May 6, 2021 Show with Blake Kenaum on “Navigating Church Difficulties Related to Tyrannical Government Restrictions”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Thursday On this sixth day of May 2021

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I'm thrilled to have on the program for the very first time ever Blake Keenum, pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada which is a part of the network of churches of Anchored in Truth Ministries, a new sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and is also a church plant of Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

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Today we are going to be addressing with Pastor Blake navigating church difficulties related to tyrannical government restrictions and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor Blake Keenum.

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Hi Chris, thank you for having me. And am I pronouncing your name correctly? You know

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I'm quite surprised you did. Well tell our listeners about Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada.

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Okay, Manitoba is a province in central Canada located just north of what

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I would say is the Minnesota and North Dakota border and our city

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Selkirk is located about two and a half hours just north of the American border, just north of the city of Winnipeg.

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Many people may have heard of the city of Winnipeg. I've had the privilege to be the pastor of this church for going on three years now.

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This church has been a part of the Anchored in Truth Network for I want to say a number of years.

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I would be guessing to guess but somewhere between five and ten years this church has been associated with them and in 2018 my church,

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Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals, ordained and sent me here to take over an already existing church and we kind of did a revitalization or a reconstitution of the church at that point and I've been pastoring there ever since.

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Great and what would be the theological makeup of Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba?

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We would be considered a Reformed Baptist. We would believe in the doctrines of grace, a

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Reformed understanding of stereology, with a high view of the church I think added to boot.

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Well that's music to my ears. Well, if anybody wants more information about Grace Life Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, and we do have a lot of listeners in Canada, their website is selkirk,

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K -I -R -K, which is the Scottish word for church, gbc .org,

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S -E -L -K -I -R -K -G -B -C -DOT -ORG.

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And if you want more information also about the ministry involved in planting this church, that's

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Anchored in Truth Ministries, a new sponsor of this program, you'll be hearing their ads during the program.

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But anchoredintruth .org, anchoredintruth .org is their website.

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And also the Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama can be found at gracelifeshoals .org,

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gracelifeshoals .org. We have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Blake, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, including the religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

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So let's hear your story. Yeah, well, if I could summarize it,

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I would say God has graced and blessed me since the day I was born. I had the privilege of being raised in a

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Christian household. My parents caused that I cut my teeth on a church pew, and took me to a

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Baptist church in northeast Mississippi, and spent my entire childhood there, and honestly, as I struggle with it later in life,

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I believe the Lord began working on my heart when I was nine years old, brother, and convicting me of what

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I believe to be sincere drawings of an awareness of sin, and when

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I was nine years old, I cried out to the Lord and sought him to save me, and I believe he did, because not only did he give me peace in my heart almost immediately,

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I began to see immediate changes in my life, even at that early age. God began to give me a new desire for the things of the

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Lord, his word, something I've only seen continue since then, and so I was nine years old, and providentially, that wasn't the end of everything that the

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Lord was doing in my life, but when I got to be in my late teens, God began working on me that I should consider what

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I'm going to do with my life, and through a series of events, I couldn't go into all of them with you,

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I became convinced that the Lord had a strong desire to use my life proclaiming the gospel and ministering to souls the good news of Jesus, and so since that time from the age of 16,

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I've been on the path of ministry. It took me a while, probably longer than others, just at the age of 30,

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I finally began my first senior pastorate, and to give you a little bit of a backstory,

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I was raised an Armenian Baptist. I was raised with an understanding of salvation, primarily concentrated on being a free will, emphasis on free will, and when

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I got to studying theology and seminary and looking at things, I couldn't make sense of a lot of scriptures,

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I couldn't make sense of a lot of my experiences, and through God's providence and God's grace, he helped me find the preaching of Jeff Noblitt.

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I don't know if you've ever heard his, he has a famous sermon called, Election Pure and Simple. Have you ever heard of that one? No, I have not.

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I've heard about Brother Noblitt, but I have not heard the sermon yet. At one time,

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I will say it was pretty popular on sermon audio, and here I am, I don't know, the only thing

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I've been taught about Calvinism and the doctrines of grace is that it's heresy and they're heretics, you don't need to have anything to do with them.

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I'm in my early 20s and have theological education, starting going down that road, and that's what

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I know, and so I have all these inner conflicts going on, and I began listening to preaching.

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I found sermon audio about that time, and Brother Jeff's sermons, and wouldn't you know it, every pastor or every preacher

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I heard, that the Lord just opened my heart and said, I began to hear biblical exposition, and then when

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I would go investigate those men about what their doctrine was and what their belief, without exception, every single one of them were

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Calvinistic. And so, after about a year of that, I finally sat down and said,

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I need to examine what Calvinism actually is. So I did, and I listened to Brother Jeff's sermon on election, pure and simple,

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I listened to others, I don't know if you've ever heard of John Reisinger and Ernest Reisinger? Oh yeah, well first of all,

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Ernie, he is the one that pronounced his last name Reisinger, even though his brother

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John pronounced it Reisinger. But Ernie did that later in life, by the way, because he found out that that was apparently the correct

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German pronunciation. So he began pronouncing his name Reisinger.

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Ernie Reisinger is the founder of the church where I am a member. He founded

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Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s, where I am a member.

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I have been a member since 2015, after relocating from New York to Pennsylvania.

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And Ernie later moved on in the 60s, I believe, to Cape Coral, Florida, and for many years was in leadership along with Tom Askel at the

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Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida. But his brother John Reisinger, he preferred that pronunciation, the one that he was raised with, he ran, for many years, a conference that I attended many times, called the

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John Bunyan Conference, actually it was typically shortened to just being the

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Bunyan Conference, and I usually call it the John Bunyan Conference, so people don't think I'm talking about a conference for podiatrists or something.

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So instead of calling it the Bunyan Conference, I call it the John Bunyan Conference. But I went to that many times, and they were brothers, blood brothers, who came to the

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Doctrines of Grace, and they parted company when it came to the divide over the

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Covenantal Reformed Baptist theology, which was Ernie's adopted approach to Calvinism, and what later became and is currently known as New Covenant theology, the theology espoused by John.

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Both men are in heaven, so they both know what the truth is over that debate now, but they had that conflict with each other for many decades, unfortunately.

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But yeah, to answer your question, yeah, I know who they are. Well, you just educated me a little bit.

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All I knew is that they were guys on Sermon Audio who could open the Scriptures and help me understand it in a way that I hadn't had it before.

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And so, around 2013, God opened my eyes to the Doctrines of Grace, and I was in a church that was anti -Calvinistic.

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I mean, staunchly anti -Calvinistic. And as a result, I had to leave, part peacefully, and I came to Grayside Church of Muscle Shoals, and for five years,

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God re -established, and it was like God poured concrete into my soul, brother.

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I'd never heard biblically sound exposition like that before. I didn't hear bad preaching growing up.

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I just didn't hear solid, wholesome preaching. And it was like many of the small issues that I had in my personal walk with the

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Lord, God answered that, because I was now in a church that was opening up the Scriptures and giving me, thus says the

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Lord. And I attribute that because they had a good, solid foundation of doctrine, and the

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Doctrines of Grace, and a high view of the church. And so, I spent five years at that church being invigorated and taught the

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Word of God and mentored, and after which time, they sent me up here to pastor. That's kind of my testimony, brother.

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Well, I loved hearing it, and I'm going to give our listeners our email address if they have any questions about our topic today,

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Navigating Church Difficulties Related to Tyrannical Government Restrictions. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

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Well, first of all, why don't you let our listeners know about how

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Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, has been able to maintain an existence there ever since, it seems, the

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COVID epidemic or pandemic has made Canada seem more like the

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Soviet Union before the Iron Curtain fell. It's been quite troubling to see what's happening to churches there, especially the one that comes immediately to mind is the church that probably has gotten more airtime in the news in regard to the government coming down hard on them.

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That's the church where Pastor Jim Coates is the pastor,

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I believe, in Ontario. I interviewed his attorney over this issue, but how have you been able to get by?

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Well, I told a couple of my lead guys in the church I'd be talking to you today, and they really appreciated your title,

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Navigating, as in we are still navigating. He said it's almost like our hands are still on the rudder and we're still holding on.

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That's really a good description, and the short answer is that it's been a really challenging but blessed long year.

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We have taken a long time to get where we are, and it took us almost a whole year to really come to a firm footing, but currently we have decided that the church is not under the jurisdiction of the province of Manitoba or the country of Canada, and as such, they don't have any authority to dictate to us the terms or the manner in which we worship.

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Praise God. And so that's where we are.

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The details of everything fluctuate from one week to another, and I'm sure we're going to continue in that state, because it doesn't seem to indicate that our country is going to do anything but what they're doing right now.

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But that's where we are. Now, have you remained open, or did you close for a season?

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How is that situation being handled as far as restrictions on public worship?

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Well, the short answer is we closed and tried to abide by all of the restrictions that are possible, and we really did.

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Up until about November, we really observed every single restriction that the government made out.

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Now, for your listeners' sake, just to get some context to that, this is not anything like in the realm of what my parents in Mississippi experienced or the church in Alabama experienced.

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There, the government didn't come down hard on churches, but from the get -go with us, from March of 2020, the government came down and said, you will do what we say, when we say it, or we're going to fine you.

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And they came down with a hard line against churches. And so we tried to play ball with them for a while and tried to say, because we thought this is going to be temporary, they're not going to, you know, everybody's had to play catch -up, so to speak.

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We didn't really understand what was going on. We had an immediate knee -jerk reaction of fear over the virus.

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And so we spent the greater part of last year trying to abide by and do the best we can to work with our government officials.

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And in my defense, I think I was slow, probably a little too slow, but I had a lot of counselors in my corner through the

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Anchored in Truth Network who advised me, say, yes, this is wrong, but be patient. Don't try to work with them as best as you possibly can.

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And so we did, but after the beginning of 2021, in January, we sat down and we had probably our thousandth meeting as church leadership, is what it feels like.

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We had a bunch of them. And we finally had to draw a line in the sand and say, we must obey God rather than man.

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This doesn't look like it's going to end. And we have to begin prioritizing the needs, the spiritual needs of our people, whatever the cost.

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Because we were beginning to experience and feel not only the responsibility we had to our church, but we were losing ground, obviously and apparently.

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Much of our fellowship, we were losing the closeness and the bond that we had. Many members were beginning to feel like they were getting distant from the church.

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Not only that, I had a brother the other day who prayed in a prayer meeting. He says, brother, he was praying to the

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Lord. He says, Lord, I want to thank you that my church is open today. He says, I didn't realize it, but I was slipping.

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And I was personally beginning, he said, I didn't know how much I was slipping away from you.

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And he says, but I do now. He says, thank you that my church is open. And so we sat down in the beginning of January and we counted the costs and we evaluated that the cost spiritually and before God far outweighed anything our government could rail against us.

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And we opened then and we haven't closed since. By the way, folks, I made an error when

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I was mentioning Pastor James Coates, his church where he serves as a pastor, pastor teacher,

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Grace Life Church of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, not Ontario. I want to apologize for that.

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So just out of curiosity, I know that here in the

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United States, there is a wide variety of ways, it seems, in which the local governments have been mandating restrictions and so forth during this

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COVID hysteria. Red states typically being far more lenient or even absent of restrictions, those being the conservative or more dominated by conservatives and Republicans and the blue states being more dominated by Democrats and liberals being more strict.

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What about the difference between where you are, for instance, and Alberta, Canada, and other places in Canada?

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What are the ranges of severity in regard to these mandates?

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It fluctuates between provinces. Not all the provinces are equal on that regard and they're not all equal at the same time.

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Currently, I believe Ontario has this in the whole history of restrictions, has the most severe restrictions currently of any province at any time during this whole pandemic.

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That's Ontario. Before that, at one time, my province,

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Manitoba, had that. Manitoba, in November, enacted what was then the most severe restrictions to date.

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But here's the kicker, and this has been the confusing aspect of it.

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Both Manitoba and Alberta are the conservative provinces. These are what you would call the red states.

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These are the conservative, supposedly, premiers. Yet in Alberta, they have now quarantined and confiscated a church.

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Even in our province, they have levied great fines against certain churches for opening their doors when they shouldn't.

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How is that explained? Why is there a difference between the

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United States' typical attitude towards this in regard to a conservative approach being more lenient and just north of us, the northern part of the

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North American continent, you folks seem to have a reverse situation.

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Why is that? Well, I don't know that I can honestly give you a full answer to that.

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I don't have a complete grasp of the Canadian political situation.

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But I can relate to you what one brother said. This is a pastor over in Ontario.

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I can't remember if I heard him say it in a sermon or where. But he tied it to the socialized medicine of Canada.

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And he explained how that you need to see the Canadian medical situation or healthcare situation in terms of that the government has a vested interest in the health of its people.

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Someone told me the other day that, for example, Alberta, where James Coates is, their province and their yearly budget and the government budget, 50 % of the budget goes to healthcare.

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Now, I haven't verified that to back that up. But it would seem to indicate that because the government is in control of healthcare, they feel inclined to assert dominion over the lives of their people because they're having to pay the bill.

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They're the ones having to pay for it. That helped me see it clearly.

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I don't know if that helps you. So you're saying the more conservative areas of Canada politically are also simultaneously more left in the area of socialized medicine?

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Is that what you mean? More left in conservative states, yes. Yes. But I couldn't give you any more explanation than what

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I just said to explain why. You'd have to ask a more seasoned Canadian for that answer.

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Oh, that's right. You're a Mississippian. By the way, how close are you to Laurel?

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Or should I say were? How close were you to Laurel, Mississippi? It's the only city in Mississippi I visited.

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Good ways. Good ways. Okay. I went to the Deep South Founders Conference there. Manned an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trippin's Iron Radio.

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We have to go to our first break right now. If anybody has a question for our guest. His name is

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Blake Keenum. See, I pronounced it correctly.

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Now I'm forgetting how to pronounce it. It's Keenum, right? Correct. You have a question for our guest,

25:49

Blake Keenum of Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada on navigating church difficulties related to tyrannical government restrictions.

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Send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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And as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, we'll be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. My friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

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Our guest today is Blake Keenum of Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, which is a part of the network of churches of Anchored in Truth Ministries and a church plant of Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

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We are addressing the theme, Navigating Church Difficulties Related to Tyrannical Government Restrictions.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

35:33

Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

35:39

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And going back to where we left off, you have refused, after that initial postponing, if you will, of live public gatherings for worship, you have refused to shut down after that.

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And have there been repercussions by the government? I'm happy to report that currently we have avoided major scrutiny from our government officials.

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This was honestly unexpected because there was already a precedent set in our province in late 2020 where a church was opening against guidelines and incurred upwards of $30 ,000 in fines.

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And I think it had even been threatened with jail time for the pastor if he did not get in the line.

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And so we were expecting a pretty quick shutdown and we'd have to do like James Coach Church and go into Underground Church.

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But when we opened our church, the guidelines were beginning to grow lax, and I'm not sure why or what caused it, but after six weeks of monitoring us, our health officials were outside our church building sitting in their vehicles watching us for about six weeks and monitoring us.

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It looked like they were taking counts of our cars and our vehicles and how many people we had. They left us alone for a while, and the restrictions eased up enough so that we were not really in conflict.

37:22

But I'm sad to report that our province just went backwards and has gone into what

37:29

I would call an almost lockdown. Currently right now, churches can only have 10 people in a building.

37:36

If you have any more than that, you could be fined or both the pastor and the church itself could be fined for that.

37:46

And so that's been about two weeks ago that happened, and they don't really know which way it's going.

37:53

There doesn't seem to be a break to this or a stop to it. They keep moving the goalposts.

38:00

Currently my church is meeting, and it's against the law.

38:08

It sounds weird to me to say that, that me and my church family gathering together on Sunday mornings is illegal.

38:17

We could experience fines of up to $5 ,000 for every time we meet and then $1 ,250 for me personally every time we meet.

38:31

But thankfully that hasn't happened yet. Well, praise God for that. And just like a lot of things in this life, there are differences of opinion, and very stark contrasts amongst believers over these issues on the level of obedience that a church or an individual

38:59

Christian must demonstrate towards governing authorities, even when we disagree with the mandates.

39:06

These differences of opinion have even split churches, even churches that I am personally aware of not far from where I'm sitting.

39:16

And there is definitely an uncomfortable measure of strife and tension and debate and dispute over these issues, over these disagreements.

39:32

Has everyone in your congregation been fairly unanimous in agreeing with the elders on their approach to this, or have there been those who either have left or are still putting up an argument that you've got to be more obedient to the governing authorities?

39:54

To answer your question, we had a congregational meeting in which we asked our church to affirm our decision.

40:04

We recognized the risks that were involved. We laid out a biblical case by the elders, so the church felt this was the direction we should go, and I'm happy to report that 75 % of our congregation affirmed it.

40:19

But yes, we have had some conflict as a result. There have been differences of opinion, even among faithful, prominent members of my church.

40:33

And you're exactly right in how you described that. That is probably one of the major difficulties that's come out of this year, dealing with those things.

40:45

Well, navigating church difficulties related to tyrannical government restrictions is our topic, and go through those difficulties and how you, as leaders of your congregation, have chosen, being led by the

41:06

Word of God and the Spirit of God, to navigate those difficulties. Tell us about the approach that you have decided unanimously as leaders to follow, believing that God is on your side in that decision, or those decisions, plural.

41:27

What would be some of the difficulties that have been raised, and tell us about some of your approaches to navigating them.

41:37

Yeah, so trying to think where to begin because they're so varied and they spread out.

41:47

I think the initial one and the one we had, the biggest hurdle we had to get over is that we were not violating

41:53

Romans 13 by disobeying our government in this way. It took a long time for us to get there.

42:02

We had to think through really hard. And honestly, I want to say that in retrospect, that all the things that have happened to our congregation over the last year have rather served for our benefit and our good.

42:17

The psalmist in Psalm 119 said, it was good for me that I was afflicted that I may learn your statutes.

42:23

I may learn to keep your statutes. And honestly, before this year, we hadn't thought really hard and had to meditate on the relationship between church and state.

42:39

We hadn't had to deal with, okay, let's really make sure here that what it means to be a church.

42:49

And in this way, we felt, of course, it's a doctrine we've studied and thought hard about, but what does it mean to be a church?

42:57

Is it sufficient for us to have church over Zoom? Is that sufficient for the time?

43:05

Should we just be content with that? The other issues that have come up, arguments.

43:12

Some of the chief arguments I heard when we were arguing for opening the church was that this isn't persecution.

43:20

We're called by God to obey the state. And then most of them drifted toward a pragmatic, worldly -wise approach to evangelism.

43:30

It was centered around this will be a bad witness to our community because the prevailing notion around here because of the propaganda by our media is that the coronavirus and the measures that our government have enacted are appropriate and justified, which if you actually do your own research and study the statistics, that's just not true.

43:55

And so I'm sad to report the prevailing notion of our society in Canada right now is that we love these restrictions if we want more of them.

44:04

It's weird for me to think about. So we'll be a bad witness.

44:12

People are going to despise us, and we're going to bring unnecessary reproach to the name of Jesus.

44:18

I had an accusation, which I later realized that God was just gaslighting me.

44:25

He said, You're just a rebellious and independent American. That's what he said to me.

44:33

Another argument was, This is a bad use of church finances. We could be using this money to support missionaries, and this is bad use of church finances.

44:45

Now, what exactly is the bad use of finances? Well, we were accepting the risk of thousands of dollars worth of funds that our church may be liable to pay.

44:57

Oh, I see what you're saying. They were being hypothetical. They were being hypothetical that you would be fined, but that never actually happened yet.

45:05

Not yet. Not yet. But it still could. And so, honestly, brother, it brought to bear that we had some issues with the pragmatic accommodation of worldly wisdom.

45:18

And that's why I say this for our benefit, because those things became a little bit more clear. Honestly, I haven't heard a single reason why a church should not be open by a person who was advocating for a church not to be open that was not an unbalanced approach to the

45:37

Scripture, a superficial treatment of the Scriptures, or it was an apparent excuse rooted in the fear of man.

45:46

And so, this kind of ties in back to why I'm on your broadcast. I'm a three -year senior pastor.

45:54

I haven't been in this pastorate but for three years, and so I'm fresh. I'm green. And we were really concerned about making the right approach in the right way here.

46:04

And my Anchored in Truth network of churches really came and stepped up to the plate for me back in late fall of 2020, because I had the privilege and I had the ability to call pastors who were seasoned ministers, men who had been pastoring for 40 years in ministry and knew the

46:26

Scriptures and knew their stuff. And I called and I began investigating. I began to lay out our case and what we were looking at and why we should do it.

46:33

And without exception, all of my brothers told me, you're in grounds of Scripture. You're in no clear violation of the

46:39

Scriptures. We are 100 % behind you. We'll support you. Whatever you need, we'll be here to help you.

46:47

And brother, I tell you, I don't know that I would have had the courage to do that. Maybe I should be ashamed to say this, but I don't know that I would have had the courage to do what we've done if it wasn't for the support we received through our network of churches.

47:03

And so, that's kind of how it played out to us. If you would like, I can give you my responses to how

47:11

I answered those objections we received. Oh, definitely. Because honestly, these were things our church was dealing with internally and we were wrestling through.

47:23

And honestly, at the time, brother, they were really hard. And I didn't know how to wade through them.

47:30

But the first one about persecution, that was the chief one. That was that we are not being singled out by our government and we're not being persecuted.

47:40

And therefore, we have no biblical basis to disobey the government. And what the principle was there is that unless the government is trying to infringe on the gospel, we have to obey them no matter what.

47:55

That may be clear to you, but at the moment for me, that was tricky because I had to think, come on now.

48:01

That's true, the government's not censoring us. They're not telling us we can't preach the gospel.

48:07

We can preach it on Zoom, quote -unquote. They're only saying we need you for a quote -unquote temporary time of staying from gathering in one place.

48:17

So, we answered that. We came to a resolution about that because we determined that was a romantic view of persecution and not that grounded in fact or history.

48:29

We had brothers who would talk about trying to compare us to the Christians in China.

48:36

The Christians in China are having to meet secretly, and therefore, we should be just content to not have, we don't have to be open and we don't have to be public.

48:44

The Christians in China, and that's just, I don't really understand what they were trying to, how they were drawing a comparison honestly, but they were.

48:52

But it was really, excuse me, a superficial understanding of persecution. Historically, by the way, research and Christians have never been, have never often been persecuted merely for the fact that they were

49:07

Christian. They're persecuted because in some way, shape, or form, their ideals come into conflict with their culture or their government that was in power.

49:25

Right, like the Romans even in the first century were only persecuting the church if they did not also bow to Caesar in addition to Christ.

49:36

Yeah, perfect example. So right there, that example, they were not persecuted per se because they were

49:44

Christian. They were persecuted because they could not pinch incense and say Caesar was Lord.

49:50

And the same situation exists today with militant Hinduism. Hindus, no matter how militant they are, could not care less if you worship

50:01

Christ. But, depending upon how militant they are and where you live, a

50:07

Hindu can persecute you very violently, even to the point of death, if you say that Jesus is the only true

50:16

God that is worthy of worship and that all other gods are false and to worship any other god is idolatry.

50:23

That's what will get the militant Hindu to possibly torture or kill you.

50:29

Absolutely. Yeah, and even the example that was railed at me a lot from China, they said, well,

50:35

China, they're persecuting Christians. But I got to investigating that because it's only a couple years old where we had an example of that.

50:43

And our research in China is not about to suppress Christianity.

50:51

They're not targeting specifically Christians and isolating them to try to get them out of the country.

50:57

My understanding is that China is targeting all dissenters. In fact, we have to pick up right where you left off about China persecuting dissenters because we have to go to our midway break right now.

51:11

So, just remember where you left off there and we'll pick up when we return. And please be patient with us during the midway break, folks, because it is longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they are required by the

51:28

FCC to localize Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio and all of their programming geographically to Lake City, Florida.

51:35

So they air their own public service announcements and other local things in the middle of the show while we simultaneously air globally heard commercials.

51:45

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our advertisers.

51:55

And by the way, that doesn't only mean that you have to purchase their goods and use their services and visit their churches and support their parachurch organizations, although I would love for you to do all of those things as often as possible.

52:10

But at the very least, please respond to our advertisers and thank them for sponsoring

52:15

Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio when you can't do those other things to support the advertiser. Let our advertisers know that you are very pleased with the fact that they are financially supporting the show.

52:27

So respond to them and to further ensure you'll do that, write down their information. Also send in questions to our guest today,

52:35

Pastor Blake Keenum at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

52:41

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

53:05

I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio for the

53:11

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.

53:17

The theme this year is Christ is supreme over all. My friend Chris Arnson and I will be joined by several of our other friends, including

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Votie Balcom, Justin Peters, Daryl Bernard Harrison, Virgil Walker and James White.

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More than 20 other speakers will be joining us and the lineup this year includes my pastor, John MacArthur.

53:39

For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.

53:45

Chris Arnson and I hope to see you September 30th through October 2nd at G3 2021.

53:52

This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. When Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

54:08

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Anthony Uvino, founder of thereformrookie .com

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and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the NASB is my

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Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

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Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

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Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the Shoals.

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Based in Alabama, it supports missionaries in over 13 countries around the world.

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Anchored in Truth is in partnership with 36 church plants, as well as radio stations, theological seminaries, and various programs for unreached people groups.

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With an aim to glorify God and reach the nations with the gospel, it is a blessing to see how

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God has used Anchored in Truth in so many different contexts globally, as well as locally.

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To find out more about this vital work worldwide, visit anchoredintruth .org.

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As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

57:01

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

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God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

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God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

58:01

Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. This is

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Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

59:01

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

59:08

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

59:31

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

59:39

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

59:54

Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

01:00:02

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider

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Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:00:17

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

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Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

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This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

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Knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

01:01:15

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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That's 1 -800 -656 -0231. Please let our friends at CVBBS know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:02:43

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love.

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Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:04:10

The Wokeness in the Gospel conference is coming to Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, June 11th and 12th.

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Register now by going online to Wokenessandgospel .org. Featuring speakers such as Dr.

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Owen Strand. If you just buy this ideology, the world's going to be made right. No, it's not.

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Only Jesus Christ makes the world right. Darrell Harrison of the Just Thinking Podcast.

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Sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God, and consequently to one another.

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Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. Like Satan in the Garden, woke hermeneutics undermines the very authority of the

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Word of God. I don't say that lightly. Also hear from Tommy Nelson, Charles Stolfus, and Rodney Brown.

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Confronting the lies being impressed upon the culture today, threatening even to divide the church, and answering with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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The Wokeness in the Gospel conference coming to Denton Bible Church, June 11th and 12th. Register online at Wokenessandgospel .org.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads, will never be read.

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01:08:02

Before we return to our guest today, Pastor Blake Keenum and our discussion of Navigating Church Difficulties Related to Tyrannical Government Restrictions.

01:08:13

We do have a couple more important announcements to make. First of all, you've been hearing the ads for the

01:08:21

G3 Conference. In some of those ads, we mentioned that Votie Baucom will be on the roster at the upcoming

01:08:30

G3 Conference which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 30th through October 2nd.

01:08:37

Well, if you have not heard, Votie Baucom had some months ago a serious health setback which required quadruple bypass surgery.

01:08:48

So he has been temporarily taken, his name has been taken off of the roster until it is proven that Votie is healthy enough and strong enough to return to the roster and actually speak at the

01:09:04

G3 Conference. We have to be very careful about his health and keep that as a priority.

01:09:12

We don't want him taken off this planet just yet as much as heaven is certainly an improvement.

01:09:20

He has a family, a very large family with both natural and adopted children that are not ready to let go of him yet and of course a precious wife.

01:09:32

But also the church at large is in such great debt to Votie Baucom. He is one of the most precious gifts to the body of Christ as far as I'm concerned, as far as preaching and teaching and writing is concerned.

01:09:45

So please pray for Votie Baucom that he is restored to full health and strength and that he is able to resume his role at the upcoming

01:09:54

G3 Conference. And for further details about the G3 Conference where I will be manning an exhibitors booth, go to G3conference .com.

01:10:02

G3conference .com, that's September 30th through October 2nd in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:10:08

I hope to see you there in Atlanta. And God willing, I'll also be attending and manning an exhibitors booth as well at the

01:10:18

Wokeness and the Gospel Conference. You've been hearing those ads as well.

01:10:25

And I'm very excited about this conference which is going to be held at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

01:10:33

Pray for me as I travel there because my own brother lives in Justin, Texas, which is less than a half hour away from where this conference will be held.

01:10:45

I have not seen my oldest brother since 1998 at the funeral of our father.

01:10:51

And my brother is experiencing some very serious health problems, which is especially somewhat frightening at 76 years of age.

01:11:03

So please pray for me as I seek to minister to him and seek to bring the gospel to him.

01:11:09

He is not yet a born -again believer in Christ, so I am hoping that my time with him will be used mightily by our

01:11:17

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King. And then when I leave Texas, it is clear to me that he is truly a child of God.

01:11:27

So please pray about that. And for more details on the Wokeness and Gospel Conference, where I will be attending

01:11:35

June 11th and 12th in Denton, Texas, go to Wokenessandgospel .org.

01:11:44

Wokenessandgospel .org. Also, folks, if you love this show, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves,

01:11:51

I'm urging you, I'm pleading with you, please go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click Support, then click

01:11:58

Click to Donate Now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion. If you prefer snail mail, a physical address will also appear on the screen when you click

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As long as whatever it is you are advertising is compatible with what

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I believe, you don't have to believe exactly as I do, but you need to be promoting something that is at the very least compatible with what

01:12:42

I believe, then I would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we are urgently in need of your advertising dollars just as much as we need your donations.

01:12:52

Also, folks, I try to remember to remind our listeners every day that I don't want my listeners siphoning money away from their regular giving that they're accustomed to to their own local church where they are a member in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:13:12

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01:14:58

Blake Keenum. That's ChrisArnson at gmail .com,

01:15:03

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give this your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Before the midway break, Pastor Blake, you may remember that you were talking about how people who are more prone to want the church to obey the governing authorities, the earthly governing authorities, that they make the excuse that the government is not persecuting you for being

01:15:36

Christians, and you were drawing a parallel between China, how people aren't necessarily being persecuted in China for being

01:15:44

Christians, they're being persecuted for being dissidents, if I'm rehashing that correctly.

01:15:57

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Would you like me to continue? Exactly. Okay. Well, I think you summarized it really well there.

01:16:05

Persecution, I think the point is, most often happens not as a result of an intentional desire to stamp out

01:16:14

Christian influence, but through a conflict of opposing values and worldviews, and it can be different points at which it collides, and when it does, persecution happens not because you're labeled as a

01:16:32

Christian, but because you're a dissident. Your Christian values or particulars of your Christian values come into conflict with either a tyrannical state or the culture at large, and that's even true from what

01:16:46

I understand of Christians in China. I would say

01:16:54

China seems to be an equal opportunity persecutor. They're not just merely persecuting

01:17:00

Christians, they persecute Hindus and Muslims, and for that matter, anybody who comes in can't align themselves under the dictates of the state or the government, and so back when our church was working through these things, that was a major opposition point for us that we had to think through, and so when we actually examined it and looked at it clearly, we found it was just a romantic view.

01:17:32

I think you mentioned Brody Bauckham earlier, is he not quoted as having said, avoiding persecution is easy, all you have to do is capitulate?

01:17:40

I don't know if he said that, but that's an excellent quote. Yeah, something to that effect,

01:17:46

I can't remember exactly, and so we realized at that point, this is in early

01:17:52

January, that that was not a good argument, nor did it hold weight, and just as a side note, isn't it interesting now,

01:17:59

I don't know how anybody can still make that argument today, because since that time, James Coates has been put in prison, his church has been confiscated, bars have been put around them, in addition to that,

01:18:11

I don't know if you're familiar with Trinity Bible Church in Waterloo, Ontario, their pastor, by the name of Jacob Rayling, has since been, his church has now been confiscated, the second church, because he won't cease gathering his people together for worship.

01:18:29

So, to me, at this point, that's almost an all -envolving argument at this point, to say that Christians aren't being persecuted in Canada, because they most certainly are.

01:18:41

So, that's how we answered it at the time. Well, we have, let's see, we have a listener who is anonymous, who says,

01:18:55

I am remaining anonymous because I'm having some difficulty with disputes with my brothers in Christ at church, over the very issues you are addressing.

01:19:07

But my question to you is, what will it take for your church to actually shut down again, for a lengthy period of time, in regard to what may be happening in the world around you there in Canada?

01:19:30

That's a good question. Well, honestly, obviously, we would try to work as best we can if the circumstances dictated it.

01:19:46

If we were living in a society that was experiencing, for example, like the bubonic plague, or some of the other plagues in history, where it could be substantiated that our church is a threat, is an actual tangible threat to the well -being and livelihood of other people around us, then we would have to seriously consider, okay, let's shut down.

01:20:13

We've also said, in our current circumstances, if we find out that a number of our people begin to contract the coronavirus, we might shut our church down for a couple of weeks, and just omit all services during that time, so that we could take care of everybody around us and give time for the virus to pass through.

01:20:34

But in our current circumstance, we have an issue, because it's not merely how to best navigate how to respond in times of sickness.

01:20:47

We have a government who is taking over that responsibility for us. They're asserting themselves to say, we will decide for you, and while we can submit to our government and try to comply as best as possible, we can't give them the church.

01:21:03

The church doesn't belong to them. It's really a contest of jurisdiction. Who is the one who makes the decision about what the church does and how the church operates?

01:21:15

And we're entering into a time, these are unprecedented times in the Western world, where the government of Canada is now saying, we are the ones who decide what you do.

01:21:26

And whether or not you agree with me that our approach is appropriate, I think it behooves all

01:21:31

Christians across the country, Western world, to recognize that this is going down a direction which is not good.

01:21:41

You agree with that? Yes, yes, you made perfect sense. And we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, should those in a congregation that leave that congregation because they are on the side of obeying the government restrictions and mandates, be considered as sinners in this regard?

01:22:07

We're all sinners, of course, but I'm specifically speaking of the action to leave a church because of disagreement over obedience to the government.

01:22:19

If those that leave a church because of that reason and are not receiving the

01:22:26

Lord's table and are not gathering publicly, forsaking the assembling of the brethren, and are not singing praises to our

01:22:35

Lord in corporate worship, and are forsaking the ordinances, should they be considered as being an act of sin and therefore requiring discipline?

01:22:51

I would say no. Unless this person left divisively or was trying to cause a stir in their church, if this person left their church peacefully and said,

01:23:07

I cannot go along with you. I say that because our church has had to answer those questions.

01:23:15

When we opened our church, we tried to have allowance for conscience issues.

01:23:22

We recognized that people had different interpretations about the seriousness of the virus and how to respond for the sake of their own safety and health.

01:23:32

There is a little bit of a threat for you if you are an elderly person. We told our congregation that we would allow that if they needed a time for their own conscience sake to refrain from coming, if they needed to work through these issues, that the church leadership had to be firm and that we were going this direction as a congregation.

01:24:02

I'm distinguishing between that and somebody who's divisive and somebody who says the church is in sin, the church is wrong, you guys shouldn't be doing this.

01:24:12

That's a little bit different. I don't know that I got the best approach there, but we've tried to at least acknowledge there are conscience issues at play here.

01:24:23

I wouldn't consider somebody sinful if they can't agree with us, especially if they leave the church peacefully.

01:24:29

If they don't cause a stir or don't try to leverage people against the leadership of the church and say, you know,

01:24:36

I'm not where you are, I need to go somewhere else. Well, we love you. Hope the best for you.

01:24:43

But, let me put my own two cents in here. How long does that go on where it begins to be considered a sin issue?

01:24:56

I mean, what about five years from now? These people have not been a part of the assembling of the brethren.

01:25:04

They have not received the Lord's table. They have not joined in corporate worship and sung praises to the

01:25:13

Lord with the brothers and sisters. I mean, five years, ten years?

01:25:18

I mean, how long does one wait before this has really plummeted and spiraled into actual sin?

01:25:29

Where you're obeying man over God, you're fearing man over God, etc.

01:25:38

Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know that I have an answer to it, honestly. I don't know how long it is.

01:25:46

I think you're right. You're picking up on some of the difficulties, the issues at play here.

01:25:53

There is a point in which I think we're coming where, I mean, you've got to just say, come on man, wake up.

01:26:01

Are you going to be negligent to your duties to the church and use the government as an excuse not to do it?

01:26:12

I don't know that there's a one -size -fits -all answer to that. I'm not ready yet to ostracize everybody immediately because their conscience won't let them.

01:26:27

What I'm assuming there is they're in submission to their church leadership. They're not trying to be defiant or subversive, but they just say, brother,

01:26:35

I've got to hold up right here. I can't join with you. That's not where I am.

01:26:43

There is a point though, you're right, where it's just, okay, you need to come out of this.

01:26:50

What would you say? Would you do different than that? Yeah, I don't even think that five years needs to pass before I'd come to that conclusion.

01:27:02

As far as being an example of somebody fearing men more than God.

01:27:14

Because the Christians of the first century faced much greater threats, and even

01:27:24

Christians today in certain parts of the world, Sudan, China, and others, they face greater threats than what the government has to say, or the coronavirus itself.

01:27:43

To me, one should always be compassionate and be loving in their approach to these brothers and sisters.

01:27:54

But after a while of pleading with them, don't you see, don't you recognize that you are forsaking the assembling of the brethren over mandates that have no factual basis in the reasoning that they are imposing the mandates.

01:28:12

I think that these folks should be treated as if they are in sin, otherwise you are coddling them, you're not doing them a favor.

01:28:23

If they are just sitting at home and not going to worship, you're not doing them a favor by allowing them to be more comfortable in that sin.

01:28:34

So that's my two cents. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that, brother. I just don't know where the line is.

01:28:41

I don't know if I have a defined, this is the time limit, this is the point where you can now say you're in sin and you're in error.

01:28:51

I can't really say that. I will tell you this, though. I am firmly convinced that if you're a pastor or you're a leader of a church and the only reason why you're not open right now is because the government is telling you not to, if that's it, then you're in sin.

01:29:08

You are ceding authority that does not belong to the government. God has made you the pastor of this church.

01:29:15

I'll give you a good example of how this plays out. Back in the summer, there was a group of churches in our province that made a letter of appeal to our provincial leaders, appealing to them to ease off of churches and to give us liberty to manage ourselves and arguing that we had the benefit and the experience to manage the affairs and the health of our own people.

01:29:39

We go through flu seasons every year, and we have learned when and how to manage our own health.

01:29:44

And so there was an appeal made to our government, our governor, provincial leader, and he responded to it publicly.

01:29:52

And in it, he said, here's what he said. He says, churches do not make health policy.

01:29:59

We do. And so what he was trying to claim is that it was not their jurisdiction to offer him advice about what he should be doing.

01:30:08

But I want to turn that around and say, it's not your jurisdiction to be offering to us what is defining for us what's the basis of worship.

01:30:17

Right. Or asserting, and that's actually happening. Judges in courts are trying to define what worship is.

01:30:26

And so for me, that's where we drew the line. If you are a part of a church, I can say this 100%, or if you're attending a church where the pastor is clearly, or leaders are clearly enunciating to you that the only reason why they're doing what they're doing is not because they feel the virus is a major threat.

01:30:45

There are still people like that that do believe that. They feel the virus is a major threat. But if that's not your pastor, if he's not that way, if the only reason he has for closing the church is this is what the government's telling me to do, he's in error.

01:31:00

He's in grave sin. By the way, I think I should probably modify my response to your question.

01:31:07

I would not have the same opinion toward church members that are elderly and have serious health problems.

01:31:16

I would not consider them being in the sin category by not publicly assembling, just like people in nursing homes or people that are homebound for physical reasons.

01:31:29

They're not expected to be a part of corporate worship. I think that that is a different area.

01:31:38

And one of the reasons that I disagree with, and I might be getting myself into hot water here, but I disagree with the practice of most

01:31:51

Reformed Baptists, and maybe I should rephrase that. It's not a practice. It's a lack of a practice of taking a group of members to a nursing home or somebody's house who is homebound to celebrate the

01:32:10

Lord's Supper with them. That is typically something that Reformed Baptists, and I think the Reformed church in general, does not do.

01:32:17

I'm sure there are exceptions. I'm not talking about in a superstitious way like the

01:32:22

Roman Catholic Church does it, where they will just have one Eucharistic minister or priest go to a hospital and give the

01:32:33

Mass, the Eucharist, to the patient or the resident. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about having a group, a small group even, of people visit, especially in times like this, when there are people who are nervous about being in larger crowds, because of their age and health problems.

01:32:56

But anyway, I just thought I'd throw that in there. Yeah, yeah. I think I gathered that. I think

01:33:01

I saw that's what you meant. And we have Christopher in Western Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and Christopher says,

01:33:14

Have there been like -minded churches in your area that are following your lead or example, or are there churches that are theologically very much like yours, but have decided to go the route of obeying the mandates?

01:33:40

Yes and yes. I think a little bit of both. The majority of churches in our province right now are complying with government restrictions.

01:33:50

Even those that would be theologically reformed, conservative, confessional? Well, I don't have a clear understanding of all the churches that are around us.

01:34:03

There's very few, what we would call, Reformed Baptists around.

01:34:09

There are some Dutch Reformed. So I'm just not aware of all of that. But most churches, yes, are abiding by restrictions for whatever the government says.

01:34:24

There are a few. I'm glad to say that as a result of our church opening up, we found that there were already some already doing it.

01:34:30

There are a number of Reformed Baptist churches in the province of Manitoba who are meeting secretly and have been for a long time.

01:34:39

In homes or in their facilities? In homes, and that's part of their circumstances.

01:34:45

These are new church plants who don't have a facility, don't have a way to meet publicly, and you can't rent any building now because they're all closed because of the restrictions.

01:34:56

And so they've been meeting in homes. I know one brother, he had a business owner, a farmer, who rented him his shop during the winter because he didn't use it during the winter.

01:35:10

And so their church was meeting in a shop during the winter. So I've got to admit, that's actually been some of God's providence in this brother.

01:35:18

We have met other like -minded Christians and brothers who are faithful, who are preaching the gospel, and I didn't even know they were around.

01:35:26

There's one brother I met by the name of Steve Flippin. He's over in Saskatoon.

01:35:32

Fellowship Baptist Church, really good brother, really solid guy. Didn't even know he existed until we started walking through these things and God just began to—little resistance pockets started showing up, a little here, a little there, and it's been a blessing to meet other

01:35:53

Christians like that across Canada. Well, we have to go to our final break.

01:36:00

If anybody wants to ask a question of our guest, please send it in to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

01:36:10

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Or visit LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Anchored in Truth Ministries is the mission arm of Grace Life Church of the

01:48:16

Shoals. Based in Alabama, it supports missionaries in over 13 countries around the world.

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Anchored in Truth is in partnership with 36 church plants, as well as radio stations, theological seminaries, and various programs for RG.

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And one of the pastors that was sent out by that very ministry, anchored in Truth Ministries, Blake Keenum, has been our guest today for the entire program and will continue to be for the next 10 minutes or so.

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If you have a question for him regarding navigating church difficulties related to tyrannical government restrictions, please send them in now because we are rapidly running out of time.

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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And we have another listener who chooses to remain anonymous.

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And the listener says, Do you have any practical advice on how to approach these issues that divide

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Christians in a way that will not be pouring gasoline on an open flame, but will rather get people to pause and think more rationally and logically, being led by the

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Holy Spirit and the Word? Read the

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Bible. Well, obviously, we've got people not only reading the

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Bible, but coming to different conclusions on this, but coming to different conclusions on the doctrines of grace and baptism and a lot of other things.

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Yeah. Well, I would say on this issue, the primary question you need to be asking is, it's an ideological battle.

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This is a battle for the truth. Our culture is being permeated by lies right now, and they are being pushed on God's people and the

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Church. And to me, what's happened in Canada is that we've had to assess, do we believe what we say we've been believing?

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And particularly, do we believe what we have been saying about the Church, that Church is essential, that gathering together as Christians is a vital aspect of a healthy

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Christian life, or can you just go do it on your own by yourself? That was one of the benefits of my mentorship at Anchored in Truth at Greystuff Church in the

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Shadows, because if you've ever heard of the preaching of Pastor Jeff Novot, you're going to pick up on a common theme.

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The Church is central to God's glory and all that He's doing in the world. He preached that to me so much,

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I think I've memorized it in my sleep. But it stuck with me, and so that when the time came,

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I actually called him one day and I said, Brother, I don't want to move into civil disobedience to my government, but it's to the point now that I cannot do what you sent me here to do and not disobey the government, which was to plant and to maintain a healthy local church.

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So I think I lost myself there for a second and got off track, but the primary question you have to ask yourself is, what is the limit of government?

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Does the Bible set the limit of the government's jurisdiction? And Romans 13 does not answer that question.

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Romans 13 gives you God's view of the role of government in society, but it doesn't give it an absolute role in society.

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I would say the limit for government authority is set by Acts chapter 5, when

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Peter and the apostles were given orders by their legitimate, God -ordained rulers, and they responded not with saying,

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Well, we feel you're persecuting us and hindering the cause of the gospel, therefore we can't obey you.

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No, they responded with saying, We must obey God rather than men. And so I think once you establish that principle, it helps you make the other decisions.

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Amen. That if the government is commanding me to do what God forbids, or forbidding me to do what

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God commands, then I, and that text gives it a little more clearly,

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I'm not permitted to decide what I think will be the most worldly -wise decision. It says, it's an imperative.

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You must obey God rather than man. And so that's why

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I say pastors who cede authority to the civil government to decide for them the nature and the means of worship are ceding authority to the government that doesn't belong to them.

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They don't decide that, Jesus does. Jesus is Lord of His church, not Brian Pallister. And so I think that's where you have to establish the principle and you have to start there.

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The Scriptures are clear what we do. They're not unclear. We follow

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Christ. We establish our hearts in faithfulness. What I found is that most of the opposition and the difficulties

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I faced was motivated by the fear of man. Honestly, I think that's all pragmatism is in the church.

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It is a fear of the man and a desire to use fleshly means to achieve

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God's ends. Instead of just simply asking the question, what has God told me to do? And that was to do it.

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And so we want to climb our hearts to the path of faithfulness. That's actually what

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Psalm 119 says. He says, I have chosen the way of faithfulness and I have set your rules before me.

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I cling to your testimonies, O Lord, and let me not be put to shame. So he says there, you've got to make the choice.

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And to me, the church in Canada is coming to the place, we've got to be gracious, we know everybody's different, and I'm not the pastor of everybody's church.

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But the church in Canada is coming to the place where, like Elijah standing before the prophets of Baal, he had to exhort the people and he'd say, why are you halting between two opinions?

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If the Lord is God, serve him. But he said, if Baal is God, serve him. And to me, we are fast losing the middle ground and we're coming to the place where we have to decide, are you going to serve

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God or are you going to try to find some middle ground where you can do both? And it's time to choose.

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Who's God? Who's the one in control of this church? Amen. I went on a rant there, brother.

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I'm sorry. No, no, no. Praise God for everything you're saying. And also we have to get these folks, these brothers and sisters in Christ, to agree with these shutdowns.

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And by the way, it's against the law in the Republic of Ireland right now to have public worship. Frightening development there.

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But we've got to sit down with these brothers and sisters and have them rethink their opinions here in the light of this question.

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How is the world better served? Obviously, we believe God is most glorified by having a living, functioning, public gathering of his saints who are worshiping him and teaching him, teaching about him,

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I should say, teaching his word, administering his ordinances. But if you're talking about the public around you, which this seems to be very much focused on, how is the public better served?

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By the absence of a living, vibrant, active, public church or a church that is only accessible through the

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Internet? I think that everybody who prayerfully reflects on that question, if they are a truly spirit -led,

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Bible -believing Christian, would have to come to the conclusion that the world is better served when the church in every community is actively and vibrantly publicly gathering.

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And so I'll leave my listeners with that. And I want to remind all of you that if you want to get in touch with our guest today,

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Pastor Blake Keenum at the Grace Baptist Church of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, their website is selkirkgbc .org,

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selkirkgbc .org. And if you are interested in finding out more about Anchored in Truth Ministries, their website is anchoredintruth .org,

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anchoredintruth .org. And if you want to learn more information about Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, gracelifeshoals .org,

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gracelifeshoals .org. I want to thank you so much for being such a superb guest today,

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Pastor Blake. I want to thank everybody who listened today. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater