Part 2 - Eric Mason's "Biblical" Reparations - AD Responds

All right, welcome back. Well, we're going to try to get a little further into this thing than last time.

Last time, I did a little preaching myself. You know what I mean? I wanted you to have a good understanding of the text of what the story of Zacchaeus was all about.

What Zacchaeus did. Why did he act the way he acted? Why did it happen the way it happened?

And how that has actually nothing to do with reparations. However, let's continue. Let's try to let

Dr. Eric Mason speak a little bit more this time. All right, let's go. But I'm saying, and the college community.

There's been massive amounts of conspiracy theories. There's been crazy amounts of conspiracy theories that basically was stating that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, El -Hajj

Malik El -Shabazz, was killed, assassinated.

Because they were going to bring charges against the United States concerning the issue of, you guessed it, reparations.

And as we began to think about that, I don't know if that's true. That's been kind of an urban legend within black lore for many of years.

Information about that going out. I mean, there are articles out there. Somebody page Joe Carter. We've got a bona fide conspiracy theory being peddled from a

Christian pulpit. So I would assume that Joe Carter would do the honorable thing, the consistent thing, and call out

Eric Mason for being demonic. Because apparently, if you even utter a conspiracy theory, much less from a pulpit, then that's demonic, according to Joe Carter.

So I'm sure that he'll be consistent. Somebody get Joe Carter's attention. Let him know that we've got a demonized man talking about conspiracy theories from a pulpit.

All right, let's get back to it. There are even books out there that you'll find in that black bookstore.

You know that black bookstore? You know, when I talk about black bookstore, you know what, you ain't a black bookstore unless you got that soap.

You know that soap that they wrap up in saran wrap? You understand what

I'm saying? You know, they got the oils all over the place and the incense and, you know, different posters.

And then they, it's a conscious bookstore, but then they got misogynistic books about black women. And anyway, that's a whole nother story.

But in those stores, there are resources within those stores. And not all of them do that, but they'll have books about different conspiracy theories that you'll see people having about that.

And reparations - Call Joe Carter. He's still doing it. I don't know whether or not it's true, but I believe it is something to think about.

But sort of on a larger scale - So let me get this straight, because this is actually kind of funny, because I'm joking about the

Joe Carter stuff. Obviously I don't care what Joe Carter says about conspiracy theories. But this is so interesting because he's, again, like, this is the greatest preacher of our generation, we were told a couple weeks ago.

I might be exaggerating on exactly what the quote was, but this is a great preacher. He read the text, which is a great passage.

He immediately left the text, and now he's talking about conspiracy theories that he's, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's something to think about.

Like, what? What do you even say to something like this? I just don't understand.

Can you imagine a preacher getting on the stage and being like, you know, you read a passage from John or something, and then he starts talking about QAnon?

And, well, I don't know if it's true or not, but definitely look into it! Definitely look into the QAnon! You couldn't... Oh, man.

I don't even really know what to say. Let's just continue. For us to think about whether or not that's true, it remains to be seen.

But what remains to be a reality, whether that's true or not, is that African Americans were left, or Africans, rather, were released from slavery without any counseling, without any economic plan, without any opportunity, but left out there in a way that we would say wasn't restorative for them being kidnapped by their kidnappers and imported into this country as an import versus an immigrant.

All right, let's stop Eric Mason right there, because despite what he thinks, I actually do care about what

God's justice says. And he's saying that there wasn't restoration, there wasn't restorative,

I think, justice is the way he describes it, regarding the fact that blacks were kidnapped, right?

And I would agree with that. I would say that kidnapping is a very serious sin.

It's also a very serious crime. And there's actually a biblical command regarding what do you do with kidnappers, right?

I mean, because God's law is a good law. He considers these things. This is stuff that he cares about, right?

And so if we're going to be like Zacchaeus, and we're going to want to do what God's law requires us to do, then we need to figure out what does

God's law say in the situation of kidnapping like Dr. Eric Mason is describing here?

Does it say that the kidnapped victim deserves free counseling? Like he just kind of hinted at that in a minute.

We'll talk more about counseling in a minute. No, it doesn't say that. As you might imagine, God's law doesn't say that if someone gets kidnapped, you should release them and then provide them counseling sessions.

Does it say that they should be given economic opportunity? If someone gets kidnapped, then you need to give them economic opportunity, as defined by who?

Who knows? No, it does not say that. Let's actually look at the law of God because actually

I care about the law of God. Here's what Exodus chapter 21, verse 16 says.

I'm going to read it from the King James. I've been doing that lately. I like the King James. It says, and he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

Let's read the Christian standard Bible because that's what Eric Mason was using. Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells him or the person is found in his possession.

Just a few things about this, right? Notice the pronouns. You know, this is the thing. Like, I'm not trying to be remedial with you guys.

Like, I'm not, but the thing is like, Eric Mason here is influencing people and I know he's not remedial.

He's just being a snake. He's just being a wolf. He's just doing what these people do. They lie.

Liars lie, okay? So notice the pronouns. Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells him or the person is found in his possession, he, his.

These are pronouns that refer to the person who did the kidnapping. Now, you'll never hear about this from Eric Mason.

You know why you'll never hear about this from Eric Mason? Because often, the person who did the kidnapping was

African, okay? That's why you won't hear about this.

There's another reason why you won't hear about this. It's because he, Eric, doesn't get anything by applying

God's law here, by applying God's justice to those who steal people in order to sell them or to keep them or whatever.

Because it should be a death penalty offense, but that won't do Eric Mason any good. He doesn't get any cash for that, right?

He wants cash. He wants counseling sessions. He wants free tuition for 200 years.

So if you actually applied God's justice, he wouldn't get anything from that. And third reason you won't hear anything about this is because, again, the persons who done the stealing, and we could,

I could include the Europeans there, too, because the Europeans shouldn't have been buying stolen people.

In fact, it says if you find someone in someone's possession who has been stolen, that's also a death penalty offense, right?

So it's not just the African man -stealers that should get the death penalty. It's also the people who had them in their possession at that time.

Death penalty. But that won't do Eric Mason any good. So you're not gonna hear about that from Dr.

Eric Mason. And so instead, you're gonna hear about counseling and economic opportunity and things that you couldn't possibly find in the scripture unless you're willing to lie about what the

Lord of glory has said. And Dr. Eric Mason is more than willing to lie about what

God has said. Let's continue. And import instead of an immigrant.

And so what I would like to do as we walk through this, I got one point, one point only. We're gonna be in this text, but we're gonna work through the pantheon, if you will, of what we need to dive into today.

So number one and one point only, family of God, if you are, we're gonna develop a biblical case for reparations, number one, you have to understand this.

Initiating, correcting the effects of sin on others is a strong fruit of conversion.

Let me say that again. Y 'all must hear this. Yeah, y 'all must hear this because if you wrong somebody and then you convert to Christ, or if you're already converted to Christ and you've wronged somebody, then it is the onus is on you to correct that.

The onus is on you to correct that. If you wrong somebody, you need to make it right.

And you need to make it right, not according to what somebody else over here said, not according to some what conscious community said or some conspiracy theorist in a black bookstore said.

You actually have to make it right according to what Christ has said. Because if you've converted to Christ, Christ is your master,

Christ is your Lord. You play by his rules. He's exactly right about this.

So why does nothing about this sermon actually apply? Here's one point and one point only.

Initiating, correcting the effects of sin on others is a strong fruit of conversion.

Well, you see, we're here in this text and this text has kind of been that mentioning passage, if you will, that's usually mentioned in relation to reparations.

We'll peruse the exegetical pantheon, as I told you, and begin to work through redemptive historical history and see if the principle that we see in this text is something that's scoured the scriptures.

And so when you look - Yeah, notice this is the mentioning text, right? So he's obviously, he's not preaching the way you ought to preach, like the way you should preach.

If you come across Luke chapter, whatever, you should preach the text. What does it mean? Like in the last episode,

I told you how I would preach, you know, Zacchaeus. Obviously it was only 10 minutes, but I'm a short preacher anyway.

When I preach, it's usually like 20 minutes. But you go, you stick with the text, right? You don't, it's not a, what is a mentioning text?

What the heck is that? Eh, maybe I didn't go to seminary. Maybe I just don't know. That's possible, I just don't know. Anyway.

Look in verse 19, it says he entered Jericho, talking about Jesus. It's interesting that he would enter Jericho.

This Jericho is not ancient Jericho. It's the new location of the new Jericho. And so there was a man named

Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich, the

Bible says. And it says, and he was trying to see who Jesus was. I guess the hoopla about Jesus was going around.

And as the hoopla and understanding about Jesus was going around, or he was just coming through.

He wanted to see what was going on with Jesus. But it says, but he was not able because of the crowd and he was a short man.

We don't know how tall he is, but you gotta understand. In those days, they were already shorter than we are. Right?

People became taller over the last three, 400 years. But if he was short, he was short, short, right?

Verse four, it says, so running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus since he was about to pass by.

When Zacchaeus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, he knew his name.

Now, I don't know if Jesus already knew who Zacchaeus was because of the type of work that he was in and his name circulated, or because of his prophetic fervor,

God prophetically showed Jesus Christ, even though he would know in his deity who he was, but in his humanity, because he put his attributes, independent use of his attributes on the side.

I don't know if God said, his name's Zacchaeus, or he just knew, but Zacchaeus, hurry. He says, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.

Can't you imagine somebody coming up to you talking about something? Hey, let me just tell you something. I'm gonna be at your crib today.

You know, you're gonna be like, yeah, all right. I don't know, you know, even culturally, this would have been a lot because even in that culture, they were used to people coming in town and giving them lodging in their home, but this was a bit pushy, but there was something more powerful go on, particularly if somebody is a prophet in their mind.

And so he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully. All who saw it began to complain.

He has gone with a sinful man. Well, look what Zacchaeus' response is as he begins to go down and he begins to talk to Jesus.

It says, but Zacchaeus, listen, stood there and said to the

Lord. Now what's interesting is in the midst of what's going on, Zacchaeus is looked at as an outcast spiritually, not culturally in the sense of a man of economic means, but he's looked at as an outcast in relation to the religious establishment.

However, Jesus does something powerful in response to him, but he does something in response to what people are saying.

He says, look, I'll give half my possessions to the poor. That's number one. He says, listen,

I know how y 'all view me. Let me show y 'all how real I am about me seeking out

Jesus, about me trusting in Jesus, about me believing in Jesus, about me putting my confidence in Jesus.

In other words, he's not saying that he's saved by giving to the poor, but he's saying as a response to having an encounter with Jesus, his repentance bears fruit.

It's just like when John the Baptist saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the elders coming over to him or whatever,

John saw them coming over to him and he said, you brood of vipers, who warned you of the wrath to come, but bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And so what we see here is a fruit of experiencing God, his repentance, and look what his repentance does.

He said, I'll give it to the poor, but not only that, this is not just general almsgiving, that's almsgiving, because that was general almsgiving poor, but then he goes beyond just almsgiving or offering, if you will, for kingdom work to them, to the poor.

And then he says, and if I have extorted anything from anyone,

I'll pay it back four times as much. This is interesting. It's interesting now because now he didn't.

Let me just stop here because I just, I'm gonna say something very briefly. I haven't said anything in a while.

And I said this about Eric Mason before, when he's in the text, not bad. He's not bad at all.

I think he's quite engaging. I make fun of the way he talks, but you know, I'm just joking around here, you know?

People talk differently, and no one has to talk the way I do, you know? But when he's in the text and he's explaining, this is what preaching is, you read the text and you give the sense of it, right?

That's what it says in the scripture. I forget exactly where it says that. I think that might be, was it Nehemiah? It's one of the prophets.

You read the text and you give the sense of it. When he's doing that, he's good. And this is why he's such an effective snake, because he'll leave this very quickly, as you'll see.

And it starts to go downhill instantly. He makes it up as he goes along, once he gets out of the text.

His application is abysmal. Not only is it abysmal, but it's typically upside down when he's talking about these issues regarding race.

Upside down, it's the opposite of what you should do. But when he's in the text, he's pretty good.

Let's let him finish. I have to even say this. He could have just had his sins forgiven and him to be able to allow his justification by faith through Christ alone to be enough for him to move on and people believe he was different.

But one of the things that he wanted to do was it wasn't just to show that he had changed, because his return to people is partially to show that he changed, but also to correct something that he did or that was in connection with him.

This is so important, right? And so extort is an interesting word that will be our exegetical springboard into our understanding of reparations.

I hope y 'all are trekking with me today because I'm having a good time in the text. It says, extorted means to obtain by coercion or intimidation, alternately by defrauding or rather than extorted.

In other words, when a person is extorted, they're basically defrauded out of their resources.

Because he was a tax gatherer, he could say, well, there's a new tax out and Caesar got this and he fraudulently took more than he was supposed to.

Whatever it was that he did, I'm pretty sure he did it because he wouldn't have mentioned it if he didn't. You know how we are.

If we did something, we say, well, if I did anything, this is what I wanna say about it. Well, he did. That's a good point.

That is exactly what he's doing. But I want you to remember this word extortion and his definition of extortion because the rest of this sermon is going to be a one big attempt to extort you.

I said, that's a heavy claim, but you'll see. And so extorting means to put pressure on someone for personal gain.

There's the definition. Now we're probably gonna end this video soon, but I want you to remember that definition of extortion that he's just used to put pressure on someone for your own financial gain.

To shake someone down, to blackmail them, to harass them, to squeeze resources out of them. It's interesting that this exegetical statement here is powerful because it says to oppress someone and cheating them and extorting them.

Well, who's more extorted than black people in America? Black people in America were extorted by Europe.

Okay, so instantly he's out of the text. The first sentence, it's off the rails.

He can read the text. He can track with it. He's actually pretty good. You might even prefer the way he described

Zacchaeus to the way I described Zacchaeus because it was pretty good. He noticed a couple things

I didn't mention. Pretty good. And then the instant he gets out of it, he's like, who's been more extorted than black people in America?

They were extorted by Europe. I've got news for you. And we're gonna end on this note.

Europe is a nation or actually it's not even a nation. It's a continent. It's a region.

A region cannot engage in extortion. A group, a fictional group, black people cannot be victims of extortion.

Individuals extort other individuals. People extort other people.

And so the instant he gets out of the text because Zacchaeus is talking about himself, I extorted other people.

I'm gonna go find them and I'm gonna go give them their money back with interest. The instant he stops talking about the text, he starts talking about a fantasy, a fiction where a region,

Europe, a continent, has now extorted, I don't know, just a group, a nameless, faceless group of black people in general.

A fiction, a fantasy. And that's not what happened. And we can all see how this instantly goes off the rail.

This is why you will never see a reference to Exodus chapter 21, verse 16, which is exactly what needs to be referenced in the case of man stealing, right?

You will never see it. And there's other verses that we're gonna talk about that make it definitive, that what he is telling you about how black people are owed something from Europeans, just those groups in general, is actually not the case at all according to God's law.

You see, Zacchaeus wasn't just trying to show people he changed. Zacchaeus was trying to make things right according to scripture.

And if we did that with reparations, we would have to look at verses like this. Ezekiel chapter 18.

The soul who sins shall die. That's what this English Standard Version, that's how it describes this section, right?

Verse 20. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.

The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

Later on, a couple of verses later, verse 25, it says, yet you say the way of the Lord is not just.

Here now, O house of Israel, is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

You see, when you leave God's law, when you leave his system of justice, all of a sudden you're in a position where you're calling

God's law not just in favor of your own. And this sermon, this TED Talk, this is a big, complicated way to do exactly that.

Is it not Eric Mason's way that is not just? He's good when he's in the text, but as soon as he leaves it, he's telling you to do something upside down, anti -Christ, anti -gospel, something that can never, ever fix the wounds that have been perpetrated on people.

None, nothing. All it does is create new victims. And unfortunately, we'll probably have many big evil leaders defending this

TED Talk. And we'll deal with that as we get them. We'll deal with that as we get them. Anyway, I hope you found it.

God bless. God bless.