Responding to David Platt's T4G Speech on Racism (Part 7)

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Eric Mason's Unbridled Covetousness (Part 8)

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All right, well, let's finish this response to David Platt's T4G speech about racism.

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Because I trust we know the history, I trust we know that speaking broadly, in every era of American racism, white churches and their pastors have on a whole been found complacent.

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I'm glad he mentioned that because this is another, I'm going to do a video series about the different strategies of SJWs.

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And this is a very, very common strategy. So what they'll do is they'll say, they'll, they'll point to very clear examples of racism in the past.

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And you know, Jim Crow was very common, slavery is very common, these kinds of things. There's no debate that that was racism.

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There's no debate that that was even institutional racism and systemic racism. That's very clear.

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We can establish that with way more than two or three witnesses. We can establish that without a question.

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There is clear racism there. And then what they'll say is the church, especially the white church, failed to address it.

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They were complacent in that. And then what they'll do is they'll say, let's not do the same thing today.

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And so they'll transport you from all of that very, very clear evidences of racism, and then they'll transport it to today without, without demonstrating that today that there's very clear systemic racism that's going on.

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And they'll, they'll just want you to assume that and say, well, let's not do what they did before and be complacent about this.

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That's a very common strategy and don't be tricked by it because, because we want to stand with David Platt about saying, yes, the church failed in these areas in the past.

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We want to be clear about that, but we don't want to just fall for that sleight of hand and say, okay, therefore we can't fail in the future, in the, in the, in the, in the present.

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Well, yeah, we don't want to fail in the present. We don't want to be complacent against injustice in the present, but you have to demonstrate the injustice is actually happening.

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It can't be just assume that it is because it was before. Um, this is a very common tactic.

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They do it a lot. Uh, in fact, in the Russell Moore speech at the MLK conference, this is what the whole speech was.

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This, the whole speech was, was talking about past injustice, past racism, past systemic and institutional racism that nobody can deny because the evidence is overwhelming that it happened and it was overwhelming at the time.

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So it was very easy to demonstrate at the time. It's not just in hindsight that we can see this. Um, and then it's almost like he just transports that into today to today.

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And so you almost get this impression like no progress has been made at all. Um, and look,

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I'll stand with you, David Platt. I will stand with you against injustice. If you could demonstrate that it's actually true and it's actually a biblical, biblically defined injustice.

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Um, if you could do that, I would, I would stand with you today. I'll make a video that apologizes for this and it'll probably have much more traction than these videos have.

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Um, because that's what people want these days. Um, so, so yeah, this is a very common tactic for SJWs.

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Don't fall for it. Let's see where he goes with this. Think specifically slavery and civil rights.

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There's no question that why churches as a whole, including many of the pastors and evangelists and theologians that you and I frequently quote, actively commended, promoted and defended slavery.

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Slavery is a stain upon that era of church history. Some might say a scar that is still healing.

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I have not seen this yet and I predicted it. I, in fact, I predicted the very two things that he mentions.

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Obviously, it's very obvious. I'm not that smart. I've just seen this presentation a million times. Not this specific presentation, but this present, this kind of a presentation.

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I've seen it so many times. And by the way, when I say SJW, I'm not saying that David Platt is an SJW necessarily.

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I'm just saying that he's using SJW tactics. He's using SJW talking points, but it's just so funny that that's the exact thing that he's doing currently.

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I predicted it right before he did it. And in the civil rights movement,

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I mentioned Martin Luther King being arrested in Birmingham on Good Friday. We know that as he sat in jail, eight white

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Birmingham pastors criticized him for his methods and called for him to be more patient in promoting civil rights, which prompted him to write that letter from Birmingham jail, a trust we've read, which said, in the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the

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Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sign line and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities in the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice.

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I have heard so many ministers say, those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.

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Lack of civil rights is a stain, a horror upon that era of church history.

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So here we sit 50 or so years later, and I just think we need to at least ask the question, will history see any stain in us?

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That's not the correct question. That's not the correct question to ask. The question to ask is what is something similar to what was going on then going on now?

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And I don't mean it has to be the same exact injustice, but there was clear injustice going on in Jim Crow, in the

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Jim Crow era, there was clear injustice going on in slavery. That's very clear. We can demonstrate it biblically.

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And I know that pastors were there trying to say how the Bible didn't apply, but they were wrong. And we could have demonstrated that exegetically, biblically, the way you demonstrate any kind of sin, right?

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You look to the Bible, you look to the scripture and you, and you exegete it and you apply it to the situation and you see what matches up and what doesn't.

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So the question that you need to be asking is not, well, are people going to look bad on me in the future? I don't care how people look on me in the future, whether they think

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I'm bad or good. That's not what matters to me. What matters to me is what God thinks. That's what matters to me.

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And so the question is, when we look at the scriptures, when we look at biblically defined justice and then we apply it to our situation today, where is it not matching up?

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And where is it matching up? And I'll guarantee you that one way that it's not a problem at all is when you talk about these disparities and how white families earn more than black families, because you know what?

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There's nothing in the Bible that talks about that being an injustice. There could be an injustice behind that, but you need to demonstrate that.

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We cannot just assume it. That's a sin according to the gospel of Karl Marx. That's not a sin according to the

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Bible. And so, no, that's the exact wrong question to ask. What are people going to think of me?

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No, no. The question to ask is, what does the Bible say about this? Is there an unjust situation now that I need to look at?

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And there is one. There is one that's so obvious and huge and everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it.

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And that's the abortion holocaust. That's the sad part about this whole thing. We're all getting distracted by this ethnicity and diversity and quotas and things like that and all this nonsense.

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And meanwhile, there's thousands of kids being slaughtered in the country every single day. And we're having conferences about percentages and disparities.

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That letter from Birmingham Jail ended with these words, there was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early

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Christians rejoiced, when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion.

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It was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before.

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If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century.

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The church will never be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 21st century.

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That will never happen. And unfortunately, Dr. King has a lot of poor theology.

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And that this is definitely one aspect of it. Relevancy is not something that we should be after.

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We'll never be irrelevant because God is in charge of this church. God will build his church. And as Calvinists, I thought we all knew that.

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Obviously, Dr. King was not a Calvinist. But relevancy isn't what we should seek.

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I don't care if I have a seat at the table of, you know, all the highfalutin, you know, the intelligentsia of our time.

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I don't care. Some people might care about that. I don't care. Because I never will. I never will have that seat.

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I never will. Because I'm willing to say that there's an injustice called abortion, and the people that perpetrate that injustice, the doctors and the mothers, should be persecuted as murderers.

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I'm willing to say that because I can demonstrate that biblically. That's not my opinion. That's a biblical thing. This is a matter of biblical justice.

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Okay? I know I will always be considered irrelevant by some people, but the church will never be irrelevant. May that not be said of us in our day.

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May we leverage our justice, our influence for justice in the present. And then final exhortation.

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Let's long for the day when justice will be perfect. Let's long for the day when justice will be perfect.

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So Amos 5, the day of the Lord, and an ultimate and final sense is still to come. And as we think about...

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You know, I was thinking about this one recently. Let's long for the day when justice will be perfect.

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I agree. I long for that day every day of my life. I long for the day that I don't sin anymore. I long for the day that justice is perfect.

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I long for the day when the kingdom of God is completely dominating the world. That's the days

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I long for. But are disparities going to be eliminated in that day?

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Because I know an awful lot of Calvinists and an awful lot of Christians that believe that reward in heaven is not necessarily equal.

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I know a ton of... I don't know if David Platt's one of these guys, but I know a lot of people who believe that. It's a controversial topic, but there are some passages in the

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Bible that make it seem like some people will have a greater reward than others. So almost not even in the eternal state will the disparities be eliminated.

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Karl Marx would hate heaven. He sure would, as would every unbeliever.

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They would hate heaven or the eternal state, the new heavens, the new earth. Something to think about.

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What if the new heavens, the new earth is not exactly proportionally diverse according to these standards?

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How do you know this is the goal? How do you know? Prove it to me biblically. About that day, aren't you thankful that God, by His grace, has made a way for us to be safe from His judgment?

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Yes. Despite all our injustice, despite all our unrighteousness, despite all the things we have thought, desired, said, and done, and all the things we have not thought, desired, said, or done that we should have.

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Praise God that in His justice, He has poured out the just wrath through you and me in our sin upon His Son.

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Jesus the Christ has lived the life we could not live. He has died the death we deserve to die.

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And He has conquered the enemy we could not conquer, death itself. And all who come to Him have their sin completely covered by His blood.

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Oh, such grace compels us to repentance, all the more so this side of the cross.

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May it be said of us that we eagerly anticipated future salvation while acknowledging present sin.

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May it not be said of us that we indulged in worship while ignoring injustice. And may it not be said of us that we carried on our religion while we refused to repent.

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No, when we live and lead and we pray and work for justice to roll and righteousness to reign in our lives and our families and our churches, specifically when it comes to race in our culture, confident that as we do, there is coming a day when

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Amos 5, 24 will be fully realized. Revelation 22 describes the river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the

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Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, the ethnic groups, all the ethnicities of the world.

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No longer will there be anything accursed. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and His servants will worship

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Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more.

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They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever with Him.

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Oh, Martin Luther King had a dream of states sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression transformed into oases of justice and freedom.

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He had a dream of a day when rough places would be made plain, crooked places would be made straight, racism would be forever gone, and freedom would forever ring.

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Yet I think it's clear from all we've seen that that dream is not yet fully realized. There is still work to do in our country and among all the nations for that matter, but there is coming a day when every nation, tribe, and tongue in the human race, every color of person who is trusted in Christ will gather around His throne, forgiven of all our sin and free to worship

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Him in a place of perfect justice and pure righteousness. Let's live and lead for that day.

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Let's pray and work for that day when the glory of God will be fully and finally exalted in the unity of His church.

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That was great. Absolutely great. Now, I know the context is not something that I would agree with the way he's defining justice.

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I would not agree with that, but that was fantastic. Absolutely, man. That's that's that's what the church is all about.

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We're waiting for that day when when perfect justice is here, when when Christ comes back and rules and reigns and all of that kind of stuff.

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And we're all just like longing for that. That's exactly right. That doesn't mean we don't work in the here and now.

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We're co -workers in all of this. And, you know, whenever we see injustice here, we should stand against it.

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We should do something about it. And there are lots of Christians who do. And so that is fantastic.

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We just got to make sure we're on the right team. You know what I mean? We got to make sure we're defining justice the way

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God defines it, the way Amos defined it, the way Christ will define it in the eternal state, because that day when justice is established, it's going to be established according to God's standards, not ours.

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So that was great. And, you know, by far my favorite part, except maybe for the first part of the the sermon or the speech.

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Fantastic. Well said. So. So will you bow your heads with me?

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He's going to pray now, but but yeah, so, you know, obviously, that's this is David Platt's strength.

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You know, he's he's in his element when he is making a gospel presentation like that. And that's that is the gospel.

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Because here's the thing, as wrong as I think David Platt is in this speech and as counterproductive as what

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I what how I felt most of what he said is to the gospel, but also to just, you know, society in general.

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I think that's very counterproductive and wrong and all of these things. But his standing before God is exactly the same as my standing before God, because there are areas in my life where I'm just as wrong as David Platt.

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I don't know what they are, but there have to be some of those. And so I'm very grateful that God has covered all of my sin.

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I'm very grateful that God has covered all of David Platt's sins. That's what gets us all charged up, because it's like, look, man, he's so wrong.

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But but Christ loves that man and Christ is working through that man, despite how wrong he is.

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Christ is accomplishing things through that man. And that's the only hope that I have, that Christ will accomplish things through me in and through me.

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Because the foot of the cross that people always say the ground is level, doesn't matter how wrong you are, doesn't matter how many cultural

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Marxist categories that you use. It doesn't matter how incorrect you are about something that you say, even behind a pulpit.

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God forbid. We're speaking for God and we're saying something wrong and Christ somehow forgives us about that's amazing.

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That's amazing. And so, yeah, well said. Anyway, I'm glad this is over, sort of, because I want to go back to agreeing with David Platt on things.

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So I hope this was helpful. I hope it was in a God honoring type of way.

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I do think David Platt is very wrong, but I don't think he is not on our side. He is a believer, in my opinion.

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He is on the side of the angels. And I believe that Christ is working powerfully through him. I just think that, you know, it might not be in the way he thinks he is in this particular area.