Marx, SJWs and the Gospel

our sermon today as you see is entitledKL marks social justice and the gospeland so I stand here with a certainamount of trepidation for what I'm abouttosay uh so i' invite you to Bow yourheads with me we ask for the Holy Spiritto speak to usnow heavenly father I thank you that youinvited us to reasontogether and father we come into yourpresencetoday not because we're better thananybody else but we are sinners in needof asavior and father let may we neverforget that all in thisworld that you died for each one of themthat your Saving Grace is to extend toall who turn to you in faith andrepentance and so we come before youtoday Father as Sinners who are saved bygrace and I pray Lord that the graceyou've extended us will flow through usto the worldaround please father speak through methis morning may your angels guard thisplace may all that is said and donebring glory to you and may your spiritspeak to each of our hearts in the nameof Jesus I prayamen I've noticed as I've gotolder it's awful to be able to saysomething like that but I've noticed asI've got older that languagechanges and that people use language innew ways um raising teenagers I'veleared that there is a whole new way ofspeaking among teenagers any of you haveteenagers you know thisphenomenon uh my little girl says that'slegit and I have to figure out what doeslegit mean and um in what sense is usingthe word legit or if something is wickedin what sense is something wicked um isit the traditional understanding ofwicked or is W does Wicked meanssomething is really good and and totes Ihad never heard of totes before into mylittle girl started saying totes dadtotes I was wondering what does totesmean and so forth uh there's a wholelanguage that uh every generation uh wewe adapt and we mold the Englishlanguage and in every society this istrue but there is also a language thatwe are learning and it's coming acrossthe airwaves we read it in the media wehear it in the rad radios and the TVsand we hear it on YouTube clips uh thisis these are some of the words of thisnew language uh it's a whole newvocabulary sjws does anybody know whatthat meanssocial justice Warriors yessnowflakes deepplatforming safe spaces trigger warningspatriarchy privilege white supremacyWhite Privilege white fragilityintersectionality identity politicsconscious bias implicit biassubconscious bias unconscious biassystemic racism offended triggeredgender studies woke and it gets a bitmore complicated critical race Theoryfourth wve feminism the Frankfurt Schoolstandpoint epistemology emancipatorypolitics and this is my favoriteprivilege preserving epistemic pushback so where did this comefrom when we hear that uh people talkingabout social justice where is thiscoming from why is this Arisen in aboutthe last 20 years in Western Societyis social justice as presented on thestreets and we hear in the in the commonpopular media is it consistent withscripture what does the Bible say aboutJustice the difference between biblicalJustice and social justice and how do werespond to the challenges in the worldaround us because God is a God ofJustice as we saw in our scripturereading and God is concerned withJustice and God is concerned withInjustice so we're going to start out bylooking at some of the history of thisand we might say that KL Marx started atall uh otherwise known as a dead whiteEuropean male in some circles but hisinfluence lives on today he was a GermanEconomist a political theorist and asocial revolutionary his best knowntitles are from 1848 a book called TheCommunist Manifesto and in a threevolume work called as capital and helived for many years in London and he'sburied in London to this day withapparently no hope of the Resurrectionnow KL Marx's theories are known asMarxism they collectively known asMarxism they hold that human societiesdevelop through what is known as classstruggle he argued that there isinevitably a conflict between the rulingeconomic class whom he called theBourgeois that control the means ofproduction such as the owners of afactory and the working classes whom hecalls the proletariat that enables uhthose means uh by selling their labor inreturn for wages Marx argued that thereis a continual struggle between theBourgeois and the proletariat he saw theworld in terms of economic differencesand economic differentiation he arguedthat the working class would shouldcarry out organized revolutionary actionto topple capitalism and bring aboutsocioeconomic emancipation in which thegovernment would control all theresources of production and it wouldcontrol all the means of production andit control the distribution of therewards and the products of those meansof production in theory to ensureequality now my wife is from the Sovietformer Soviet Union I spent many yearsmy life working in the former SovietUnion when it collapsed and uh there isthere is some truth that there there wassome social equality if you uh if youwere not a member of the Communist Partyum you could all serve 10 years inprison for No Charge um being an enemyof the state there's a very famous moviein the former Soviet Union of um a manwho gets um inebriated on New Year's Eveand his friends instead of taking him tohis apartment in St Petersburg put himon a train to Moscow and he gets out ofthe rain Station train train station inMoscow and everything looks the same inSt Petersburg and he goes down the sameProspect and he finds the same trolleybus in his NE reated State and he goesto the same apartment block and it justlooks the same as in St Petersburg andhe goes up to the same floor and there'sthe same door with the same color andthe same scratches and he puts the keyin and it's the same key and he walksinto the same looking apartment with thesame furniture with the same food on theshelves and then the real owner comeshome and they fall in love and getmarried that's the story but the pointof the movie is is that everything isliterally the samevery famous Russianmovie well what happened after Marx'stheories came out well the RussianRevolution came about in 1917 led byVladimir ulanov otherwise known as Leninto history the Man of Steel he led theparty known as the balik there were manyparties the Bolsheviks the menik and soforth and he helped to establish whatwas known as the USSR the union ofsocialist Soviet republics and those arethe Unholy Trio that started it StalinLenin and trosky lennin died firsttrosky died shortly thereafter um he hadan encounter with an axe down in Cubaand Stalin was the guy that outlived allof them Stalin replaced Lenin as thehead of the formerUSSR and he ruled there's his life andhe ruled up until 1953 the Russians havea grim joke about Joseph salum they saywho was Adolf Hitler they say he was aminor dictator in the time of JosephStalin Adolf Hitler though he was evilpales into insignificance compared withthe crimes against humanity the sheerBloodshed caused by Joseph Stalin whoinitiated what Russians refer to as theterror of the 1930s and people were uhreally literally in Terror of what thisguy would do during the reign of theformer Soviet Union um approximately 110million peopledied from 1917 up until 1990 around theworld mark theory was responsible forMass deportations concentration campsre-education camps labor camps TheKilling Fields of Cambodia Paul pot andthe Rouge the cultural revolution ofMount seong in China internalrepressions and man-made famines eventhough Adolf Hitler killed his millionsJoseph Stalin killed his tens ofmillions all in the name of imposingMarxism uh upon the world um even in theUkraine we wonder why there is so muchtrouble with Russia and these days wellin 1930s Stalin wanted to eliminate thethe the uh the small scale Farmers hewanted to collectivize all theagriculture so he sent in the Red Armyin the nkvd the four rers of the KGB andThey confiscated all the seed the resultwas between four and 6 million peopledied of starvation in the next 2 yearsand if you wonder why there is frictionbetween Russia and Ukraine it goes backto Theodore as the as the ukrainianscall it it was a man-made genocideliterally starved 4 to six Mill millionpeople to death Marxism historically isresponsible for more deaths than anyother ideology in humanhistory and it's not popular to say thatthese days but it is thetruth now according to conetti they gotsome various pictures there in 1973 abook was published called the gulagarchipelago the gulag is a Russianacronym stands for glavni upra lageri itmeans the general directorate of campsand an archipelago is a series ofislands and what Al s niton was arguingwas that all across Russia there wasthere were so many camps it was like aseries of islands across the sea of theSoviet Union and there were hundreds ofcamps all across the Soviet Union whenyou were given a 10year sentence at theend of the 10 years you were just givenanother 10-year sentence and if you werelucky you were LED out but you couldnever go back to your home you had tostay within a certain parameter of thatcamp for the rest of your life and so itwas a life sentence even if you hadcommitted no crime you simply wereguilty of maybe being a pastor or apriest or a Christian or something likethat and uh Joseph Stalin and theCommunists tried to eliminate theChristian presence because Marx wantedto eliminate Christianity per se butwhen this book was published1973 we may trace the beginnings ofmodern day identity politics and socialjustice Warriors to the publication ofthis book philosophically in the westthe ideological challenge of socialismstarted to fade in 1973 when this bookwas published because it revealed to theworld exactly what was happening withinthe Soviet Union this presented achallenge for those who bought into thetheories of KL Marx how could they carryon the fight for social Revolution whenits major ideological alternative thatis communism was no longer viable afterthe publication of this book and theleft found its answer in an identitystruggle between it was the the conflictbetween bourgeois and proletariat wasreformulated into an ethn racialstruggle a ceaseless competition betweencolonizer and colonized in the 60sand70s victimizer and victim and now tothe oppressor and the oppressed and thisled to what uh sociologists callcritical theory critical theory is thephilosophy behind social justiceWarriors today and it un it understandsall social relationships through theprism of power and the exercise of powerso this critical theorythat we talk about today it's Marxistphilosophy as you know Marxism has noplace for Christianity or any anyreligion it's a deconstructionistphilosophical approach that seeks toatomize society and it understands allof our relationships through the prismof power and therefore it must dividethe world into the oppressed and intothe the oppressed and the oppressorssignificant areas of study include areasrelating to gender race and sexualityand critical theory um writers theyargue that the oppressors they oppressthe oppressed um they achieve theirhegemonic power through an appeal tologic or reason or history or academicqualifications or academic achievementin order to justify their dominant roleand when you listen to the theories thatare being espoused you understand howthis logic works so for instance if mostjudges are white males then the argumentgoes that they maintain their power insociety by insisting that to become aSupreme Court Justice you have to passan undergraduate degree and then youmust pass your law degree then you mustpass your bar exam and therefore all ofthose examination systems areintrinsically a tool of racism to stopnon-whites from becoming Supreme CourtJustices that's how the logic flows um Ihope you can follow what I've just saidbut that is how the logic flows thatexams are intrinsically a racist tool tokeep the oppressed under the thumb ofthe oppressors um systems of logicsystems of reason scientific researchrespectful dialogue evidence-basedresearch and critical reasoning are nowviewed by social justice warriors on thestreets and in their writings as toolsby which the oppressors hold down theoppressed the lived experience of theoppressed is now what determines truthand so that is why you now we talk abouta standpoint epistemology standpointepistemology means uh epistemology isthe theory of knowledge how do you knowwhat you know standpoint epistemologysays that you you know what you knowbecause of your unique experience inlife and so in critical theory theoppressors they see the world from theirown limited perspective but theoppressed see the world from both theperspective of the oppressors and theoppressed so the oppressed are blessedwith a double insight and uh this doubleInsight is referred to in the literatureas your lived experience and if you ifyou pay close attention to Fox or CNN orwhatever Channel you happen to watch youwill hear these these terms coming outyour lived experience is your truth asOprah Winfrey said this is your truth nolonger there is truth but there is yourtruth truth is no longer objective orabsolute but it is subjective relativeand different for each individual and sowe have the concept of your truth now ifit is true as social justice Warriorsare in some parts of the states arguingtoday that truth per se is an artificialconstruct of the white Euro West andthat truth as a concept must be rejectedas a tool of Supremacy then what isleft all that is left is violence on thestreets because if we cannot discuss andcome to an un understanding of Truth inany area then there is simply Force andand physicaldomination according to Social JusticeWarriors the oppressed exist in so um weexist in Social groupings on a socialtotem pole this is known as identitypolitics our identity that who you areis inseparable from our group identityand our categorization as oppressor oroppressed is inseparable from our groupmarkers such as our ethnicity ourreligion or sexual orientation or genderidentity um Martin Luther King arguedfor a time when we would be judged notby the color of our skin but by thecontent of our character modern socialjustice Warriors have rejected thatconcept entirely now you are judged bythe color of your skin no matter whatyou say or do you are guilty or a victimregardless of the content of yourcharacter so we've come long way sincethe the teachings of Dr Martin LutherKing Jr identity politics atomizesSociety into different interest groupsaccording to sex or gender race sexualpreferences and more it presumes thatsuch characteristics are the main or theonly attributes of their holders andthat they bring with them some addedbonus hence people say in publicmeetings speaking as an Asian man wellreally how does that affect truth orspeaking as a white guy or speaking as ahomosexual how does who you are in termsof the color of your skin affect whatthe reality of Truth really is but thisis the the idea behind identity politicsthat you who you are is determined bythe color of your skin or who you areattracted to Leading on from that is theidea of intersectionality this is theidea that we must spend our livesworking out every identity andvictimhood and vulnerability claim inthe midst of a perpetually movinghierarchy now this hierarchy shiftsperiodically as new victim groups cometo light and it is true historicallythat there have been many victim groupsand we should not trample on the rightsand we should affirm the place insociety of those who are victims thecurrent victimization flowchart goessomething like this all humans are equalif you can read that will praise theLord but all humans are equal but asGeorge Orwell said in Animal Farm butsome are more equal than others if youknow Animal Farm there the the animalskick out the humans they take over thefarm the pigs are the leaders of theanimals and they say that all animalsare equal but then the pigs decide thatthey want to rule the farm so they saidall animals are equal but some are moreequal than others to justify theirposition of power and in the story ofAnimal Farm the pigs take on thecharacteristics of the men and in theend the animals see no differencebetween The Men Who rulle them and thepigs who now rule them it's a critiqueof the former Soviet Union written byGeorge Joel a very um insightful man butall humans are equal but some are moreequal than others in intersectionalitybut white heterosexual cisgender women Ihope you're keeping up with the languagehere are more equal than whiteheterosexual cisgender men but non-whiteheterosexual cisgender men are moreequal than white heterosexual cisgenderwomenbut I can't read it from here non-whiteheterosexual cisgender women are moreequal than non-white heterosexualcisgender men hope you're keeping upwith this but white gays lesbians andbisexuals are more equal than allprevious groups but not non-white gayslesbians and bisexuals are more equalthan whites gays lesbians bisexuals andall previous groups but transgenders aremore equal than all previous groupsincluding members of the LGB communitybut Muslims are more equal than allprevious groups that's kind of a anoutline of the current victimizationflowchart um that we see um all aroundus today for social justice Warriorsoppression and victimhood only flowsdown from the top of society like awaterfall gravity dictates that watercan never Flow up water always flowsdownhill therefore oppression can neverFlow uphill it can only flow downhilltherefore by definition racism which isto be condemned in all its forms canonly be manifest by whites to blacks butnot vice versa within critical theoryand and the writings of social justiceWarriors therefore and you take thisinto practice as a transgenderindividual is lower on the victim andpole chart uh totem pole then a whitegirl for instance or or an Asian girl oran African-American girl um because thattransgender individual is lower on thetotem pole than that young girl of anyrace um the transgender individual musthave the right to enter her changingroom because the trans the transgenderindividual is by definition a victim ofthe oppression of that small child whois not a transgender individual and sothis is how the the totem pole works andit only works oneway now the gay rights movement if Igone too far here in the 1960s after thestate the Stonewall riots in ' 70s weresuccessful because it convinced Westernsociety that to be gay is not a matterof software that is how you live yourlife the lifestyle choices you make butit's a matter of Hardware that is you'rewired to be gay and if you are wired tobe gay or as Lady Gaga sings you wereborn that way therefore living a g a gaylifestyle cannot be a question ofimmorality their success was inpersuading society that to be gay is amatter of hardware and not soft are youfollowing me on this if you born thatway if you're wired that way if it'sinnate to who you are and it's not amatter of choice therefore it cannot beimmoral to live that lifestyle that wasthe success of the gay rights movementfrom the 60s all the way up to the early2000s uh on the other hand feministstook us in the opposite directionfeminists in the fourth wave feminismhave sought to persuade Western societythat being a woman is not a matter ofHardware it is not a matter of geneticsor chromosome or XX versus XY geneticsphysiology and psychology no being awoman is not a matter of Hardware butit's a matter of software that is beinga woman is merely a social constructit's a matter of what some people call areiterated social performance hence wehave the the transgender movement ifbeing a woman is not a matter of biologyand it's a social role that you playthat means anybody can play the role ofa woman so uh these are some of thechanges that have happening around us inthe early 2000s we saw saw a change inthe writings of critical theorists andthis is where we're coming to todayradical feminists evolved from arguingfor women's rights and arguing in the'90s about a war on women they startedarguing about a war on men I.E you mayhave heard these Expressions out thereall men are trash all men are rapiststhe problem of mansplaining the problemof toxic masculinity the idea that a manwould provide for and protect his wifewhich I still think is true and I seekto do in my own life and the evils ofthepatriarchy uh so feminism has moved frompromoting the rights of women toattacking men we see the same among someradical African-American Scholars uhcivil rights the civil rights movementhas evolved from calling for equal civiland Eagle rights which I hope we wouldall agree to um as a matter of basicbiblical Justice is moved from umpromoting the civil rights of theAfrican-American Community to demonizingthose who are not black so now we haveWhitener studies White white denialimplicit bias and conscious biasprivilege preserving epistemic push backand the problematizing of whiteness asone scholar wrote just recently um thissurely is the textbook definition of ofracism to to denigrate an entire groupof people purely on the basis of theirskincolor now we have no understanding justhow our society is going to be broken bythe advances of this rapacious newideology that rejects the very conceptof Truth as being a as being a manmanifestation of white supremacy andracism social trip wires now abound allaround us you can barely open your mouthwithout being accused of racism orhomophobia or sexism or transphobia ormisogyny or Prejudice or bigotry thesecharges are um H at people to close youdown and stop the conversation so youcan no longer have a conversation aboutanything that is affecting anybodyanymore and why is this system spreadingthrough the West so fast when our firstthis morning we saw the dramaticreduction in the in the faith in the godof the Bible among Millennials it's adramatic reduction in the last 10 yearsand so as Millennials are moving awayfrom faith in God they are adoptingessentially a new secular religion thatsecular religion is social justiceWarrior uh philosophy it's based oncritical theory and how do youdemonstrate that you are a member ofthis new religion then you call yourselfan ally of one of whatever Marmarginalized group happens to be outthere today uh as a white male Icouldn't help to be born this way but asa white male I'm cisgender which if notsure that means that means that mygender identity and my biology line up Ibelieve I'm a man I'm biologically manthat means I'm a cisgender and thereforeI'm an oppressor and as a heterosexualmale um I am the most uh represent themost evil group in human historyapparently but how do I avoid being partof the most evil group in human historyI avoid that by if I say I'm now an allyof one of the minority groups and sopeople who are white cisgenderheterosexual males like me they theythey divert the social pressure bysaying well this is who I am but I'mactually an ally of this group or thatgroup or the other group and so then youyou hear two people saying that I'm anally this is politically Laden talk todivert um uh um uh guilt from yourselfbased on based on the color of your skinor who you um who you are attracted tonow how is forgiveness possible in themodern era well actually it's notforgiveness and there's no forgivenesspossible because nothing can be erasedwith the Advent of theinternet your past is Hostage to anyinternet archaeologist with avendetta everything you post from thismoment on can be used against you whenyou are mirandized the police sayeverything you say will be taken downand maybe us an Evidence against you youhave the right to remain silent thesedays with the social justice Warriorsyou have the right to remain silent andeverything you have ever said will beused in evidence against you and so umthe cancel culture of today iseliminating your professional andfinancial ability to survive andviability due to the alleged sins ofyesterday and this is very hard to tolive in because what is considered moraltoday is considered hate speech tomorrowand so people are retreating into asullen silence afraid to post onFacebook or social media or to stand upand preach you know topics like thisbecause it's going to be held againstyou in the future you're going to becancelled you're going to bedeplatformed you're going to be closeddown because you didn't go along withthe new political correctness as a listof alleged sins shifts by the day it isimpossible to know whether what isviewed today as morally acceptable willtomorrow be turn you into a socialPariah your sins as a teenager and yourpostings as a student will be foreverheld against you for the rest of of yourlife and it is not surprising as Dr Neilnedley said when he was here last yearand to speak about mental health it isnot surprising that today there is anepidemic of mental health problems amongteenagers andstudents I remember some of thestatistics he gave us 25 years ago about5% of students on American campuses haddiagnosed with mental health problemsnow it's 60 to70% there is a crippling epidemic ofanxiety depression and other mentalillnesses partly brought on about this Cby this counc culture that everythingyou say is going to be used against youpeople are terrified of speaking upabout what you believe anymore becauseit's going to be held against you and sorather than engaging in society in thesharing of ideas in debating Conceptsengaging in the give and take of healthydiscourse we are as a society retreatinginto a sullen and fearful silence afraidto speak up for what we actually believeanymore truly you have the right toremain silent and truly what you saywill be used against you and in this newera of suen Silence our freedom ofreligion and our freedom of conscienceis under direct assault that is thereality of what is happening in Americatoday that is what is happening incollege campuses across North Americait's what's happening in in in smallschools it's what's happening in themedia and the result is is that thesocial justice heroes of today arecancelled tomorrow just a classicexample of this the writer of the HarryPotter books what's her name doesanybody remember hername j JK Rowling okay she was a theAvant guard she was in favor of X Y andZ and uh about two months ago a womanwas fired by the British government forsaying that a biological man could notbe a woman and uh JK Rowling tweeted andshe says well of course biological mencannot be women and um the Twitter versejust assaulted her and and sheexperienced cancel culture she is now tobe demonized this woman because eventhough she was the hero of socialjustice Warriors two months ago she'snow being cancelled and she is no longerworth listening to and she can bedeplatformed and uh simply for sayingwhat most of us and most of HumanSociety for thousands of years has heldto be a self-evident truth that abiological man cannot be awoman so having discussed some of thecharacteristics of of critical theory ofsocial justice Warriors and what they'rearguing for it's important that asChristians we don't just throw the babyout with the bath water because there ishuge Injustice in our worldtoday okay there is Injustice and Godhas not called us to be a comfortablemiddle class Church assuming that justbecause everything is good in my lifeit's good for everybody else in theworld God calls us not only to Holinessand to righteousness but as we're goingto see righteousness and Justice areinterchangeable in the Old Testamentdefining Justice is actually verydifficult we're going to talk aboutbiblical Justice now we all sense whenthere is Injustice but we find it hardto define justice per se a good workingdefinition of justice is found in thelittle book of biblical Justice it saysthere that Justice entails the exerciseof legitimate power to ensure thatbenefits and penalties are distributedfairly and equitably in society thusmeeting the rights and enforcing theobligations of all parties it's a goodworking definition of what Justice isand so the word justice appears as mostcommonly in the is in the Bible usingfour Hebrew and Greek words there'smishpat which is Hebrew most oftentranslated as as righteousness Seda inHebrew that is often translated asJustice diay in Greek translated asrighteousness and Joseph was a dios arighteous man and chrysis that's theGreek word meaning condemnation orjudgment we get the English word crisisfrom that and in the Englishtranslations of the scriptures thesewords appear to be completely separateconcepts for instance we think thatrighteousness is a matter of privatemorality and Holiness but Justice is amatter of publicly setting things toright but the Bible doesn't have thoseneat and easy distinctions the ideas ofof righteousness and Justice areactually kind of interchangeablethroughout the scriptures we see thisparticularly in the Old Testamentprophets but let Justice mishpat rolldown like Waters and righteousness Sedarlike an ever-flowing stream the the theparallelism in the Hebrew text here thatthese ideas are almost interchangeablesee a king will reign in righteousnesssaid AA and princes will rule withJustice that is mishpat uh we move onthe Lord is just in all his ways andkind in all his doings it's a beautifulverse isn't it about God he's just inall his ways but he's kind in all hisdoings Moses says I will proclaim thename of the Lord ascribe greatness toour god The Rock his work is perfect andall his ways are just a faithful Godwithout deceit just Sedaka and uprightis Jehovah God uh who ultimately isJesus himself righteousness sedeki andJustice or judgment that is mishpat arethe foundation of the Throne of Godsteadfast love HED and faithfulness gobefore you oh Lord clouds and thickDarkness are all around himrighteousness and Justice are thefoundation of his throne are we gettingthe message here that God is a God ofJustice and God is concerned withJustice and righteousness and Justiceare very closely related Concepts withinthe Scriptures it says he judges theworld with righteousness he judges thepeople with Equity that means there isno nation that God does not sit injudgment on including our own when thereisInjustice God judges the peoples withrighteousness he judges the the PE theworld with righteousness he judges thepeople with equity in the in the in theBible we see that biblical Justiceinvolvesshalom shalom is not just undoingoppression it is establishing thepresence of a positive life reinforcinglife of firming relationship within acommunity within a Covenant Community itis not just the absence of war is thepresence of the peace of God biblicalJustice involves the idea of Covenantpeace and Justice will result in Oldtest will result if Old Testament Israelremains loyal to its Covenantrelationship with God and treats eachother as God asks us to treat each otherthat in all things we do unto others aswe would have them do unto us biblicalJustice involves the concept of law thelaw of the the law of the Lord isperfect it it guides our feet it'seducational the law of God explains forus what it means to live withrighteousness and Justice in societybiblical Justice involves the concept ofdeeds and consequences that God is Notdeceived as a man Seth so shall he soshall he reap either that reaping is adirect consequence of the choices wemake or God is involved and bringsjudgment upon us and finally biblicalJustice involves atonement andforgiveness this is the means by whichpenitence is demonstrated forgiveness isexperienced restitution is made and thisrestores the Covenant relationshipwithin the Covenant people with God wemight say therefore that Justice is acentral feature of the scriptures we maynot see it all the time in the Bible butI I I would argue today that Justice isas much a reflection of the character ofGod as is his love and God wants hispeople to be those who seek afterjustice as well as those who manifesthis love in a broken and a fallen worldTrue Justice in in the scripturestherefore we might say this without thecommitment to exe to exemplify andreflect God's character of Justice ourworship of God isbankrupt that may sound like a hardsentence but without a commitment toexemplify and reflect God's character ofJustice in these four walls in ourcommunity in our nation and in the worldour worship of God is bankrupt God doesnot want the worship of people who comewith blood on their handshe wants people to come who've shownEquity to one another who show mercy andkindness and upholds the rights of allmembers of the community God isconcerned this is a summary of what wefind in the Bible we don't have time togo through all it all today but God isconcerned with Justice how we relate toeach other and a lifestyle of Justiceseeking and Justice making is anessential Mark of Holiness just assexual morality is a mark of HolinessJustice making is a mark of Holinesswithin the Covenant Community of GodGodso how do wecompare the social justice wellview andthe biblical Justice worldview I'm goingto put them side by side on the screenuh the left hand column there this is aum this is the basic Dimension we'regoing to look at this is the socialjustice worldview and this is thebiblical Justice worldview in Social interms of identity in the social justiceworldview which is an atheist worldviewyou are defined irrevocably andirrefutable in luuly by your socialgroup by the skin of your color or whoyou are attracted to that will Define inand of itself whether you are bydefinition an oppressor or one of theoppressed groups of society in thebiblical Justice worldview every childthat is born is created in the image ofGod and bears the image of God andtherefore every child that is born hasequal moral worth and it is ourresponsibility to reflect the characterof God to every human being that is thebiblical worldview in the social justiceworldview the ultimate Authority is yourlived experience what happened to you inlife is your truth and that is theultimate determinant of Truth period inthe scriptures we find that the ultimatedeterminant uh the ultimate Authority isactually the word of God it is not yourlived experience because we all havedifferent lived experiences we perceivethem differently we we process themdifferently and you can have the sameexperience happening to two identicalpeople and they have radically differentunderstandings of the same event theword of God is the ultimateAuthority in the it's social justiceworld view the common enemy are theoppressors in society and because socialjustice views every relationship throughthe prism of power that means anybodywho has power over somebody else it isby definition an abusive relationship sosocial justice Warriers talk aboutparentis The Authority that a parent hasover a child is by definition an abusiverelationshipableism the the the way that Society isstructured to look after those who areable-bodied as opposed to the disabledis viewed as a as a form of of abusewithin society and so any any Authorityis is to be taken taken out in societyin the biblical Justice worldview thecommon enemy that we all face is sinSatan and death or the second death inin the um the relationship of power inthe social justice worldview all poweris abusive all power and they'll talkabout parentis and ableism and so forthif you look at the black lives matterworldview which is is raised out of thegenuine concerns of many people in theAfrican-American Community but they'vegone down this path and if you look atthe black lives matters website it talksabout raising children they don't wantchildren to be raised by theirbiological parents they want children tobe raised by the community because aparent child relationship isintrinsically an abusive relationship inthe biblical Justice worldview lovingpower relationships are necessary forsociety to flourish that the abuse ofpower is wrong not the exercise of powerper se so I have authority over mychildren I seek to be a loving fatherrather than an abusive father and poweris not wrong in and of itself but itbecomes wrong when you abuse theposition of power that God has entrustedto you in the biblical world view um sinI see you might see my I can't read thatthere this is um sin yes no action canbe taken against a member or no actiontaken against a member of an oppressorof an oppressor group uh is considered asin all right so that means that asocial justice water can come and beatme up and you know whack me over thehead with a baseball bat and it's notconsidered wrong because by definitionI'm anoppressor um in the biblical worldviewall have sinned and fallen short of theglory of God oppressor or oppressed noneare exempt regardless of group identitythere's a a verse we often don't talkabout Ecclesiastes 4 it says that um Godlooks down upon the world he sees theoppressed and there is no one to comfortthem then the next verse says and hesees the oppressors and there is no oneto comfort them either and we alwaysthink that God Comforts The oppressedbut that verse tells us that God wantsto comfort the oppressors and you wonderhow is that possible I just give you ascenario if if you are in a if you in anelevator with Jeffrey Dharma you know acannibal and a murderer and you have apistol and you're pointing at him that'syour means of Defense um he's a victimbecause you're pointing a gun at him butyou're just as much a victim of thesituation because you're acting out offear of what might happen to you andoften times in history the oppressorsare acting out of fear of what mighthappen to them if they let their footoff the pedal so God is concerned withboth sides of the equation because onlyGod sees the full experience that we'veall gone through and can read the fearsof our hearts forgiveness in in socialjustice Warrior um ideology there is noforgiveness possible but you have cancelculture you have the right to remainsilence and everything you say will beused against you in the biblicalworldview forgiveness is providedthrough confession repent and receivingthe gift of Grace in social justiceWarrior Theory um if there is no God tosay that you are righteous you have asense of self-righteousness throughposting on Twitter or Facebook andseeing how many likes you can get youget the Applause of other social justiceWarriors and therefore you feel goodabout yourself and the more likes youcan get and the more followers you canget the more of a sense ofself-righteousness you have in thescripture justification is the free giftof God to all who repent and believe itis a free gift forgiveness is possiblewith God it is not possible with thewoke culture we move on to these finaldifferences between the social justicewellview and the biblical wellview truthclaims in social justice Warriorthinking these are to be rejected asthey are intrinsically the tools of theoppressors in society in the biblicalworldview that truth is to be validatedby research and dialogue and Jesus isthe ultimate truth and source of Truthconversion conversion is possible insocial justice Warrior worldview becauseuh there is alleged social guilt thereoften is social guilt but it will bealleged even if you're innocent andsocial justice Warrior mob tactics nowthese are literally mob tactics in thebiblical Justice worldview conversioncomes through the movement of the HolySpirit upon the heart convict me of mysins ultimate outcomes and this is whenwe talk about equality in the socialjustice Warrior worldview the role ofgovernment is to engineer equalsocioeconomic outcomes that we all liveexactly the same and equal powerdistribution in society as I talk aboutthis Russian movie where everybody hasthe same house um and the same furnitureand the same food and the same length oftime in prison and so forth as happenedthroughout the Soviet Union um thebiblical worldview is that um we arepersonally responsible for our temporaland our Eternal outcomes um yes we praygive us this day our daily bread but theHoly Spirit also reminds us that thosewho do not work what shall not eat thereis an element of personal responsibilityand if we are to live in a society wherethe government guarantees equal outcomesfor everybody guess what's going tohappen to human endeavor and strivingfor excellence it will cease to existthe Practical effect of this was in theSoviet Union when you bought a newRussian car a brand new l or Nea orjiggly I did this many times you spend 6months repairing the engine before itcanwork you don't buy a new Russian car inthe former Soviet Union you buy a carthat's one year old cuz it's actuallybeen built by the owner why is thishappening because the car manufacturersin L or jigi or Nea they knew they weregoing to get the same wage regardless ofwhat work they did and so if the if thechassis rolled off the end of the theproduction line with no engine in itnobody cared because everybody's goingto get the same at the end of the daythis led to stagnation sociallyeconomically and politically andeventually that systemcollapsed if you do not insist onpersonalresponsibility then the society willcome collapse um Margaret Thatcher was aprime minister when I grew up and shesaid if you believe in equality ofopportunity that is everybody gets thesame start then you must be willing toaccept inequality of outcome because twopeople from the same starting point onewill become a drun addict one will workhard one will go down to the depths ofDespair and one will become um I don'tknow a mic micro entrepreneur or abillionaire and if you really wantequality of opportunity you must bewilling to accept inequality of outcomeuh the ultimate source of Morality Inthe social justice Warrior is whateveris trting trending on Twitter that tellsyou your morality what is the view oftoday you know what is Right thinkingtoday go to Twitter that'll tell youcombined with humanist or atheistcritical theory writings changes changesdaily you've got to keep up with it it'shard work keeping up with the FerociousWinds of the present because todaytoday's Orthodoxy becomes tomorrow'shate speech and oppression and uh inthis biblical Justice worldview theultimate source of morality is a lovingheavenly father who loves the entireworld who sent his son into the worldthat whosoever believeth in him shouldnot perish but have everlasting life andin the social justice Warrior worldviewthere is no freedom ofconscience because under the Marxistteachings religion is the opiate of themasses and it must be eliminated by allmeans necessary so if you want toworship God there is no place for itwithin the social justice worldviewunless you kind of color it pink and raput a rainbow flag outside your churchevery church that does that iscollapsing in numbers every denominationthat's going down that path becausepeople know what the word of God saysyou can't hide it in the biblicalworldview God gives absolute freedom ofconscience God never compels you but herespects the decisions that you maketoday and in terms of that relates toequality of outcome God is not willingthat any should perish but that allshould have eternal life social justiceWarriors don't believe in theEverlasting the Hereafter in heaven andtherefore want equality today God saysno I want everybody to have equality Iwant everybody to have eternal life butyou're just not going to experience itin this world because it's a world ofsin but everybody has the chance toachieve that Eternal um future with ourheavenlyfather so our time is almost uphere and that's the book I'd recommendyou read The Madness of the crowds it'snot written by a Christian it's thenumber one book on in uh culture in inAmazon I'd really recommend if you wantto read and to learn more about thisthat you read you read this book herelet me just go through for a couple ofminutes that we have left what are thesome of the major injustices happeningin our world to these are egregiousthere are many injustices but these aresome major injustices number one slaverywe think that slavery was abolished withthe Emancipation declaration absolutelynot there are more slaves now than theywere in the Deep South they're scatteredaround the world there are estimated tobe over 40 million people St living inslavery North Korea has the highestpercentage of the population followed byusbekistan and camb CIA India and Qatarum the highest prevalence is in moraniaum African on African slavery is alivetoday in kicking and if you go to Libyayou can buy slaves in the slave marketspeople from Nigeria they come up on themigrant routes that trying across intoEurope they reach the Arab countries ofLibya country of Libya and they'regetting taken off the streets and soldinto slavery you can find it on YouTubethe UN has raised this as a major redflag you can buy slaves today if youhave the if you have the desire to umslavery is a global problem and the factthat it's not happening in beran Springsdoes not mean it's not happening todaythere are 10 million children in slaverytoday 24.9 million people in forcedlabor these are from the United Nationsum 4.8 million people in forced sexualexploitation we have the problem allaround the world of forced labor debtbondage human trafficking descent-basedslavery child slavery forced an earlymarriage the problem of slavery affectsevery racial group every ethnic groupevery National Group every religiousgroup it is a human evilperiod And I would encourage any socialwar Justice Warrior to say let's tacklesome of these problemstogether but we won't because that willbe imposing a Western worldview on thosewho practice it that would be a viewviewed as a colonial worldview so wehave to allow slavery to continue thisis the the tragedy of the situation inwhich we find ourselves slavery is anegregious Injustice and an affront tothe nature of God and not many peopleare doing anything about it today youngpeople if you want to cause in life umslavery is a great thing to be not to beinvolved with but to fight against humantrafficking in the USA nobody reallyknows how many people are traffickedmaybe up to a million human traffickingvictims in America today we talk aboutmaking our country great again I thinktrafficking is a stain on our name it isan evil there's a girl who's a niece ofone of our missionaries she's 16 and shedisappeared 2 months ago today last lastweek was the 100th day when she wastrafficked the parents have no ideawhere she is an Adventist raised in anAdventist family the grandparents livenot far from here this is an egregiousevil that is alive and well in ourcountry today about 50,000 people aretrafficked into the United States everyyear for two purposes immorality orForce labor and a half of those peoplethat are trafficked are children forimmoralpurposes and I I say God bless thiscountry I want God to bless this nationbut this is evil it's happening in everyCommunity it's happening in every Countyit's happening in every state andSouthwest Michigan is a hub of humantrafficking you can check out the uhSouthwest Michigan anti-humantrafficking Network human trafficking isalive and well even in Benton Harbor inSt Joseph and all at the I94 Corridorthis is an evil in our society and it'ssomething that surely all of us canagree that something needs to be done tostop this evil Scourge in our nation theWagers this is another example today inthe last two years up to 2 million weershave been put in concentration camps inNorthwest China they are Muslims theywere annexed by m Tong the 1950s Chinawants to eliminate this people group andso they put them in reeducation campsthe Chinese are open about the fact thatthese are camps they're forcing peopleto renounce their faith their Islamicfaith to eat pork and drink alcohol theyface torture sleep deprivation andexecution and when the men go intoprison the Chinese government is movinghand men Han that's the majority ethnicgroup from Eastern China in to live withthe wives of theprisoners and they're not just livingwith the wives there's an epidemic ofabortion now in Northwest China becauseof what is happening they're going tobreed them out if they can't kill themthis is an egregious Injustice today andum we although we want religious freedomfor Christians if we are honest we mustask for Religious Freedom for all groupsnot just forChristians and finally the persecutedChurch of today in 2019it's estimated that over 250 millionChristians are living in places placeswhere they're experiencing high levelsof persecution thousands of Christiansare dying every day for their faith andit's happening in many parts of theworld and uh we in the west we so we'reimmune to this because we we're drowningin a sea of froth of meaninglessentertainment we're blind to thesufferings of our brothers and sistersaround theworld and it's a call for us asAdventists today to speak up and to helpthose who are called in these terriblesituations um I was uh in Cyprus a fewyears ago Secretary treasur of theMiddle East Union well many years agonow and a girl came to church withbruising all over her face uh she wasfrom Armenia we spoke with her she haddbeen trafficked she was working as atrafficked girl in Cyprus it's a centerof trafficking in the med girls go therethey get broken in and they get soldonto Western Europe and she came tochurch absolutely terrified bruises allover her face and up her chestand so um what do you do do you just sayhave a happy Sabbath Go In Peace So wewe pulled together our money we boughther an airline ticket and we said to heryou know at a certain day we're going tocome outside where you're working youwalk on the street with nothing with youjust walk out on the street and we willget you out of the country she walkedout with about five suitcases and wethought really and she had her passportshe ran out and I drove up with a friendof mine we had baseball caps on and sunsunglasses and just like in the moviessaid get in and she got in the car giveus your phone we want your sim card sonobody can trace who you've beenspeaking with we drove her to theairport followed by a police escort andwe walked with the police to put her onthe on theplane and she flew home to her familyand if I have a door try to ask you todo the same for her we are not called toturn a blind eye to Injustice we arecalled to stand up when there isInjustice and to be agents of God'sgrace and to bring reconciliation andthe Shalom of God where there isGrievous Injustice in people's livestoday so what do we say in conclusionour time is up the truth is is thatsocial justice Warriors they do remindus of some very uncomfortable truthsthat power does corrupt and there issocial injustice in all of our societiesas we've been mentioning this morningChristians in the past have beencomplicit in social injustice and thechurch many times has been slow to takeup the cause of the oppressed we must behonest about this and we must do abetter job than that however socialjustice Warriors represent criticaltheory as a form ofMarxism and so we utterly rejectcritical theory its vocabulary and itsunderpinning atheist philosophy but weare called to gen to um to articulate in2020 and every year that goes forward avibrant and distinctive Christianapproach to biblical Justice not socialjustice we are called to stand forbiblical Justice in our societies andaround the world there ground Ed not inan atheist worldview but in a Biblicalworldview so my appeal to us today islet us show with our lives of Mercyforgiveness and love as neighbors to ourthose down the street that we serve asavior who died for all peoples that oursavior came to set the oppressed freeand to break every yoke and he calls ustoday to surrender Our lives our livesof ease and comfort in the west to bringhope and healing to a broken world tothose who live with that Brokenness inberan and the Michigan and the statesand around the world may we be a peopleof Hope who can point people to thesooncoming Savior for his name's sakeamen