David Platt, Dr. Moore - Let Whose Justice Roll Down Like Waters?

Despite sort of the tone of some of these videos, I know that you know a lot of my videos seem very negative and they seem very worried about this social justice movement that is infecting the church and it is a serious issue.

I think it's a real problem and I think it'll cause in the very short term it'll cause some real harm to the church. That being said,

I have a lot of confidence about this and not just because I'm an optimist and not just because of my eschatology, which is very optimistic, but also because I really do believe that the people that have fallen into this social justice, you know, movement and this social justice hysteria,

I believe they're honest brothers. I believe that they're in Christ. I believe that Christ has covered their sins, even the sins of this very divisive type of movement.

And so I think God is refining his church, but not in the way where where false converts are being, you know, you know, marked out.

I don't think it's like that, although I'm sure that is happening as well, but I think more in the sense of teaching the church.

I think that some of these brothers are very confused when it comes to the ideas of justice and righteousness, and so I want to demonstrate that using the passage that from the scripture that David Platt used in his

T4G conference speech about racism. And if you remember, he used the the passage from Amos chapter 5, and I'll switch to it right now.

And here's what, here's the section I want to focus on here. It says here in Amos chapter 5, I hate,

I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs, to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But here's the, here's the key.

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever -flowing stream.

That's a great passage. I love that verse. It is a fantastic verse, and you know, people have used that verse to kind of bolster this social justice movement, and I think that unfortunately that they're using this verse in a kind of a, let's just, let's just be honest, a twisted sort of way, an eisegetical kind of way.

Because Amos was talking about something very specific when he used this verse, and this is a great verse, and it definitely applies to today, but we have to be careful how to define justice and how to define righteousness.

I use those words very kind of similarly, but when Amos was saying, let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever -flowing stream, he had something very specific in mind.

And we need to make sure that we're not using sort of an eisegetical definition of these words, and all you have to do to know what

Amos was talking about is go back into the scriptures, because Amos, like any book,

Amos is a connected book. You know, the ideas from the beginning are kind of further unraveled at the end of the book.

Any good writer is going to do that. And so let's go to Amos chapter 2 here, and we'll see what he's talking about.

It's very easy to see. So here's what the judgment on Judah is. Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Judah, and for four

I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.

Here it is, right here. They have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes.

So when Amos is saying, let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever -flowing stream, justice and righteousness, he's defining that according to the law of God.

Okay? He's defining that according to the law of God. And it's very clear here that he's talking about a specific part of this law, because in the chapter 5, he's saying, look, they're bringing the burnt offerings.

They're bringing the grain offerings. They're doing the peace offerings. So the ceremonial part of this law, it seems like they're doing at least most of it, or at least some of it,

I'll say. So he's talking about the moral law. He's talking about defrauding. He's talking about, you shall not steal.

He's talking about, you shall not commit adultery. He's talking about those kinds of things. Okay? So the moral law of God, we are not—the people of Israel are not doing it, and therefore

God hates their offerings. See, that's very specific. That's defined by the law of God.

Justice and righteousness, according to this passage in Amos, is defined by the law of God.

It's not defined by these other things. And so when we talk about income inequalities, you can search the scriptures about income inequalities, and you will never find it defined as a crime or a sin.

Now, what you will find is stealing, you know, defrauding your workers.

So saying, hey, go into my field, and I'll pay you a certain amount. And then when they go and work into your field, you don't pay them that amount.

That is a sin. That is a crime. And the Bible completely rejects that. And that says that's—that's fraud.

That's stealing. That breaks that commandment. Thou shall not steal. You shall not do that. So you see, you know, we got to make sure we're defining these terms biblically.

I've said this in many videos, but I want to show you why I see sort of this confusion among this movement.

Here's an article by Russell Moore. Russell Moore's article is called

Why Theocracy is Terrible. I've reviewed this in another video, and I've responded to it.

I'll put the link to that in the description if you want to see what this article is all about. But why theocracy is terrible, that's weird.

That's weird. You know what I mean? Because Amos was promoting an inner theocracy.

And he—when he said, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever -flowing stream, he was talking about theocracy.

So obviously, theocracy in every instance is not terrible. Now you might say, Adam, well, he's not—he might have qualified that in that article.

He doesn't. He just says all theocracy is terrible. I would say that the confusion that we see in this movement is that there is no solid definition of justice.

There is no solid definition of righteousness according to the society and civil realm.

And so everything is up for grabs. We have a couple of options. We can go, you know, according to this movement, we can go, well, we can define social justice and righteousness according to the left's standards or the right's standard.

And I'm saying, no, we don't do that either way. What we define it as according to the biblical standard.

That's how you define social justice and civil justice. And that is in the law of God. Now, many Christians have rejected the law of God for civil society out of hand.

And so it's not surprising to me that they're being confused by this movement because they have no standard in the civil realm.

They have no standard in the civil realm. Because, and the reason I know this is because Russell Moore says theocracy is terrible.

Lots of the brothers that I know that are in this movement also would likewise say theocracy and theonomy is terrible.

Well, if God's law is terrible in the civil realm, then what are you advocating for?

That's a serious question. When you're talking about social justice, whose law are you advocating for? I'd like to know if theocracy is terrible, if theonomy is rejected out of hand.

More on that to come, because that is a very serious charge that I'm making. And unfortunately,

I think it's a very real charge. If you're not advocating for God's law in social justice, whose law are you advocating for?