All right , friends . Today we're talking about the church's role in the fight against human trafficking . Guys , very few things make me as sick as this . What was the movie Mark that was out the big ?
Speaker 3movie Sound of Freedom .
Speaker 1Sound of Freedom . Look , Ray's prepared .
Speaker 3You encouraged me to go and see it , so I went by myself in the afternoon and watched it .
Speaker 1You bawled your eyes out right Very moving movie .
Speaker 3Yeah , there's a new one . They put out same director .
Speaker 1I think City of Dreams Is that in the theaters .
Speaker 3Yeah , I think so pretty soon . A lot of celebrities endorsed it , lots and lots of celebrities , and I thought , as I was watching it wouldn't it be great if they could endorse a movie against abortion ? Human trafficking , that gets their sympathy , but abortion doesn't . That's so true . Why do we call it human trafficking when it's just slavery ?
Speaker 2What's the reason for changing it ?
Speaker 3And it's probably because we like to think as human beings . We have dealt with slavery . That's a thing of the past .
Speaker 2But it's not . It's here , and it's because man's heart's wicked and evil .
Speaker 2Definitely , and I think another reason potentially is that slavery today looks a lot different , and so if we labeled it slavery , people would go well , wait a minute , no one's in change . It's not like outwardly open , it's hidden . We walk by potentially people who are being trafficked every day . We don't know , rather than , like in transatlantic slave trade , it was very clear who the slaves were , and so there's more slaves today than in any other point in human history , which goes against the narrative that , like , somehow we're moving past it . There's 21 , potentially 21 million people who are being human trafficked , who are basically slaves . There was a big bust , like five years ago in Irvine . They were , they had prostitutes trafficked , prostitutes from Japan , and they were in a really nice apartment complex . They had like eight or nine different apartments that the traffickers were renting out and it was basically a brothel in the middle of a middle upper class community . I mean , you guys know Irvine it's a nice community .
Speaker 4There was a big bus this past week in Los Angeles where hundreds of people went down . But to your point , ray Tim Keller . He had said if you're helping suffering people but not calling out the forces that caused the suffering , you're not fully doing justice . Right , so you're right . Right , we have to take it a step
further . Why is this happening ? Where is this happening ? What can I do to kind of be involved in this ? Right , we're talking about the church's role in the fight against human trafficking and I think that we have to start with . There's a responsibility to defend the oppressed . Do we recognize that ? All right , now we can have a conversation where to move forward .
Speaker 1Yeah , and Mark , I'm so glad you highlighted that because you know we've talked about the pendulum , right , it's constantly swinging to either extreme and I think that because of the whole social justice movement and connection with wokeness , we just kind of act like we , as Christians , don't get involved in that stuff . That disgusts me .
Speaker 4It really does , yeah .
Speaker 1It's like someone hijacks something , twists it and then we just throw it overboard . That's insanity . We are the light of the world , we are the salt of the earth . I mean we can't abdicate that and recognize our ability to have impact and effect , you know , and so yeah . So I think first of all we need to recognize like this goes way back , because whether it's sex trafficking and that's kind of a part of you know , our focus today but whether it's that or human trafficking in general , people taking human beings this goes far back Exodus 21 , 16, . He who kidnaps a man and sells him , or if he is found in his hand , shall surely be put to death .
Speaker 3That stops it , doesn't it ? That's it , that's right .
Speaker 1Yeah , and you know , and I mean , look in the law there are a lot of different prohibitions and many of them didn't include the death penalty . But those that did , you knew they were severe in the sight of God . And so there is an abomination in Scripture that deals with kidnapping someone , taking someone . I mean , and you think of the horrors of that , you know , I remember one time we were at a fair and I thought I had lost my daughters , Summer and Julia , when they were little girls . I mean , you guys are dads , you understand , like that moment in time , and to me , the horror of a parent having had a child abducted for years and not knowing what's happened to them .
Speaker 1I mean the daily nightmare of just not even being able to sleep , like thinking your child is out there and what's happened to them . I mean the daily nightmare of just not even being able to sleep , like thinking your child's out there and what's happening to them . And you know those cases you hear about , like someone 20 years later is found and escapes , like this lady . It's just , it's madness .
Speaker 4I remember sitting my girls down when they were younger and it wasn't just a one-time event where I said , listen , trafficking is very real . I had to explain it at a very early time and then what to do in the midst of it . Because what do you do ? Right , in a spiritual sense , you raise
your fist at God . Where is God ? Why didn't God prevent this from happening ? If God is loving and all-powerful , why do the innocent suffer ? And I remember walking through with my girls , even recently , on how to even worship God in the midst of this and not to accuse God of wrongdoing . And I believe that my girls got to a place—they haven't arrived , they haven't attained—but it's the realization that this is a fallen world and there are dark people out there wanting to do some dark things .
Speaker 3Didn't you almost lose your daughter in Paris to human trafficking ?
Speaker 4Yeah , well , I don't know that it was indeed human trafficking , but it did seem like that to me , absolutely . We were right by the pier , at the raised foundation , where a lot of people take pictures there .
Speaker 2You mean of the Eiffel Tower .
Speaker 4Eiffel Tower , excuse me , yeah , and this guy and another guy just honed in on my daughter and they were following us to different places and , to make a long story short , it definitely scared us enough to where we ran back to the hotel and we took the first flight out of there to come home .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah and Ray . I mean , that's not a a novel concept . Someone came up with justice , maybe the term social justice , but there is such a thing as biblical justice and and god loves it . How do we , as christians , tap into ? That yeah a mic uh six , eight , yeah , flavorful .
Speaker 3he's showing the man what is good and what the lord requires of you . Sing it Do justice , love , mercy .
You're stuttering Mark Sing it . What a terrible thing .
Speaker 1Rap it right ?
Speaker 3Yeah , so there's that balance of salt and light . Let me just share something here Every human being is a victim of human trafficking . According to scripture , certain the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men and meet us , instructing those that oppose themselves If God pervention would give them repentance , the acknowledging of the truth that they might recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will . And so we've got the gospel that sets people free . So , on one hand , we stand for justice and social issues . On the other hand , we take for justice and social issues . On the other hand , we take that glorious gospel that takes people out of the hands of the devil and makes them free .
Speaker 2You know you guys are reminding me of another chapter in Generous Justice which talks exactly about this . It's like he points out there's three areas in which we need to be involved in help . He says the first area is relief . Relief is the idea that you see someone . It's like the good Samaritan you see somebody in pain . You see somebody in pain in some sort of turmoil , and we do something to rescue that individual person . Then he talks about restoration , which is not just that you get those people back up on their feet , but you preach the gospel to them . They might come to a saving faith and you help them in a restorative way so that one day not only are they living a healthy , beautiful life , but they can give back towards the problem .
Speaker 2But the other thing he talks about is reform , and that's exactly what you're talking about . And reform could be laws , but it could also be . It is also recognizing the cultural precedence that gives way to make these things okay . And I always imagine , hearing this podcast through the lens of a non-believer , them thinking themselves well , wait a minute , it's nobody's fault , but the trafficker's fault For sure . The trafficker is primarily responsible , but because of the porn industry , because of the over sexualization of women . Our culture has created the environment that makes these horrific things possible . And in order to change the problem , sure , we need to provide relief , restoration , but we also need to talk about reform .
Speaker 4And what can you do individually to answer your question yeah , you can raise awareness . Christine Kane , she's the founder of A21 . She deals with modern anti-trafficking . She's a modern anti-trafficking leader and she said the opposite of love is not hate , it's indifference , and indifference is the enemy of justice , that we need to be able to speak up . We need to open up our mouth , as Proverbs 31 says , for the mute and for the rights of all who are destitute . Open up your mouth , judge righteously and defend the rights of the poor and the needy . Mother Teresa said you may not be able to feed a thousand , but you can feed one .
Speaker 1That's where we stand up and we say no , I'm not going to contribute to this . And this brings up a good point , ray , heading this stuff off in terms of what we can do at its source , of what causes that right , like you climb up and put a blanket on a billboard or something .
Speaker 3No one would ever do that . No one would do that . I did not put a blanket on a billboard . I put it on a lady's naked body . On a billboard On a billboard .
Speaker 1Yeah , make sure to clarify on a billboard .
Speaker 4I'm sorry it was a billboard it was a billboard .
Speaker 3Yeah , I thought I was going to die because of some law , of something . I hit the staple gun and it not be backwards
when I hit it .
Speaker 2Oh no , and I thought I was going gonna end up at the bottom of the billboard with a red blanket over me . I could just see Ray rolling up the windows we have a picture of that don't we yes we do .
Speaker 1Yeah well , friends , let me wrap up with this . Look , I think we all need to reevaluate two things that we often say I can't afford it and I don't have time . May we reevaluate those and really ask ourselves is that true when it comes to standing up for things ? We were talking specifically about sex trafficking , but this applies to so many more things . Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast . Friends , we value your time , so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped without the jokes and fellowship . Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday , where we dive deeper into the topic . Until then , you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv .