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And that's in reference to white people. So white people caused this problem. Okay. And therefore all black people are more fair than white people generally are.

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That's regarding the bias that he talks about. Now, I think that he very shrewdly puts that toward the end of the video rather than starts with the video, because that would be an immediate tune out.

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Yeah. But you've already had certain statistics and a certain narrative condition you're thinking by the time you get to that point.

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Right. Yeah. Exactly. That you're kind of won over by it. Mm -hmm. Then once you get there.

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But the astounding thing about it, and again, I responded to this in a blog and you can go to PastorGabe .com.

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The astounding thing to me was that Phil Vischer is a Bible teacher. A lot of people regard him as a Bible teacher.

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Yeah. Not just because of Veggie Tales, but because of What's in the Bible. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

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Veggie Tales is Christian entertainment. Yes. What's in the Bible is entertaining as well. But it has the

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Bible stories. Yeah, it's more intentional about what it is it's teaching you from the

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Bible. And this man who's a Bible teacher who teaches kids the gospel and what's in the

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Bible cannot think of a single solution to problems, which he would basically call sins, though he doesn't even use that word in the video.

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Oh. Problems that he sees going on in the culture, and he points out that this is a serious problem and we need to care, because that's the very last word of the video.

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Mm -hmm. I'm just asking you to care. Oh. He points at all those problems but has not a single solution.

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Can't even give you the gospel? Does he not think that the gospel is powerful enough to change the way that we look at one another and how we consider each other?

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That's insane. I don't know. My words are all swirling in my head.

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I can't get any of them to come out of my mouth. This further underscores a problem that many of us teachers that have been critical of critical race theory and social justice and Black Lives Matter and any of this stuff that's going on.

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A lot of us have been pointing out the fact that the gospel is being lost and it's being replaced with a social gospel, and we're preaching things.

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We, you know, evangelical leader, many evangelical leaders are preaching things about improving circumstances or making you see that there are social and systemic issues.

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And if you don't see these systemic issues, then you don't care, which is kind of the loaded statement at the end of Phil Fisher's video.

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Yeah, no joke. He says, I'm asking you to do one thing. Guilt you and do it. Yeah, right. I'm asking you to do one thing.

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I'm asking you to care. So if you don't care, if you don't care the way that he tells you that you should care in that video.

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Then you murder puppies. Yeah, I get it. Then you're kicking dogs and all that other kind of thing. That's the loaded concept behind his video.

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But anyway, some of the things that these teachers, myself included, have been warning about adopting this social justice narrative is that the gospel is being lost.

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And I think that Fisher highlights that in his video without doing it deliberately.

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Like he's not opening the video up saying, we're not going to talk about the gospel right now.

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We're going to talk about this. He doesn't deliberately throw the gospel off to the side.

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But his video is called Holy Post. And for being called

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Holy Post, and there's no biblical worldview or gospel presented in it at all.

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Wasn't there a Bible verse at the end or something? He had a screen that came up that had Isaiah 117 in it.

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But all Isaiah 117 says is that you consider the fatherless and the widow.

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It doesn't even mention God's name in Isaiah 117. After that, he's got a quote from Fred Rogers.

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After that, he's got a quote from Bob Pierce, who was the founder of World Vision and Samaritan's Purse.

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And Fred Rogers was Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Right. Okay. If you sit through that long enough, which is all silent, it's just screen coming up, and you already know it's the end of the video.

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So are you continuing to watch the stuff that he's got coming up on the screen now? I don't. He says care.

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He stares at you for a long time. Especially after that. I think I would just be like, no, I'm done. That's awkward.

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It's extremely awkward. If I got that far anyway, because I don't usually have 18 minutes to spare. It's very awkward.

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And so I call it the care stare. He's doing the care stare. And then you have a screen that comes up that says care.

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And then you have another screen that comes up. Scream. Scream. A screen that comes up and says listen.

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Screams at you. Okay. And then it's. Says listen. Listen. Then it's Isaiah 117,

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Fred Rogers, Bob Pierce. Then you get a white screen at the very end that has the credits on the video on it.

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And here's where you actually get his sources. Because he cited a bunch of stats and statistics, but didn't give any sources to them.

28:45

Okay. Interesting. Well, that's good. He's citing his sources. Yeah. But it's all everybody else's work. So it's not like, you know, for this statistical analysis, go here.

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You have to look up these articles and see the research they did. Not the research that Phil Vischer did.

28:59

On the left side is the creators of the video. It looks like it's Phil and his brother, I think. And then on the right side is his sources.

29:08

And these sources are all secular. They are all.

29:14

Well, second, Malcolm Gladwell might be the exception there. But even he, though he claims to be a

29:20

Christian, is pro -LGBTQ. He's for gay marriage. Okay.

29:25

And he is also. He doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnate son of God.

29:31

He just thinks he was a great revolutionary man. Okay. That's all he thinks about Christ. That's really sad.

29:37

Yeah. So he's still quite liberal. And how is that a Christian? Because if you were to look up his name, you would see him categorized as Christian.

29:47

And he calls himself a Christian. The point I'm making is that he's not a Christian. That's the point

29:53

I'm making. So none of his sources. I thought you were only a Christian if you believe that Christ, you know, died for your sins.

29:59

Well, he believes in Jesus. Just not the Jesus of the Bible. I don't think he has.

30:05

I don't think he has any understanding of what Orthodox Christianity is. All right. Just as long as you believe that Jesus was a great guy and said some wonderful things, that makes you a

30:15

Christian. Babe, there are a ton of people who call themselves Christians that don't believe Jesus is

30:21

God. I don't understand it. I know. I mean, Christ is in the name

30:26

Christian. It just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Anyway. I mean, it's almost the equivalent of calling yourself a

30:33

Gahondian. Gandhi. Yep. Well, I believe in Gandhi. Yeah.

30:38

That's great. So do I. He was a man that existed. Yeah. That doesn't mean anything. But yeah, to call yourself a

30:45

Christian means that you worship Jesus Christ as Lord. I just don't think he has any concept of that.

30:50

Point being, Phil Vischer's sources are all liberal. Michelle Alexander, Aaron Blakemore, and Malcolm Gladwell, and all three of these individuals are pro -LGBTQ.

31:01

And whenever they write about social justice issues, they include gay rights with racial equality.

31:09

Oh, interesting. But see, that is the social justice narrative. Just about everyone who references social justice, with the exception of a few evangelicals, just about everyone who references social justice and the need to elevate social justice, to talk about social justice, to fight for social justice, everybody who's in that social justice bandwagon is pro -LGBTQ.

31:37

They're pro -gay rights. That falls under the social justice banner. And it's not just among the three sources that Phil Vischer used.

31:46

I also, in my blog, which by the way, I didn't even give the address, but you can go to PastorGabe .com, and that's where you find my blog response to Phil Vischer's video.

31:55

But even in my blog, I made a reference to a book entitled

32:00

Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice. It was edited by Marianne Adams, Lee Ann Bell, and Pat Griffin, all of whom are liberal feminists and pro -LGBTQ.

32:12

Okay. And they are the ones who have written the textbook on social justice that is used in almost every single college and university that does any sort of course on social justice.

32:25

That's the textbook they use. Oh, okay. And the textbook equates LGBTQ equality with racial equality.

32:34

The civil rights movement of the 20th century has been hijacked by the social justice movement in the 21st century in order to dismantle capitalism, usher in socialism, disrupt the traditional family in favor of a collective, and destroy religious freedom for sexual liberty.

32:52

By the way, regarding—here's something that Phil Vischer doesn't talk about, and it's something that I mention in my blog.

32:59

He has only certain problems that he focuses on because those problems fit his narrative.

33:04

But there is a whole plethora of other problems that he doesn't focus on to understand why there is this income inequality that exists between blacks and whites.

33:16

Why is it that black people get in trouble with the law more often than white people do?

33:22

I agree that that statistic—you don't see a balanced statistic there. Right.

33:27

You don't see the same number of percentage of whites, same number of percentage of blacks. Right. It is unbalanced.

33:32

The odds that a black man will end up in jail in his lifetime are one in four.

33:39

One out of every four black men may spend some kind of time in incarceration.

33:44

That's a lot. Right, it is a lot. That's sad. Now, he just mentions that statistic to make you go, oh, wow.

33:52

So, yeah, there is a social systemic problem that targets black people and discriminates against them but gives privilege to white people.

34:04

That's why he cites statistics like that. So, they're out of context. Yeah. And he's not balanced in the way that he examines these statistics.

34:13

Okay. And the problems that lead to those particular statistics. Right. One of them, which he never touches on, is the massive amount of fatherlessness that exists among black families.

34:28

Yeah. Unfaithful fathers. I've heard actor Denzel Washington address this before.

34:33

And Denzel Washington has said, don't blame this on a systemic problem. Where are the fathers?

34:40

That's what Denzel Washington has said. Interesting. It's like if an actor can figure that out, people, for crying out loud.

34:46

And he would have any and everything to gain from being Black Lives Matter. Yeah. He could be a great voice in that particular movement.

34:53

Because that's why this Marxist sort of system exists to put everybody into these minority groups.

35:00

And if you can become a voice of that minority group, then you gain power. Right, of course. And attention and people listen to you.

35:07

Power. Right. I've got the power. Denzel Washington's been a guy saying that, no, you have to look at the family system, what's going on.

35:16

Dr. Thomas Sowell, who is another one from Stanford University, who's talked about the systemic issues that exist in the country.

35:25

He said the same thing. And, in fact, what Thomas Sowell has pointed out is that when the social welfare programs that exist in the nation, a lot of which have been created and passed by Democrats.

35:40

Okay. The social welfare programs will pay a woman who is a single mom.

35:48

But she doesn't get money if she's married. Right. So it's actually, we'll pay you to not get married.

35:54

And so the social programs actually prevent people from getting married.

35:59

Yeah. And when you have those neighborhoods that have been largely black, poor neighborhoods, they stay black, poor neighborhoods.

36:06

Yeah. Because of these welfare programs. Phil Fisher doesn't talk about that. And I agree that that's a problem.

36:13

But that's a liberal problem. Maybe that's why he couldn't come up with anything, because everything would be pointing in the wrong direction of his narrative.

36:22

It doesn't fit the narrative. Right, right. And he does try to, like, the Democrats are at fault in this way, and the

36:28

Republicans are at fault in this way. But it doesn't get anywhere, because he offers no solutions.

36:34

Right. It's just pointing at a problem. And the way that he points at those problems, blaming unconscious bias and some of these other kinds of things, this is exactly what 1

36:43

Timothy 6 tells teachers not to do. Paul explicitly tells Timothy not to do this.

36:48

If you deviate from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, you'll be puffed up with conceit.

36:56

Yeah. You understand nothing. And you create these dissensions and slander and evil suspicions and constant friction between people.

37:04

Because they're trying to one -up one another with these worldly sorts of philosophies.

37:10

Yeah. Rather than being subject and submissive to the authority of the gospel of Christ and his word.

37:17

I mean, I find myself going throughout the day, you know, constantly like, oh, yeah,

37:23

I'm good, I'm good. And then, wait, no, I'm not good without God. Yeah. And I had, you know,

37:29

I talked about this a minute ago. But I hate talking about this. I hate talking about race issues.

37:36

And this is what the narrative is currently doing to people. No matter where you fall on this narrative, what it's doing to people is it's getting into their minds, oh, you're a different color than me.

37:46

Yeah. And I'm hearing all this stuff, this constant bombardment of stuff all around me, all over the place that says you're supposed to be like this.

37:55

Yeah. Even when you look at a single mom. Stereotype. Right, exactly. It doesn't matter what color she is, but you have a stereotype of a single mom.

38:04

And when you look at a guy who's up in age and not married, you have a certain sort of stereotype about him.

38:12

Grumpy old men. Yeah, right. Get off my lawn. You have a guy who has been in jail before.

38:19

You're going to have a stereotype about him. We have those biases. They exist. It doesn't necessarily mean that something sinful is going on.

38:27

But Phil Fisher is saying, yeah, there is. It's all white people are wrong and all black people are being oppressed, according to the system that he creates in this video.

38:38

And it's been strongly influenced by the social justice narrative that's been established by these largely liberal pro

38:46

LGBTQ people. And too many Christians are ignorant to understand that this is a

38:52

Marxist ideology that is meant to keep people divided, which is exactly what Phil does in his video.

38:58

What's Marxist? Explain that to me. Well, we talked about that a couple of weeks ago in that Marxism is striving for equal outcome.

39:06

The capitalist society that we exist in is equal opportunity. But Marxism is going to be equal outcome.

39:12

But here's the thing. That sounds like a great idea. That sounds great. I want equal out.

39:18

Can't we all just get the same? That sounds like a great idea. All poor. Right. And it ends up all poor.

39:24

But in order to get to equal outcome, you only arrive at equal outcome through unequal treatment.

39:34

Oh, you have to discriminate. Oh, in order to get to because you have to take from the guy who makes more and give to the person who makes less.

39:44

Right. So you have to discriminate. You have to treat people different. You have to make people to separate them.

39:49

Yeah. You have to make them unequal in order to get equal outcome. That's that's the paradox of the whole thing, which is why it sounds great.

39:59

Can't we just all like like have we all have everything alike? We all have everything in common. We all get the same thing.

40:05

It sounds fine, but it doesn't work in the real world. No. And there's always going to be an oppressor.

40:12

See, people that that adopt this Marxist thing think that, well, we'll get rid of the whole capitalist guys who are really, really rich and are looking down on all us peons and they have all the money and we don't get anything.

40:23

And how unfair is that? Right. Let's get rid of that system and we'll make it all equal. No, there's somebody in that Marxist society that's on top of everybody else.

40:31

Oh, yeah, definitely. Always. Yeah. And I mean, that doesn't even get rid of the problem of who is going to spend all their money on frivolous things that break and whatnot and who's going to save their money and, you know, like really have a good nest egg going on and and buy what was necessary or good appliances or something like that.

40:51

Right. There's no incentive. There's still going to be a difference in how you use that money that you're given, even if everybody's the same.

40:59

There's no incentive to do better when everybody, when everybody's being given the same. So who's going to be a doctor?

41:07

Get paid more, but not. Yeah. I'm not going to do that much schooling and accumulate that much debt when

41:14

I'm just going to end up making the same money as everybody else. I mean, think of how much stress they go through. Right. Well, yeah, it's a hard job.

41:19

It's a very hard job. It's a lot of work. Yeah. And if I'm not going to get any financial incentive for doing that amount of labor, then

41:26

I'm not going to work that hard. And then you have to make them. Well, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way.

41:33

So the quality, the quality of life, quality of health care. Are we going to get that?

41:39

Well, see, that's been the argument, right? The quality of life goes down for everybody when that's what it is that you implement on the society.

41:47

If you like what you have, if you think that we have it pretty good right now. Well, you need to continue to encourage capitalism.

41:54

You actually even need to release some of the laws that exist on businesses and those who create jobs.

42:02

Yeah. You need to relax some of those laws because then it works out better for everybody in the long run.

42:07

The more competition that you have that exists there and see the welfare thing, like minimum wage, for example.

42:15

Which is at what, like 15 bucks now? Well, that's what, yeah. 20, 30? That's what they're trying. Some states have already implemented that, but not everybody.

42:21

But here's the problem that exists. So the minimum wage goes up and then the number of jobs that are available go down.

42:29

Right. And the prices go up. And the prices go up. It doesn't work.

42:35

It doesn't. Like people start demanding, hey, I want 15 bucks an hour. And when you get the 15 bucks an hour and that's doing all right for you.

42:44

For a $7 an hour job. Yeah, something like that. When you're making that much money an hour, you don't have any reason to have to move up.

42:53

Yeah. I need to get promoted or I need to go find a better job. You're making enough to make those ends meet, which is what you were aiming for.

42:59

So, again, there's no incentive to want to do better. You're just going to stay. McDonald's, being a teller at the window at McDonald's was not meant to be a lifetime career.

43:08

You do that for a little while and you go find another job. And then you move up. That's right. You move up. Up to the supervisor.

43:19

Not supervisor. Manager. Managerial position. Yeah. I mean, even that's a move up.

43:25

Yeah. Well, you spent a long time on this. I didn't mean to be so long on this particular issue. Coming back to the point that I was making again.

43:33

When we talk about race and we're talking about this over and over again, this is what gets into our mind. So, you think you're solving a race problem, but you're actually causing it.

43:41

Creating it. You're causing the race problem. Yes. People are not looking at people as people.

43:47

Now, we're seeing the culture and society as just being broken up and divided in all these minority subgroups. And that's the way that you have to look at everyone.

43:54

It keeps us divided. Yeah. So, the longer we keep talking about this issue and breaking people apart into these subgroups, then the more divided we are going to be.

44:04

That's one of the reasons why I hate addressing it. And I had somebody even ask me recently, have you ever done a sermon on race?

44:12

I said, no. Ten years I've been a pastor. I have never done a sermon on race. Ethnicity.

44:18

It was interesting that he didn't ask the follow -up question. He didn't say why. He kind of actually worked it out in his own mind.

44:25

And he goes, well, you're an expository preacher, so that kind of makes sense. I mean, why would you have to do, today we're going to talk about race.

44:32

I said, that doesn't mean I've never addressed it before. If we get to it in a text that we're going through, I might bring it up.

44:38

But it's never even been the entire subject of a sermon that I've preached. Because I tend to believe that if you preach the gospel to people and you tell people to follow the instructions that have been given to us by Christ, people are going to seek forgiveness for their sins.

44:55

They're going to be more gracious to one another. The things that divide us as sinful people won't be there because we're unified in Christ.

45:03

Whenever you see a problem, you confront that problem. And I'm not saying ignore problems.

45:10

And not being rude about confronting. Yeah. You're not just looking at people and going, you're all guilty of this.

45:17

And that's not the way you approach it. It's not the way you approach any issue or any subject.

45:23

When you see the problem, when you see two people fighting within your congregation, you address it. Kind of the way that like the

45:29

Apostle Paul addressed Iodia and Syntyche in Philippians chapter 4. I'm going to call you out in front of the entire church.

45:35

Yeah. But there was a problem. There was a fight, a quarrel between those two women.

45:41

It got called out. And Paul called on the entire church to hold those women accountable.

45:46

It's your job to make sure these women get along. And in the church, that's what it's got to be.

45:54

But in today's society, you're not in my business. In today's society, you're not in my business.

46:01

That's what they say. I did the quotes. Oh, okay. I was looking over at my drink.

46:07

I didn't see the air quotes. Neither did any of the listeners, babe. You got to look.

46:13

Look, guys. Here's the air quotes. Air quotes, by the way. Hang on. There we go. There we go.

46:18

Air quotes on the microphone. Right there. That's how I got to do it. Okay. Noted.

46:26

So, moving on from that. Yeah, yeah. This one's a whole other rabbit trail. Yeah. Hopefully, the instruction had fallen in there.

46:33

And you understand. You understand that when you see a sin issue, you address the sin issue. When you say that everybody in this group is guilty of this, and everybody in this group over here is guilty of this, you are contrary to what the word of God says.

46:46

That's satanic. Satan means. That name, Satan, means Hasatan. It's the accuser.

46:53

The name Satan is from that word, Hasatan. Okay. So, it means the accuser. He is the accuser of the brethren or the adversary.

47:01

And we're not to be that way with one another. Right. The Lord says, put on then as His holy ones, holy and compassionate hearts, kind to one another.

47:11

Yes. And we're all part of the same body. With grace toward each other. Yeah. Why would you stab your leg? All one body in Christ.

47:16

That's right. Stop it. Don't try to cut a leg off, set it over there. Okay. Until you start behaving leg, then I'm going to attach you back on.

47:23

Which I've had those muscle spasms going on lately. Sometimes it's been tempting. Yeah. Take this leg off.

47:28

Until you start behaving, you can't be on here. Oh, goodness. This next question comes from Kellen.

47:34

Hi, Gabe. You don't know me, but I follow you on Twitter, and I have listened to your podcast frequently. I read through most of the exchange and subsequent comments from the peanut gallery that you had with Chance the

47:46

Rapper. Ah, yes. Hopefully, that unfruitful interaction doesn't leave you too discouraged.

47:53

I and many other people appreciate all that you do, and I have learned much from your teaching. In retrospect, Chance was very disingenuous with his questions and wasn't really looking for answers.

48:03

He left far too many things undefined, and like the scope of white supremacy and his definition of the gospel, the truths of America, to name a few, it is truly tragic that he and so many others have abandoned the gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ and reconciliation, intimacy with God, for broken cisterns,

48:23

Jeremiah 2 .13. He gives me his Twitter handle. He says, look me up if you want proof that I'm a real person.

48:29

We can only speak the truth in love and pray that the Holy Spirit would soften the hearts of those that hear it.

48:35

Yes. In case you weren't aware, it was Sunday morning right before church. I got tagged in a conversation, so some people were kind of criticizing me for not answering the question that Chance originally asked, but I didn't see the question

48:46

Chance originally asked. I didn't come in on the conversation there. I came in on the conversation later. Yeah.

48:52

And so I had the chance to share the gospel with Chance the rapper.

48:58

The guy has eight and a half million followers on Twitter. He's worth $25 million with the rap songs that he,

49:07

I didn't know who he was. I couldn't have quoted a single song from you, but. From you? From him.

49:13

For you from him. I didn't know any of it. Yeah. I had to look up his lyrics and they're really raunchy.

49:18

I mean, he's pretty terrible for a guy who calls himself a Christian, but he was actually responding to me and so I took advantage of that and I shared the gospel with him.

49:29

I really was not interested in engaging his social justice rhetoric or the critical race theory stuff that he was espousing.

49:37

He was using a term like white supremacy, but it's like, what does that term mean? Yeah, it could mean a lot of different things.

49:44

And I asked somebody, so what does white supremacy mean? And he said, well, it means that people with white skin are more supreme to other people.

49:52

They are inherently more valuable than a person of any other skin color. And I said, okay, well, that's evil.

49:58

And I said, are you happy now? And he said, I wish you would have said that earlier. I'm like, so see, you're not happy.

50:05

That's exactly why I don't engage in this. That's why I don't entertain the social justice rhetoric.

50:10

I'm going to tell you what the Bible says. We can talk about the gospel. But to dance through your little social justice obstacle course,

50:20

I can't do it. I don't even know how you define these terms or if I'm going to meet the terms that you're demanding of me in order to arrive at a point in which

50:31

I'm able to get you to understand something, you want me to bow a knee to a certain rhetoric.

50:38

Right. That's why you use that social justice jargon. And then I'm not going to play that game. I hate getting into fights on Twitter.

50:46

Like I've never, to my recollection, gotten in a fight on Twitter. I hate it when other people do it, too.

50:52

Yeah. And so like who I mean, why would you get on Twitter just to fight to pick a fight?

51:00

I know it's in 280 characters. You don't get very far. And I refuse to do tweet threads.

51:06

I just refuse. And when I'm talking with a person and they start throwing three, four, five tweets at me,

51:12

I don't say anything, but I'm done with the conversation because I don't have time and I'm not going to read a whole long diatribe.

51:21

There's other people who are asking me questions and I want to be able to make as much time with people as I can, especially with people who are going to listen.

51:28

So if you want to email me, that's fine because then I'll have an opportunity later to pull that email up and then

51:34

I can respond whenever I get the chance. But doing those long tweet threads. And you also get so many notifications.

51:40

You miss a lot. Goodness. I get over one or 200 a day. Yeah. So, yeah.

51:45

Sometimes I miss stuff. Becky catches it when I don't see it. Some. Yeah. I catch some. I don't claim to catch them all, but I do try.

51:53

You're there. And with Chance, I was not trying to argue. All I was trying to do was give him the gospel and help him to see his sin and need for the gospel because he didn't know it.

52:03

Right. He didn't see it. Right. And I also, they brought in Phil Johnson, too.

52:09

And I wanted to take note that both of you guys quit responding.

52:16

And so the opposition claims that as a victory because you guys quit responding.

52:23

But really, it was casting your pearls before swine at that point. Right. I know. They weren't wanting to listen.

52:30

They were wanting to fight. And there's no point. Yeah. In trying to talk that out and calm them down because it's

52:37

Twitter. Yeah. It's not in person. Well, both Relevant Magazine and ChristianHeadlines .com

52:43

covered what I had said. Mm -hmm. And in the

52:50

ChristianHeadlines .com article, it said, Pastor Gabriel Hughes of Kansas First Southern Baptist Church.

52:56

Apparently, there's only one Southern Baptist Church in the entire state of Kansas. And that's ours. We were the first. We were the first.

53:03

Challenged Bennett by dismissing the notion of white supremacy while asserting that individual sin is the real issue.

53:10

So when I read that, I was like, wait a minute. Challenged Bennett by dismissing the notion of white supremacy.

53:16

I dismissed the notion of white supremacy? I didn't even mention white supremacy. It was implied?

53:22

I suppose maybe they mean dismiss the notion of white supremacy as I just chose not to address it.

53:29

Right. That's not the way that I would define dismissing. Yeah. No, definitely not. But I said.

53:36

Dismissing is that you acknowledged it and you dismissed it. White supremacy? Nah, I'm not going to talk about that.

53:41

Go right. This other thing. But yeah, I mean, white supremacy, I agree that that's evil.

53:46

But you know what? I don't think that white supremacy exists without black supremacy. Or that there's anybody of any sort of nationality or ethnicity that thinks that theirs is superior and everybody else is less than me.

53:58

I think that that exists among just about any kind of ethnicity or nationality. When you put someone up on a pedestal that makes everybody else below them.

54:07

Why on earth would you do that? Yeah. Why would you call yourself low?

54:13

Well, he's not saying he's not saying I am superior to him. His question was.

54:19

Yeah. Well, his question was, why aren't more pastors addressing white supremacy with their congregations?

54:25

My response to that is simply I don't even know what that is. I don't know. I don't know what you're saying.

54:30

I need to be telling my congregations about that. It's in the Bible.

54:35

That's what we're teaching them. That's right. If it's in the Bible, that's what we're teaching. All right.

54:41

This next question comes from Henrique. I want to get one more in here. So I think we can we can squeeze this last one in.

54:47

Hello. My name is Henrique. I'm a student of the Southern Baptist Seminary. God bless you. God help you, too.

54:54

I mean, that campus is pretty rocky right now. I'm originally from Brazil. I love your content.

55:01

I would love to know if I can translate it into Portuguese and upload the videos onto my channel.

55:07

And I guess that channel is pronounced Legato Reformato. I have the permission to do so from Wretched Radio.

55:14

He's apparently doing that with Todd Friel's videos. That's awesome. And from Living Waters with Ray Comfort's videos.

55:20

Oh, that's great. As it is a small channel, I'm not making any money off of it.

55:25

Let me know what you think. Henrique, please do so. Take the videos. Translate them to Portuguese.

55:32

I hope they minister to a whole bunch of people. Yes. That would be awesome. We only have one caveat to that.

55:38

Okay. Is that you don't charge. Yeah, even if you get to be a big site, don't charge for it.

55:44

Ever. Keep the videos free. Keep the gospel free. Yes. Keep proclaiming that because that's what people need.

55:50

And that's what is going to reconcile us, most especially to God. Because that's the division that really matters.

55:55

Right. In our sin, we are divided from God. Yes. And he has made the way of salvation for us through his son,

56:03

Jesus Christ. Repent of your sins. Believe in Jesus. You will be reconciled to God and to God's people.

56:11

Yes. Let's conclude with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for a good time that Becky and I have together in doing this program.

56:20

And I pray that what we talked about was a blessing to others. And they are uplifted by the good words of the gospel.

56:26

For it is that word that is going to bring us together and unify us. Talking about these things can keep us divided if we focus on this race and that race.

56:34

And you're in this category and you're in that category. And all we're doing is breaking us up from one another, which is already what we've done because of our sin.

56:43

May we turn from our wickedness, our selfishness, our determination to proclaim our team.

56:51

And we get on the side of the gospel and declaring victory in Christ who has conquered sin for us, death for us.

57:00

And through him, we have fellowship with God and eternal life in your forever kingdom.

57:06

Forgive us our sins. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. And we pray these things in Jesus name.

57:12

Amen. Amen. Yes, I'm bringing up your eyeballs in case anything.

58:24

Hey, you asked. I asked? Who asked? I don't even remember. What was the question?

58:30

What did you ask? I don't think I asked anything. Huh? I don't think you asked anything either.

58:36

Are we old enough now? What? That our fights are over what? What? What?

58:42

What? What? What? Can you say something? What do you say?

58:49

Oh, that's grandma. I miss them. Reminds you of your grandma.

59:01

That's beautiful. It is. I miss them. I'm glad I have an imitation of her down so well.

59:13

No, you didn't have the pitch, but you definitely had the phrase and just how she says it too.

59:20

Yep. Good old grandma. I'm going to giggle now.