Building on the American Heritage Series – A Biblical View of Social Justice: Does God want justice? Do His jurisdictional lines matter? Is God into conformity? Does God reveal His ways for dealing with the current issues of our day like economics, healthcare, poverty, global warming, taxes, etc.? What happens to church attendance when the government starts taking care of the poor? Does God have priorities when it comes to political issues? Tune in to understand God’s view of social justice and more!

Air Date: 04/26/2022

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Faith And The Culture

Rick:

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Here we go to Building on the American Heritage Series with David Barton.

Building on the American Heritage Series: Social Justice

Today’s topic we’re seeing more and more out there it’s social justice. I just saw the other day in an advertisement at a fairly large church a visiting speaker was talking about social injustice and there’s this movement saying government needs to do what the Bible says that we should be doing and that’s how we’ll get social justice.

David:

Yeah.

Rick:

Is that the right way to go?

David:

You’ve actually hit it. It’s a jurisdictional problem. It’s not that God didn’t want justice and he doesn’t want a society. He does. He makes it real clear.

We’re told in Jeremiah that His habitation is a place of justice and holiness. God’s into social justice, but He’s also into jurisdictional lines. There are certain things He told the government to do, certain things He told the family to do, certain things He told the church to do, certain things He told the individual to do.

For example, He told the government in Romans 13 that the government, “bears the sword in our defense.”. Bears the sword to punish the wicked.

Well, if the church picks up the sword to punish the wicked, and if the church picks up the sword to do it in defense, it always ends in atrocities. And it always has across history. God did not give the sword of civil government or civil justice to the church, He gave it to government.

What’s been advocated in social justice has — and the way it’s being advocated now is the government needs to do these issues. The government has to get involved in social issues.

Socialism

No, that’s not what God has said. As a matter of fact, that has always been a philosophy that has been associated. This is the third time it’s come up in America. This modern version and it’s always associated with a socialistic mentality and a movement toward socialism on the part of government.

We want to see government get more involved in the lives of individuals; we want it treating every individual the same,;we want! And not that you don’t want that, but that’s not the Biblical role for government.

Social Gospel Movement

And so what happens is in the 1880s we had a social justice movement. In the 1920’s, 1925, it’s called the Social Gospel Movement. And here it is again resurrected in the 2000 period and it’s the third time that religious leaders have stepped up and said, “It’s time for the church to get government doing some things.”

Now, the right way to look at this, particularly the fact that we’re trying to elevate government into letting it do more, and more, and more, goes actually back to Genesis. One of our good friends, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, he points out that a lot of the time, we as Christians get the Tower of Babel thing all goofed up. We don’t do it right.

And he starts by saying you know that really, the Hebrew language is a significant language because the first time God revealed Himself to humankind, He revealed Himself in the Hebrew language. That’s what He spoke to the Hebrews and children of Israel. Spoke to them there on the mountain, etc..

So God chose that language and Rabbi Lapin says that means that everything that God says is of importance. And he points out that, for example, he said in the Hebrew language it’s impossible to say the word coincidence. You can’t say that because coincidences never crossed God’s mind. In God’s mind, He has a plan for everything. Nothing is accidental. So God didn’t say coincidence. You can’t even say it in the Hebrew language.

Rick:

No such thing as retirement.

In the same way, you cannot say the word retirement in Hebrew. God doesn’t get to a point where He says, “Okay, you’re done with everything. Just sit there and enjoy yourself.”

No, we had that story in Luke where the guy said, “Hey soul, take rest, ease. Just prosper, just enjoy yourself. You’ve been working really hard.”

God said, “You fool, tonight your soul is required of you.” If you’re going to stop being productive God’s gonna take you home.

Rick:

No such thing as retirement.

David:

No such thing as retirement – God does not have retirement. It’s not –you can’t say the word. Well, in the same way, he points out that in the Tower of Babel story that Christians often get wrong, he said it starts with Nimrod.

When Nimrod started gathering the people around him saying, “Let’s make bricks, let’s make bricks, let’s make bricks.” And that’s when it got God’s attention and God came down and confused everything.

Tower Of Babel

Well, what’s the deal with making bricks? Well as Rabbi Lapin points out, bricks — you take a mold, you pour everything into them, and they all come out looking exactly alike- you have conformity, we’re going to treat everybody exactly the same. And the problem with that is God creates living stones – every stone is created different, they all look differently–

Rick:

None of them are exactly the same.

David:

They all have a different character. There’s none exactly the same. God is creative. He’s not into conformity.

And the problem with socialism is we’re going to make you all bricks. We want you to have a “brick” education. We’re going to treat every student exactly the same. We don’t care if the student’s a little more advanced than this one. This one’s a little slower. We’re going to put you all in the same mold and treat you exactly the same.

And that’s what government does is it creates this conformity. Social justice says, “We want more of that. We want more of government getting into whatever the realm is.”And that is a real problem.

Now, the other thing is that social justice does is it really tries to obfuscate a lot of political issues. Traditionally, in the last several decades the issues that Christians have really kind of focused on things like abortion, and marriage, and acknowledgments of God, etc. And social justice comes along and says, “No, no, no, you can’t focus on those issues. You’ve also got to focus on taking care of the poor and taking care of the planet. You have got to focus on all these other aspects of social justice.”

And so what they’ve done is they’ve elevated it up and said, “You guys, Christians, it’s time for us to get away from just voting on marriage and life. We’ve got to vote on all this other stuff that’s really important stuff.”  There’s a problem with that Biblically. Now that is a government philosophy that’s out there and some religious people embrace that. But that’s not a Biblical philosophy.

Rick:

Yeah, that’s not just government saying — government officials saying that —

David:

That’s church leaders saying that.

Rick:

Yeah.

613 laws

David:

They have bought into that philosophy, but it’s not Biblical. In the Bible, God gives 613 laws to govern His people. That’s how He governed Israel – 613 laws. Those laws deal with agriculture. They deal with immigration, they deal with marriage, they deal with the military, they deal with economics, they deal with various taxes, they deal with anything that we deal with today. God gave laws to cover. They even deal with the environment back then. I mean, God gave laws on everyone. Healthcare, God deals with healthcare throughout the Scriptures.

One of the best books ever written on God’s view of health care is called None of These Diseases, a book by Dr. S.I. McMillen who says, “Here’s all the health code that God gave us in the Bible. As doctors today–here’s all the medical studies that prove God’s exactly right on how to run health.

Rick:

If we just do it His way.

David:

If we just do it His way. So there are all these issues, but then God comes along after giving 613 of his people. He comes along and in Exodus 34:27 with Moses he said, “Moses, here’s the tenor of my law.” In other words, here’s the heart, the soul, the guts, of these 613. Here are the big things. And it was this-this is what he told Moses was the tenor of His laws. Now, that’s the Ten Commandments.

Rick:

And He takes the 613 boils it down and says —

David:

“Here’s my top 10.”

Rick:

Yeah.

David:

I’ve given you 613 laws. I’m telling you how to take care of the poor. I’m telling you how to do healthcare. But here’s my top 10.

And by the way, this is actually a historically significant piece here. This was given us by the legislator in Kentucky. This is the Ten Commandments that led to the Supreme Court case in 1980 where the Supreme Court said, “Oh, you can’t let this *hang.”

Rick:

That’s the one that was actually hanging there?

David:

That’s the one that was hanging in the classroom.

So back to the 613 God gives Moses his top ten. He says, “This is the tenor of what I’ve given – 613. But this is the big stuff.” You look here in the big stuff. There are four things that make God’s top ten.

Number one is acknowledgement of God, “I am the Lord thy God.”

“In God We Trust, Under God,” in the Pledge of Allegiance, these are all acknowledgements of God. Oh, you can’t let a kid say “God” at graduation? No, no, no, acknowledgement of God is the top item on His list.

Rick:

So that is an issue we should pay attention to and voting and–

David:

Where a political person is on public — “Oh, separation of church and state. I don’t believe you should have nativity scene where public people could see it. I don’t think you should have ten commandments where people can read it.”

If that’s the position, you got problems because that will violate God’s top 10 as a Christian. For anyone who wants a secular society, we’ve got problems. And by the way, it also violates our documents. Declaration says, “Hey, there is a Creator, He gives us rights.”

Number two on this, you’ll find that God talks about “Thou shall not kill.” And the word “kill” actually is “murder.” It means “shed innocent blood.” So, it’s not a capital punishment. What it’s talking about is shedding innocent blood. Well, I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, there’s no way of saying that abortion is not shedding innocent blood.

Rick:

That’s right.

David:

There’s not a child has been aborted that was guilty of anything to be aborted for.

Rick:

So those that would say that’s not an issue we had to come back and say it’s one of the top ten.

David:

By the way, those who have been wrongly convicted of capital punishment the courts it’s an issue for them too. Every time you shed innocent blood, whether it’s an adult or whether it is an infant, it’s wrong.

Rick:

Because if it’s guilty blood, the government bears the sword for that purpose.

David:

That’s exactly right.

Then you get to these two down here – “You don’t steal” and “You don’t covet. ”That’s protecting property, protecting private property. Government exists to protect private property.

Now, they’ve gotten into eminent domain and they say, “Oh no, we want your property, we want more tax dollars. ”I’m sorry, eminent domain is what Ahab and Jezebel did with Naboth’s vineyard and that’s why God brought a curse on Israel was they used little government’s eminent domain to take private property. So protecting private property is one of the top ten.

Rick:

Well, and it also seems like coveting — that’s a lot of what we do in government today is because of that.

David:

“I want your tax money.”–

Rick:

Yeah. “I want insurance like you have.” Or, “I want the kind of car you drive. I want government policies that will give me what you’ve got.” It’s coveting.

David:

See, this is social justice. Social justice is doing what God thinks is important and God has given us His top 10. All the other things that these guys are trying to push to the top – it’s not Biblical. It’s the third time it’s been tried in America. It is associated with socialism which is a form of government that’s not good. And by the way, that’s how we look at social justice.

Rick:

Alright, David, let’s get some questions from the audience about social justice.

David:

Let’s go for it.

Question:

Jesus told us to take care of the poor – shouldn’t that be an issue when we go to vote?

Rick:

Heard a lot about this back in 2008. Continue to hear about the idea that, well, we’re supposed take care of the poor. Should we do that through government?

David:

Well, it should be an issue when we vote, but probably not the way that most people think. It’s indisputable. The Bible makes it very clear we should take care of the poor.

Rick:

Right.

David:

No question. You take the Bible. You go to the verses that deal with the poor. 205 verses talk about the poor – dealing with the poor. That’s a lot of coverage. The important thing is to see where the verses are directed. There’s only one thing the government is told to do with the poor. Only one thing. And that one thing is that when the poor come into court, make sure that they get justice. Don’t treat them any different than you treat anyone else.

Rick:

It doesn’t have anything to do with giving them money or taking care of them.

David:

No, it’s not there at all. It’s totally different. So what do we do?

Well, let me go to a very clear passage on this. Isaiah 58, the Lord says this, “Is this not the fast I have chosen says the Lord to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke.” And so people prayed and fasted. That’s what God wants us to do.

Verse 7 says, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out, and when you see the naked that you cover him, and you do not hide yourself from your own flesh.”

Wait a minute. I’m praying and fasting so that I learn to share my bread. I learn to bring the poor to my house, I learn to cover the naked and provide clothing. Am I to do that? I thought governments were supposed to do that.

Rick:

So I’m not supposed to use government to come take your bread?

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

And give it to the poor —

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

I’m supposed to do it myself? And you’re supposed to do it yourself?

Taking Care Of The Poor

David:

And that’s why God wants us praying and fasting so we learn to get that in our character. You get over in Matthew 25. It’s a verse a lot of people love to quote with social justice. Jesus says, “I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

And the disciples said, “Whoa, time out Lord. When did we ever do that?”

He said, “If you’ve done it to the least of one of these, you’ve done it for me.”

Now is He talking to government there or is He talking to His disciples? And you could say that the individual disciples, or the collective disciples, which would be the church. But any way you go at it, it’s not government. So when you look at it, God didn’t tell government to take care of the poor. He tells everyone of us individually, and collectively, as families, and churches, take care of the poor.

Rick:

Well, maybe the question then, we were asked whether or not it should be factored in when we vote. So, then when we vote, if we vote for people that then use government to take care of the poor instead of us doing it–

David:

That’s it.

Rick:

Then they’re kind of getting in the way – right? Because they’re going to take your money through higher taxes to do that and it’s going to be harder for you to go take care of the poor.

David:

It is. And that’s why I say that it should be an issue when you vote, but probably not the way that people think it should be. Let’s say there was not these 205 verses – that they don’t exist. Wouldn’t it be a good thing for government to take care of the poor?

No, and here’s why — statistically speaking, the National Institute of Philanthropy, these are the guys that monitor every charitable group in the United States. So, Cheryl and I, we’ll give to things like wounded warriors. Or we’ll give to Salvation Army or relief service. We give to these groups and if the National Philanthropy says, if you give a dollar to a group and 60 cents out of that dollar, reaches the target that’s worth giving to. So, they’ll allow that group to spend up to 40 percent on staff, overhead, on advertising, on sending out mailing appeal, whatever it is–

Rick:

If 60 percent of the dollar is–

David:

60 percent has got to make the target.

Rick:

Making it to the people in need, that’s a good goal.

David:

If you’re given to a charity and 60 percent is not making it, stop giving to charity. It’s a waste of money. Now, when it comes to the government, the government has given — has taken– nine trillion dollars from the nation and given nine trillion dollars to the poor over the last 50 years. Nine trillion is a bunch of bucks.

Rick:

Have actually given the nine trillion to the poor or did they to keep some?

David:

Well, that’s the deal – when you look at the 9 trillion every dollar that we designate for the government to give the poor, how much reaches the poor?

Rick:

I bet not as good as–

David:

30 percent.

Rick:

Half as much.

Only 30 of what the Government Collects for the Poor Actually Reaches Those in Need

David:

30 percent – half as much as any private charity. If that was a private charity — if you and I were giving to this group and only 30 cents out of every dollar made it to that group, we would stop giving to the group. That is the most inefficient waste of money you can possibly have.

Rick:

Well, now back to the voting. Okay, if I’m going to vote for an elected official, I don’t want someone that’s going to use government instead of private organizations because I’m wasting everybody’s money.

David:

Well, God laid out– it works right when you do it God’s way. If you don’t do it God’s way, it’s not going to work.

Rick:

Well, what about a lot of these people now in politics they want to — not only do they want to do it all through government, they want to punish you for giving to the charity now.

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

Not give you the tax reductions that we used to get.

David:

That’s the thing that’s happening in Congress the last couple of sessions is they’re reducing the tax deduction for giving to a charity and giving to the poor. They don’t want individuals doing it. We want to do that, and there’s a problem with that as well.

There’s a study recently done out of Yale University and out of Notre Dame and they studied what happens across the world when governments start putting more into taking care of the poor when governments start doing more of the social spending kind of stuff. And what they found was that in 33 consecutive nations, when the government ups the amount it gives to the poor, church attendance goes down by the same percentage. So, what happens is if government’s going to become my source, I don’t need God. Why should I be involved? And what happens is the more the government gets involved in helping the poor, the more secular that nation becomes.

Rick:

Because the government is becoming the epicenter of your community.

David:

That’s right – rather than the church.

Constitution Alive

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know. But it gets frustrating because you don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. It’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders’ library where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the QuickStart guide to the Constitution because in just a few hours through these videos you will learn the Citizen’s Guide to America’s Constitution. You’ll learn what you need to do to help save our Constitutional Republic. It’s fun! It’s entertaining! And it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now at WallBuilders.com.

The government is not the entity to be helping the poor.

Whether it’s from a scriptural standpoint, whether it’s from a world survey standpoint, whether it’s from an economic statistical standpoint, the government is not the entity to be helping the poor. Now the poor have got to be helped. There’s no question about that. God will hold us accountable.

I love the verses back — for example, He tells the priest back in Leviticus that you need to identify the poor in your neighborhood. And when you do, you go to help the poor. You get the other priests and you get the people to give to help the poor.

So it’s the church. It’s the church leaders identifying the needs and getting the money to them. That delivery mechanism.

I love the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both served on the vestry board in their church. And the vestry board is the board that in the community takes care of all the poor.

And it was George Washington and Thomas Jefferson – not as political people, but as church people – who would go out and identify the needs in the community and bring to bear the church resources to help. That’s what the vestry board was to do in the Anglican and Episcopal church back then.

We’ve got to get back to our church today having a vestry board if you will, that says, “Hey, go identify the needs in the community. Let’s get involved with the lives of those people.”

But you’ll notice in Scriptures God says to landowners, “Hey when you harvest your fields, leave the corners of your crop, leave it there for the poor to come in. And if you’ve got a vineyard don’t go over the vineyard twice picking grapes. If things are left, you let the poor get anything that hits the ground. Don’t pick it off of the ground.”

So God makes provision for taking care of the poor. But interestingly, the poor have to do something.

Rick:

Go get it.

David:

They have to go to the corners and harvest the corners. They’ve got to go in the vineyard and pick the grapes either off the ground or what’s left on the vine. We just don’t deliver free mechanism.

And Benjamin Franklin talked about this he said, “The worst thing you can do for the poor is make them comfortable in their poverty.” He said you need to drive them out of their poverty. Poverty is not supposed to be a perpetual condition. It’s supposed to be a temporary condition. Government makes it a perpetual condition by not driving people out of poverty and making them comfortable in their poverty.

Drive Poverty Out

And the church, we say, “Hey, here’s the problem. It’s a temporary thing, and here are the lifestyle changes you can correct. So, you can get away from this property stuff.

Do the question is – should that be an issue when we vote? Yes, but not in the sense that if a guy promises to help the poor running for office I’m going to vote for him.

If he promises to help the poor in office, he’s the guy I don’t want in office because that violates the Biblical standards. It’s not going to help the poor. It’s going to hurt us, it’s going to harm the country, is going to make it more secular. Everything is wrong with that plan.

Rick:

Let’s get another question on the issue of social justice.

Question:

As Christians, shouldn’t we be fighting global warming?

Rick:

You know, this may not be quite as hot a topic as even just a year or two ago.

David:

Yeah.

Rick:

But it’s still in the forefront. You still hear a lot of people saying we as Christians need to be involved in this.

David:

Well, there’s a lot of people trying to elevate it to a hot topic. When you look at national polling right now out of 42 issues, it’s the bottom of 42 issues. But that doesn’t mean it’s lost ground in the church. There’s still a whole element of the church is pushing this.

There are 125 evangelical leaders that came out with the declaration of the evangelical responsibility toward preserving the climate, saving climate, global warming. You have all sorts of denominations have taken the stand, “We’ve got to do something to stop global warming.”

International Panel on Climate Change

And there’s a problem with that from the Biblical standpoint because when you look at what global warming is, what it does, and there’s huge debate over what causes global warming. And you look at all the scientific evidence that’s behind it and it was really driven by the International Panel on Climate Change. They’re the ones who came out with the first report and everybody panicked.

I mean, even what they started with, in their first report they came out and said, “Hey, because of global warming, the polar ice caps are melting and once it’s melted the ice caps, it’s going to cause the oceans to rise from 15 to 25 feet. All low line areas are going to be inundated. Probably a billion people that will die as a result of flooding. They actually predicted that we’d be able to sail ships off the front steps of the U.S. Capitol because that 20, 25 to 40 feet that came out in the fourth report and said, “Looks like it might only be an inch or two at most.”

Rick:

Went from 25 feet to–

David:

25 feet–

Rick:

–an inch or two.

David:

What happened to science?

Rick:

We weren’t off by that much.

David:

So people panicked on the first thing.

Rick:
Yeah.

David:

And the more scientific work they’ve done on this, it’s really not — actually, the ice is growing at the polar icecaps rather than melting. And actually, we’ve had declining temperatures for the past 10 years. Actually, the Russian scientists, the Australian scientists, and others are warning that we’re entering into a period of freezing across the –so it’s a cyclical thing.

But there was never any question that the Earth was warming up. The question was, was it cyclical? Or was man causing it to warm up?

Rick:

Or can we do anything about it in the first place?

David:

Or could we do anything? And so what happened? This is what’s really kind of funny about it. Let me tell you the science and then I’ll tell you the Bible on it. Is from the science standpoint, we’re having all of these hearings. I was called to testify at the U.S. Senate on global warming – an expert on global warming.

So, I was there. For even those who wanted this and there was what was called the Kyoto Protocol and that was President Clinton tried to implement to fix global warming and the Kyoto Protocol calls for America to spend about two hundred billion dollars a year for the next 40 years. And that if we can get the industrial nations to do this we can drop the temperatures and save the planet. Even those who believe in global warming, ardent supporters of it, even they admit that if we do this for 40 years – 200 billion a year for 40 years – we’re talking about less than a half a degree that we might drop the temperatures.

Rick:

200 billion–

David:

200 billion–

Rick:

–for 40 years–

David:

–for 40 years–

Rick:

–and if everything they say–

200 Billion Over 40 Years To Drop ½ A Degree

David:

If everything is right, we’ll drop half a degree. You go, wait a minute, that’s almost too small to even measure on thermometer. But that’s what they were fighting about. So within that framework, there were all these hearings and there was all this push it’s just that people weren’t getting the information.

Now what they were doing is saying, “Hey, we’ve got to limit our lives. We’ve got to stop the way we live. We’ve got to severely alter our lifestyle so that we can save the planet. If we can do that, maybe we can save the planet and we’ll inconvenience all the people we need to do that.

Rick:

And destroy the economy —

David:

Exactly.

Rick:

–and a few other catastrophic things along the way.

David:

Creation For Man

Now from a Biblical standpoint, you go back to what the Bible says, and you go from Genesis 1 through Genesis 3. In those three chapters of Genesis, you notice that creation occurs in an ascending order. It starts with the inanimate and it goes to the animate. It starts with the planet then it goes upward to the fish, and the birds, and the animals, and then man is the last thing created.

And when God got done He said, “Now I’m giving you dominion over everything. It is all here. You take it. You use it, you live off it. It’s yours. This is here for you.”

It’s kind of like the Sabbath where the Jews had said, “Hey, man wasn’t made to serve the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made to serve man.” That’s the way it was. Man wasn’t made to serve the planet, the planet was made to serve man.

But you get from Romans 1 that they ended up worshipping the creation more than the Creator. They reversed things. So for those who worship creation above Creator, it goes in a descending order. The highest thing for them is the inanimate. It’s the planet.

And he goes all the way down to where man’s at the lowest. Even animals and plants are above man. How do we know animals are above man? Because Michael Vick goes to jail for fighting dogs. Now we don’t send abortionists to jail for killing babies.

Rick:

Yeah.

David:

But we will send you to jail for fighting dogs.

Rick:

That’s a great point. I mean, we have totally reversed it.

David:

We totally reversed it. Man will inconvenience man at any level to save the planet, to save the dogs, to save the animals, whatever it takes. We go the opposite direction. So rather than man being above everything, man is under everything. That is an anti-Biblical approach.

One of the great proofs of that is when we testified at the U.S. Senate, 200 billion a year for 40 years. We said, “Hey guys, the science on this is disputed. I mean, there’s no agreement on this.”

And they said, “Oh yes there is.”

There’s no agreement on it. Read the scientists. And what we pointed out was for $200 billion in one year, for one year, two hundred billion dollars, we can provide clean drinking water to every person on the face of the globe. We can wipe out dysentery.

Rick:

Which would save untold number of lives.

Save The Planet, Not The People

David:

Tens of millions of lives. I mean, you wipe out dysentery, you wipe out cholera, you wipe out all the water diseases that kill millions of people a year in third world nations. For 200 billion dollars, we can provide clean drinking water for everyone. They said, “We don’t care about that. We’ve got to save the planet.”

Rick:

That’s at the bottom of the scale for them.

David:

Yeah, that’s right. Who cares about saving human lives. And so as Christians should we be concerned about global warming? Well, number one is you need to get the other side of the story. Proverbs 18:17 says, “One side sounds good till you hear the other.” You hear what all the guys are saying about “we’ve got to save the planet.” Most of the guys that are saying that are secularists who have elevated the creation above the Creator.

Rick:

Yeah.

David:

So what you need to do is get the science on the other side. Read the Russian scientists, the Australian scientists, the * scientists – all these other scientific voices who are saying, “Whoa, guys, look at the scientific evidence.”

So in that standpoint, is that an issue for us as voters? Shouldn’t be, because we’ll end up spending money on things that won’t make a difference. At least science is now proving that over the last several years – that’s why this such a lower issue because it’s not going where scientists in America said it was going. It’s also Biblically wrong because we’re elevating the planet above man and in God’s paradigm. You can’t do that and that’s why it’s a wrong issue.

Rick:

And that doesn’t mean that we don’t take care of the things God gave us.

David:

You bettcha.

Rick:

It doesn’t mean go rape and pillage the earth.

David:

That’s right.

Rick:

It means take care of it the best you can, but don’t elevate it.

David:

And by the way, God said in 1 Corinthians 8 that we are to use the Earth, not abuse the Earth. But you know what? I’m a landowner. I have horses, and we have sheep, and we have other things on our ranch. I take care of my property.

Rick:

Yeah.

David:

You know, I’ve got a car. I’m not about to beat the dickens out of my car. If you have that concept as a Christian, you’re going to take care of it.

Even Proverbs tells us that a godly man is kind to his animals. We’re not out to abuse things, but still we are over it. Everything else is below man, man is at the top. Everything else is below man. Man is not the one to serve them, it’s the other way around.

Rick:

Alright, David, we’ve got time for one more question on our topic of social justice today.

Question:

There’s a lot more in the Bible than just abortion and marriage. Why do people get stuck on these issues?

Rick:

Yeah, I’ve heard some, I guess criticism, of those of us that are evangelicals that talk about abortion, and we talk about marriage, and how important those things are. And we fight political battles on that. Some people say, “Just leave those alone. There are other things we need to be worrying about.”

David:

Yeah, well, you go back to what we were talking about earlier. You take God’s top 10. I’m sorry, but abortion and marriage do make the top 10. You don’t kill (which is take, shed, innocent blood.) You don’t murder and that’s abortion. And you don’t commit adultery and that is, God says, “I want you to protect marriages the way I gave it to you – the relationship with one man one woman.”

Rick:

So gay marriage is outside of that.

Marriage God’s Way

David:

Gay marriage is outside of that. So that the marriage issue is there. And by the way, it’s not just gay marriage. It’s divorce reform and everything else. Anything that weakens marriage. It’s, you know, there’s a big move now for polyamorous marriage and polygamous marriage and all this. Doesn’t matter – anything outside the definition of one man one woman the way I gave it to you.

Jesus came along in Matthew 19 said, “Don’t forget, at the beginning, He made you one man, one woman, and that’s the relationship He wants. Moses allowed divorce because the hardness of your heart, but it wasn’t at the beginning.”

And that’s what we’ve got to preserve. So whether that’s homosexual marriage or whether that’s working on divorce reform in the states, that makes the God’s top ten.

But you look for global warming, look for taking care of the poor, you look for any of these other “social justice” issues -they don’t make the top 10. Does that mean they’re not important? No, it doesn’t mean that, but it means that these are the priorities.

For us to take any other issue and raise it up as a priority is to assert the word of God – God’s the one who said these are My top ten. You need to have my interests at heart. And when we change that, and alter that, it’s like we were talking about earlier – that is completely rewriting what God has told us His priorities are and we need to make His priorities our priorities.

Social Justice Issues – Let’s Take Care Of God’s Top 10

Rick:

Thanks for listening today folks. Many of you have the DVD set of The American Heritage Series you can now get the sequel which is Building on the American Heritage Series. A lot of new material, some fantastic programs you want to have in your library. You can get it at our website today at WallBuilders.com.