Panel Discussion, Continued...

The Third Panel Discussion on Woke Ideology and the Gospel

Good evening. Thank you for joining us on Truth and Love. This is the third Truth and Love panel discussion. This will also be our third installment dealing with the woke, CRT, BLM, cancel culture, intersectionality, et cetera movements.

These are ideologies that are in opposition to Christianity and the Bible. However, they are being pushed heavily on us in society and in our schools. We cannot sit on the sidelines and not defend the gospel.

Those seeking to install these ideologies as permanent fixtures in our society are very smart. Most strategic change begins with our children. Again, we cannot sit idly by while our children are indoctrinated.

We are citizens of Christ's kingdom. We must honor Christ as king, proclaim his gospel, make disciples, and teach them to observe all that he has commanded, from our children to all the nations. This will pass like any other false doctrine.

Yet, as we live here now, it is our turn to defend and proclaim the gospel. And that's kind of how I see it. Thank you for watching. If we can pray for you, let us know that we can do that. We'd love to be able to do that.

All you have to do is type me. If you have any questions, we'd love to try to address your questions. A Bible question, a question about the topic that we're talking about tonight. This is our third panel discussion.

I'm the moderator, and I have a panel of one tonight. And so we're gonna do our very best. Some of the questions come from other panel members. I'm gonna try to interpret their questions to the best of my ability, and we're going to address them to the best of our ability.

And we seek to glorify God and honor Christ in what we do, and we wanna be biblical in doing it. So I'm with Jesse tonight. Jesse, thank you so much for coming back on and joining me and helping me understand this issue from the best of your ability.

I really appreciate you. You wanna introduce yourself again to everybody?

Yes, my name's Jesse Bland, and I'm just here to talk with Rob about these issues that I think that are pressing and extremely important, especially within the church.

Reparations, Restitution, and Romans 9

Yeah. Let's go ahead and tackle these questions, and we'll see if we can have just a brief discussion tonight. One of our panel members before Jonathan, he gave an example of one of his family members who fought in World War II.

He was a World War II vet, and he was looking to, him and his family are looking to receive a pretty large inheritance, from my understanding. Because of what his ancestor as a white World War II vet received, therefore his ancestors are gonna receive the benefits of what he as a white soldier in World War II received.

But the black veterans from that era, he said, didn't receive what the white vets received. And from his perspective, the benefits that they did receive kind of helped promote and lead to the certain areas of town that are poor and kind of enabled the poor society, a poor side of town.

Basically, what he was saying, there was just an injustice there. There was an inequality in what the white World War II vets received and the black World War II vets received. So that stemmed from the reparations issue.

And he was really encouraged by our discussion that we had after the video, during our first panel discussion, he was really encouraged by how you responded to the reparations question. And he wanted you to respond again, I guess, on the video publicly because he was encouraged and he wanted to learn more about your point of view from the reparations question.

So there was his example of the World War II vets, white versus black. And it seems like his family is gonna receive a greater benefit because of what the white vet received versus the black vets. And is reparations involved in that?

How do you view reparations? Yeah, go ahead and give us what your thoughts are. As far as reparations,.

I don't know if I said this on the last video or not, but after the talk, but I am not for reparations and here's why. My thoughts are is that it would be extremely difficult, especially the way that we're talking about giving money out to people, a group of people who have sinned against another group of people.

And here's why, I don't know, how do we divvy that up? How do we decide who in fact gets the reparations and who doesn't? Do we just all give it to all black people or do we just go back in history to decide who in fact was wrong and who wasn't?

I think the best form of reparation would not be for you to cut me a check. Let's use the stimulus checks as example. I've been saying this for a long time. I think the best thing that Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whoever was in office at the time could do is get their hands out of my pockets.

And I'm taking that from when Malcolm X at the end of the movie, he said that, get your hands out of my pockets. The best thing the government can do is to do their part and to remove themselves out of the situation.

We don't need more government interference because ultimately what reparations are is saying that because I was sinned against, my God is going to restore what was in fact a sin against me. And what do I mean by my God?

I mean the federal government. And I know we don't necessarily look at the federal government like that, but instead of going before the face of God and in fact going in his word and seeing what his word says about this, ultimately what we wanna do is make a bigger problem out of a problem that was existing.

Now I do acknowledge that those things could have been done. I believe that Jonathan was telling the truth, but we can make that problem way worse by continuing to giving handouts to those who don't necessarily need it.

And I don't want you to give me anything because of the color of my skin. The best thing you could do for me is to allow me to flourish allow me to be in a free market economy to where I can succeed on my own.

And that includes minimum wage, that includes a whole host of things. I don't need you to pay me 15, $16 an hour because you feel like that would make you feel better. I need you to move out of the way and let's see what God's word says about this.

But the moment you begin to say that, then that means that we have to pivot from the God who is the government to the God of scripture. And that's when it becomes problematic. So I'm not for reparations, I'm for restitution.

So if the scriptures, if I have sinned against you, Rob, if you and I have a problem, then if I've stolen something from you, what do the scriptures say about that? Well, I need to pay you back 20%, 30%, whatever the percentage may be, but I don't need you to repent for the sin of your grandfather because of what he did to my grandfather.

Those two things don't coexist. They don't go hand in hand, if that makes sense. Absolutely. And since you mentioned going to the scripture,.

That's what I would like to do and get your thoughts on some scripture. I was looking at Romans 9, verses 14 through 23, and I'll read it real quick. Maybe share some of my thoughts and you can tell me if you think I'm on track, you can give me your thoughts.

But Romans 9, starting in verse 14, it says, what shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it does not depend on man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will? On the contrary, who are you, old man, who answers back to God?

The thing molded will not say to the molder, what did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor, for honorable use and another for common use?

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so in order that he might make known the riches of his glory upon a vessel of mercy, which he prepared before him for glory.

Even us, whom he also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles. Now, before I move forward and maybe sound harsh to some people, this was Jesus' lot. This was God's plan for Christ.

Christ was used as one of these vessels who God poured out his wrath on for our sake, for God's glory, but for our benefit and our sake. So Christ was made this vessel here on this earth as part of God's plan and endured hardship, even death on the cross for the forgiveness of sin.

And maybe you can see where I'm going when I looked at the scripture and read it earlier. You have Pharaoh and you have those whom he enslaved, which was the Israelites. And then God's or Paul's understanding here or his writing here is telling us that this was God's sovereignty at work.

This was God's plan at work. And God didn't seek or have Israel to seek reparation but to trust in his sovereignty, that he was working out something. He was working out his gospel plan. And so I was thinking of this through my mind and how harsh this sounds, because in my shoes, I've not lived in those harsh circumstances.

So like those, I don't know your history, but maybe some of your ancestral background who lived in slavery or the Israelites who lived in slavery or who went through the Holocaust. I've not lived in those shoes.

I don't know that experience, but yet I know the Bible teaches me of the sovereignty of God and we all have family members who have had cancer, who have lost young people. We've all had different types of suffering in our life and each type of suffering brings up that question, why God am I going through this circumstance?

So every difficult circumstance points us back to scripture and the sovereignty of God. So how did you view this scripture? Am I going in the right direction? How do you feel about that?

God's Sovereignty, Joseph, and Biblical Justice

Yeah, I mean, ultimately within our context, I know that is the Calvinist dream there for Romans nine, but you saw in Jacob and Jacob, I am not chosen in who can argue with God, not me. So, but that is still applicable to every area of life.

And so, like we were saying before we came on, that applies to what happened with my ancestors and what happened with your ancestors. That has, God is sovereign over all of those events. And we cannot just act as if, as my brothers from the Just Thinking podcast said, that the white man is sovereign over all of these events, because that's not true.

We're giving him, we're giving white people, we're giving black people too much credit. We've got to look at these good and perfect gifts ultimately come from the Lord. Iniquity comes from us, but those things we see God's hand weaving in and out of all of those circumstances.

Just like when we see in scripture with Joseph, Joseph says to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. We know that God is sovereign. It is not us who is sovereign over all these things.

It is God. And so when we attack these issues, we need to do it from a biblical perspective. And that's what CRT robs us of. It is grounded and rooted in evolution. And that would make sense for those who believe in that, right?

But that should not be the song of the church. The song of the church should be the scriptures. If we, since we believe the word of God, we go therefore, those two go hand in hand, but we shouldn't be borrowing, or as our brothers say, we use as an analytical tool.

We shouldn't use those as analytical tools that are not biblical. We have the sufficient scriptures. And so, yes, God is sovereign over everything. And so since he's sovereign, our responsibility is to look to his word.

And as Christians, we know where to find it. And we don't apologize for any of it. Same thing goes true with history. We look at history and we see that yes, man is responsible, but God is ultimately sovereign for all of those things.

And I know that that sounds harsh, but where do I lean? If I have a situation like this, if I look back because of slavery, because of how we ended slavery, if I look back and say it was the white man, then ultimately what I'm doing is putting him on the pedestal and not the sovereign God.

And what is he, what is that man going to do to rectify the situation? He's gonna make a bigger mess of it, but the scriptures are gonna bring forth clarity and that's what we need to be looking towards.

Yeah.

And to me, that kind of leads us to one more passage from Romans. And I really think that you hit it on it a lot. Romans 12, 19. And the response that Paul has us, or would have us to give in situations like that, he says, never take your own revenge or never avenge yourself, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay.

So. Right. Yes. That seems to be what our response should be. Yes. Yep.

That's exactly what our response should be. Yeah. And our response should be to love our neighbors. I believe it's in Romans 12. They only have my Bible right in front of me, but he says, I believe in that same passage, that in doing so, you are heaping burning coals on their head.

That does not negate that we seek justice. Right? That does not, we don't have one or the other. Right? You and I believe, Rob, that the Messiah came to bring forth justice to the nations. But how do we do that on a biblical level?

That should be the question that we ask. What is the role of the government in that instance? What's the responsibility there? But on an individual level, I should be able to come to you, or you should be able to come to me in love and say, okay, if I have sinned against you, here's my response.

And if I've sinned against you, this is what I should do as a result of my sin. I should repent and your responsibility is to forgive me. So how is it that within the church, if we have these simple elementary doctrines, how is it that we are holding fast to, I am still wronged by a set of people, or a certain group of people, when in all reality, we need to give that over to the Lord.

And if there is, if there needs to be discipline, we need to handle it biblically and not with anything outside of the word of God. That's right.

And I really appreciate the passage that you shared. We're not to heap steaming coals of fire at each other, burning down each other physically, but we are to heap on each other kindness, which will be like a burning coal on them.

That should be our heart toward one another, is heaping on one another kindness. And that be our horse that pulls our cart. Right. We're taking us in the right direction. And you're leading us into the next question, talking about justice.

What is biblical justice? We get that word confused, of course, all these other words, the world tries to take it, steal it, twist it, make it its own. But what does the Bible say justice is? Tell me, share with me your thoughts on justice.

Biblical Justice, Government, and the Role of the Church

Well, the Bible gives us what we see in our nation. We see a case law in our nation that comes straight from scripture. So when we look at justice, we have to do it on an individual level, right? And that's another reason why I can't look at reparations and say, because I'm black, I deserve a check or because I'm black, I need A, B, and C because white people from however many 400 years ago suppressed my people who were around 400 years ago.

So I need to look at it on an individual level and say, okay, is this in fact justice? Because we believe as I hinted at a minute ago, as the scriptures tell us in Isaiah one and two, Isaiah 42, we believe that Christ the Messiah came to bring forth justice to the nations.

Well, how does he do that? He does that by first and foremost, the proclamation of the gospel, right? But he also does that by making disciples of those nations. And when we have nations that are discipled, there has to be a law in which they are discipled into.

So if they are discipled into a nation and we believe that he will have the nations, but if they are discipled into a nation, then the law that which they derive the justice comes from the word of God.

And so we have to look by on an individual basis what the scripture says about law. We can't just hunker down on all black people are always right because that's not justice. The Bible tells us that if we have something that may be wrong, that we have to bring two or three individual lines of witnesses.

That means that requires work, not even just one eyewitness, two or three individual witnesses. So in order to bring that charge to the courts, that's what the scriptures require. That's much harsher punishment than what we have and what we see today.

And immediately what we do is when there is a case that is drawn, let's say there's a white cop and a black man that has been killed, we immediately take the side in our culture because we'd be conditioned that the black man was automatically right.

Instead of looking at the case from a biblical perspective and saying, okay, well, maybe the black man wasn't right. And what we do as conservatives is say, well, automatically the cop was right. And we can't do that either.

We have to be able to look, okay, at this individual case, what happened? What took place? And how can I, with the scriptures, look at this and say, okay, well, this was right or this was wrong. But I believe that's what biblical justice is.

It's case law. It's not necessarily the whole group of people that I can just put on trial at once.

And we definitely need to pray for it. As you were talking about that analogy, which was a real, real analogy, and it's happening and it's happened. We've watched it on TV. As I listened to you describe that, I was just thinking about how we need to be praying for even more our leaders who are involved in those situations, lawyers, judges, senators, governors, presidents, because if they are to stand up for justice, if they are to do it right, there's repercussions.

You're not gonna make both sides happy. And then people get death threats for less than that. I would hate to know how many death threats people get if they were to stand on truth in those circumstances because they wanted to just follow the right path, much less say, I'm trying to follow the word of God, just following the right path.

They would get death threats. They would have their home burned down. There's political repercussions. And so these people need our prayer, not just that they would follow God's word, follow the right path, but they would be brave to do that and that they would be protected in doing that because we won't honor God in biblical justice like you were talking about.

It's so scary. A couple of things that I jotted down when I was looking at justice, because I know you have a both and in scripture. I see on one hand where you look at government and you look at Romans 13.

Boy, we're standing in Romans today. Romans 13, one through four, he tells us, verse four, for it is a minister of God to you for good, talking about the government, but if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a minister of God and avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.

So it seems like a role or one of the main roles of the government is to protect, reward the righteous and punish the evildoer. And that seems to be a heavy part of one side of this dialogue is that justice is taking care of what's right and what's wrong morally or in the justice system, that side of things.

But the Bible does speak to taking care of people and that being a form of justice. And I looked at James chapter one, verse 27, and it says, pure religion is this, that we visit the orphans and the widows and abstain from or be unstained from the world.

And when I read that, I was like, we wanna protect the orphans, the fatherless, a lot of times scripture calls it the fatherless, we wanna protect them from oppression and we wanna protect the widows from oppression of the world.

But then what does it mean when it says be unstained from the world? Well, that's oppression on ourselves that we wanna protect ourselves from so that we're not stained by this world. So that means that verse is just full of oppression that we want to seek justice in those situations.

So biblically, do you see those things in that way?

Yeah, I would say yes and amen. And my mind immediately goes to Gary DeMar when he talks about the different spheres of government that God has set up. And what you were just describing in the book of James is it would be applicable to the church, right?

And even in a more intimate setting, if I know if my mother is a widow or your mother is a widow, it is your responsibility to take care of your mother first according to the scriptures. But if you're not in the picture and there's someone else that's not in the picture who can do that in your family, then she should be, if she is a believer, be able to go to the church.

And what we have done is we've mixed those two with Romans 13. When Romans 13, we talk about, well, this is the job of the government to bring forth justice to the criminal. As I was touching on with the black man or the white cop or however the case may be, that has everything to do with the government dealing with those people justly.

But what we've done is mix those things and said that this is the responsibility of the government. And that goes back to my previous point. And that's because we have confused and thought that, in fact, that God is the God of our system today, whether you be on the left or the right is the government.

The United States government is in fact God. And it does not matter who you are. We do not really want Jesus Christ to be God because the moment we enter into that conversation, that's when things begin to flip because we begin to really see that the God that we want is not the God of scripture.

So it's very important that, yes, we bring forth justice to the widow, to the orphan, and also to the one who is a criminal, but we also have to keep those lines from being muddy. We have to be able to see that the scriptures teach us that there is self-government, there is family government, there's church government, and there's federal government.

And it's in that order. And so, yes, I'd say yes and amen to both of those things. But we also have to make sure that we're able to keep those things clear and think in those different categories because it's extremely important.

And I think that's where the argument breaks down at when it comes to the left and the right. And then you and I would say, no, we don't really want either one of you guys to represent us, we want Christ to represent us.

That's right, that's right.

I'm kicking myself because I didn't write the reference. I know it's in Deuteronomy, but I didn't write down the reference. But you tell me if you think I'm on the right track pulling an application out of this verse.

It's a verse talking about justice, but it speaks to, I think, what you were talking about. It says, cursed be anyone who perverts justice. Give justice to the third gender, the fatherless, and the widow.

But it says, cursed be anyone who perverts justice. And do you think, and I'm not studying it, I'm just curious if I'm pulling something out of it that's not there. But what you're speaking to is making sure we don't muddy those lines, blur those lines, and keep the roles where they were intended to be as separated.

And so if we give the role of the church or the role of the family to the government, are we perverting justice? Is that what Deuteronomy is talking about?

I don't know specifically the verse if that's what it's saying, but you definitely can make that application because if the church, if my pastor comes in here and tells me that my house rules, I'm not talking about if I'm sinning, but if he tells me that it's wrong for me to tell my kids not to jump on the couch and I'm in sin and he's gonna practice church discipline, and I can tell him, hold, wait, wait a minute.

That's not biblical, right? But the same thing rings true for the government. That was the whole problem that we had with COVID -19. The government decided that they, and they showed us the true colors.

They really believed, and we believe them as well. They believed that they were God, and we said, oh yeah, you are, so we should shut down the church. Yeah, God understands that there are roles that he has given, and our responsibility, if we want, if the church wants to see real change, then we should really focus on, okay, what is my responsibility?

What is my sphere of influence that I can affect right now today? And that's me, that's me as an individual. I can repent and believe the gospel, right? But I can really believe the gospel, not just that Jesus died and rose from the dead, and those things are essential, but that he is king, that he is our sacrifice, yes and amen, but he is king over every area of our life, and so when we start to think like that, it transforms everything, and we begin to see that, okay, well, if he's king here, then how am I supposed to act with the way that I love my wife?

But not only how am I supposed to act with the way that I love my wife and my children, but how am I supposed to act within the sphere of the church because these are two different things, and then how am I supposed to act when I am on my job?

And then how am I supposed to act in the way that I conduct my vote? You see, we can't muddy Jesus's kingship in those areas, and when we begin to think clearly in that regard, I believe that we'll begin to think clearly in all these other areas.

So I think you're spot on, Rob, that yes, that that verse may not be talking about that specifically, but I think that we are, we have muddied those waters. We've looked at it and said, well, this is the job of the government.

Therefore, I don't need to get involved here. This is the job of the government to protect the widows. That's what we have welfare for, right? No, that's not what we need welfare for. We don't need welfare at all.

What we need is the church to do its responsibility, and ultimately, when you look back at it, you look back and you say, well, I really need fathers to be fathers. I need fathers to love their wives like Christ loved the church.

I need fathers to love their children, and then if that's the case, if we look at the welfare numbers, we realize that, oh, then I really don't need this money if I have a man doing what the word of God says.

It kind of does away with all of this, but that's what it ultimately goes back to. I think you're spot on with that, Rob.

Practical Christian Engagement in Home, Church, and Politics

Now is where I think we need to move in a practical direction. That's where the questions lead us, and I think it's a good time for that because I want to know what I need to do. I want to share what I believe the Bible has us to do practically.

As you've touched on already, starting in our home, locally, in our local government, in our state, nationally, what does it look like for me, and we want to look at both sides of this. We believe that these ideologies are false.

They're in opposition to Christ. They're in opposition to the Bible, so we practically, how can I defend against these ideologies at home and locally, nationally? But then on the flip side, these ideologies do touch on things that are bad.

Racism is bad, hate is bad, it's evil. Those things that it wants to, some of those things that it wants to bring out are evil, and the Bible does speak to those things. So on the positive side of it, practically, what can I do at home and locally and nationally on a positive note, according to scripture, to defend or fight for those things?

So when you talk about justice and racism at home, first of all, what is racism, right? I mean, I know that sounds like a silly question to me and you, because you look at it and say, oh, I'm racist if I don't like white people, or I'm racist if I don't like black people, but is racism as we have defined it historically, or is it racism because of automatically you have got an upper hand because of your power structure?

You are automatically given an advantage because you're a white male, you automatically have white privilege. That's not what we talk about when we say racism. When we say racism, I don't want you to have to repent for something that's not real.

It's not a good idea to try to change things by telling a lie. Matter of fact, it's a lie and God will not honor it. So we shouldn't look at an idea and say, okay, I need to repent for my white privilege, which is not racism, it's a lie, right?

And so what we need to do is define, okay, well, racism is if I have hate for someone who has more melanin in their skin or less, because black people, contrary to popular belief, can be racist, I know them, then those things need to be repented of.

That's racism. So if you see that, then you need to immediately say, Lord, forgive me. And you need to be honest about that. You need to tell people that there was, we're not saying at all that there was not real racism here.

Jim Crow was real, right? Slavery was real. Those things really did happen, but we can't automatically put everybody in the same category and say that all the people who looked at racism and were white, all the people who were white were automatically racist.

We can't do that. So that's, I believe that's number one. What is racism and identify it. And if you have it, number two, repent of it. But the most important thing that you can do in your home is I believe what you're doing is teaching and proclaiming the word of God to your wife, to your children.

Those things are extremely important. And looking at it from a perspective of Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6, when these issues come up, they should be constantly in our mouth because they're everywhere.

I mean, you started the monologue by saying that it's in the public schools. It is all over the place because this is in fact our new place of worship. And this is the place that we all go and we say, okay, we can say yes and amen to white privilege.

We can say yes and amen to the oppression of the black man for the last 400 plus years. We can say yes and amen to all these things. It's you and I who look at these things and say, no, we cannot say yes and amen to these.

We cannot say yes and amen to that. We can say yes and amen when those things that are true racism need to be repented of. And so I think we need to define our terms because a lot of people just automatically assume when I say racism, we're saying the right thing and then continue to be faithful.

Look, God is not going to, our God is patient, right? I mean, Christ died 2000 years ago and I don't know how many years it took to overthrow the Roman empire, but it did not happen in one day. And so for Christ, as we believe to have the nations, we have got to be faithful in the small things.

And if in doing so, that will be blessed. And I know that sounds silly, but it's the truth. I hear it all the time. This has no future. I don't know if it was, I believe it was Doug Wilson that said, stupid does not last.

It can't, because what is it gonna do? If you're killing your babies, if you are marrying the same sex, what does that eventually do? It runs out. And what is going to be there to pick up the tattered pieces?

It's gonna be the church. Right. You can't replicate something that's not there, right? If you have same sex marriage, and I know this is supposed to be gay pride month, if you have same sex marriage and you have abortion, those two don't go hand in hand.

So who will be left? It will be the faithful. And what kind of kingdom are we, what kind of nation are we going to build for our children? And that's where we have to start. It starts with us.

So should we be involved? We wanna start at home. We wanna teach our children. We wanna teach our wives. But like I always said at the beginning, we don't wanna sit on the sidelines. Right. We want to be involved.

And I believe that it's okay that we teach our children to, that it's okay to be involved in politics. Oh, absolutely. That it's okay to seek that as a career, but so that you can love your neighbor by changing laws, honor God by changing laws, love your neighbor by changing laws.

Small things, find small things that you can do locally that could eventually, and I think you were hinting at this, God being patient, us having a long view of the future, a long-term plan so that, you know, God, we do small things and we build on the small things.