Bonus: Secret Hearing Lands Pastor in Jail for Refusing to Stop Pastoring

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See website for details. We have a special bonus episode for you today.

The guys from Matter of Theology and myself got together to discuss a pastor from Canada of Grace Life Church, Pastor James Coates, when he was taken into custody by the police there for holding church services and was told that he could be released from jail if he'd stop being a pastor.

In other words, stop doing what God called you to do and we'll let you go. So he's going to remain in jail because that's what faithful men do.

This is a long episode, longer than we usually do, but we're going to have some surprise guests come in.

Pastor Carl Hargroves from Grace Community Church under John MacArthur. Daryl Harrison, who now works out there at Grace To You.

And Kofi Abanbunu, who is a friend of ours, and they're all going to weigh in on this.

And it is packed full of stuff. Stay tuned to the end. There's a lot of encouragement at the end.

So this is a bonus episode, something special for you, coming your way on The Wrap Report.

One, two, three. Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Okay, welcome everyone. This is kind of a special episode. This is not what we normally do.

Wednesday night, most people are in church mid -service. I'm Andrew Rapoport from Striving for Eternity Ministries.

I'm joined by Chris Huff and Drew Von something or other.

I can never pronounce it. Nada. It's not important. But from the

Matter of Theology Podcast. So let us just give you guys a quick rundown of what we're doing here tonight, what the plan is.

And I'm going to hand it over to Chris. So Chris has been in discussions. If you see the description here of the show, a pastor,

James Coates, was basically threatened with arrest for having church services.

Then they put out an arrest warrant for him.

And what ended up happening is what we're going to talk about tonight. Secret hearings, not letting anyone know where they're moving him to, and then him having to remain in jail until he gives up pastoring.

He must stop being a pastor to be let out of jail. That's what we're going to talk about tonight.

And so this is really Striving for Eternity, my podcast

Wrap Report and Matter of Theology. But Chris, you've been following this very closely.

I know that I listen to Matter of Theology. I know that surprises you. I understand.

I am that listener. Now you know who it is. The one download we get every other week.

Yes. For those who are watching on video, this was set up kind of quickly, and clearly

I wasn't given the dress code. For everyone watching, Chris and Drew did not give me the dress code here and let me know.

This is a collared event. I'm sorry. Well, can

I just say, I'm traveling for work this week. If I would have had, though, a

BB -1 to wear, I would wear one right now in honor of Pastor Coates.

So James and Aaron refer to me as Chris BB -1. And what's fun is

I told her, I was like, that was actually Drew's BB -1 that I was wearing at the Cruciform Conference. I let

Chris borrow it. I said, man, you're speaking at your first conference. I will let you wear my

BB -1. Yes, yes. So I wore it proudly. And we'll mention for folks who are watching, we're going to be putting up comments.

There are instructions on how to get your name to show up so it doesn't say Facebook user if you're watching on Facebook.

If you're on YouTube, no problem. We can see and say hello.

But here's a Facebook user. It says, secret hearings. That sounds a bit like the trial of Jesus, lol.

Yikes. Yeah. Yeah. So just kind of some background. And I'm just going to read.

Actually, I pulled up my notes from our last episode of Matter of Theology entitled Training for Persecution. And this is what had been going on at Grace Life Church there in Edmonton.

And this is what I wrote. I just said, on January 29th, 2021, it was reported that Grace Life Church in Edmonton, Canada, was ordered to close its doors to the public after defying the rules for gathering because of COVID issued by the

Canadian government. Pastor James Coates is the lead pastor at Grace Life and is a dear brother and whose bride,

Erin, is a friend of Matter of Theology. Alberta Health Services issued a work order back on December 17th that did the following.

Quote, the Alberta Health Service, or AHS for short, ordered directed the church to immediately ensure congregants were wearing face coverings when in the building, ensure members of different households keep at least two meters apart, provide

AHS, that's kind of a tongue twister, with information about the building's capacity and not to exceed the limit of a 15 % total capacity at any one time.

The December work order also required a relaunch plan template to be filled out, outlining all activities that take place in the church, including meetings and other gatherings, details of risk mitigation measures to be implemented to prevent the transmission of COVID -19 and the process by which they will monitor the number of people inside the church.

Period. Close quote. Then on Sunday, January 21st, 2021, health officials went and inspected the church during their

Lord's Day gathering and noted the following violations. More than 290 people attending the church on January 21st.

In excess of the 15 % total operational occupancy load as per the Alberta fire code.

They were standing room only. By the way, let me pause there to say that. Erin, let me know that since this has gone on, since the

Alberta health services and the art, I think it's the RHCP there in Edmonton have drilled down and trying to make an example out of grace life and pastor coats at no request of theirs.

People have been coming. Health health officials, officers of the law are coming and getting saved because of what's happening there.

And so I'll keep going. But yeah, they've been standing room only church attendees.

Staff volunteers were observed unmasked in the church lobby and the sanctuary. It appeared that church attendees, staff volunteers were not maintaining at least two meters physical distancing from other households and the relaunch plan template had not been submitted.

So on Friday, January 29th, the government ordered pastor pastor coats to close the church to the public immediately, including all his congregation.

Church members and attendees. And, and then I, I, I quoted what

Aaron, what Aaron has sent to me with her permission. Amen. Carlos. I could not agree more with that statement, sir.

You got to read this statement when you do that. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. He said, people in your podcast, don't worry. You know what's up.

People on your podcast won't read what. it's on the screen, right? Yeah. Cause we're going to, yeah. Turn this into a podcast episode.

Hello. Um, Carlos, Carlos said this, he said, if only more pastors would have this courage, uh, and this, and then let me add that, that, that resolve.

And I wholeheartedly agree with you. Uh, but this is what Aaron told me, um, when I was preparing for the, for the podcast episode, she said, quote, our men have a weighty task ahead of them.

What is so hard for me is all the hurting sheep from all over Edmonton who have come to grace life church because they are starving, weak and wounded.

Unbelievers arriving, needing hope. We are literally busting out of our building and they want to restrict us to 15%.

And I just, I sent a message back to her and said, we are praying or, you know, uh, please tell

James that we, we love him. We are praying for him and thankful for him. And, and she responded, she said, thank you.

Uh, thank you so much, brother. Uh, it appears that an order, uh, that in the order that it is a voluntary closure, even citing in the article that our health services and RCMP, there it is, uh, we'll be there this

Sunday to see if we're complying. We think this means it should, we should be okay to meet. I'm in awe of the Lord. The courts have not followed through as of yet with their threats.

They said James would be charged this week. Now they're saying he would be summoned next week. If we don't close this

Sunday, each Sunday, we gather as a true gift. We're praying for another facility. If they lock us out, the

Lord is working. I'm so encouraged by all the responses and people being encouraged to pursue Christ more fully.

Uh, what more could we ask for? So many unbelievers coming, we're literally busting out of our facility.

I'll let James know. Thank you again. We sure need the prayer and period close quote there.

Um, you know, so, um, and then a Facebook user just said, uh, uh,

I, I've no doubt this is soon to be in the U S I would agree with that. Um, so, so since then, uh, what, what, what's transpired now and, and Aaron and I have been in touch.

James is not on social media. Um, and, uh, and, and, and so today, and I've been,

I've been following up and just letting her know, Hey, we're praying for you guys. Let us know if you need anything. Um, and she's been keeping me up to date as far as, you know, each week.

Um, and, and this past Sunday they met, uh, again. Um, I mean literally busting at the seams and, um, pastor

James preached an excellent sermon. If you have not heard it, you are missing out.

Um, it is, uh, it is entitled quote, directing government to its duty, close quote.

And it is an excellent exposition of Romans 13, one through seven. Uh, James does a great job as would be expected, uh, as he is a graduate of the master seminary.

Um, but, uh, you know, of, of, of talking about what, what the government's duty is and then how we as believers, yes, we're called to be obedient and we can be both obedient to Christ and commit civil disobedience at the same time.

And, and how we do that is by when we commit that civil disobedience that we quietly, humbly accept the consequences that are coming our way.

The government can act however they feel like they should. They will be held accountable to the Lord.

Um, excellent. Go, go, go listen to it. So, um, another Facebook user said that they'd burn us at the stake if they could.

Um, yeah, that, that, that's happened throughout church history. Um, study church history, uh, study it, it, it, it clearly shows that.

Um, so, uh, so, so, so since then, uh, I asked Aaron, you know, uh, yesterday,

Hey, how are things, you know, how are things going? And this was the update she said to me today. She said this quote, and I, and I've posted this on my, my, on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

But, um, she said it has made its rounds. It's, uh, it's been retweeted and quoted over a thousand times.

It's, uh, thankfully, um, and, um, and, and, and, and awareness is being brought to it.

A hashtag, a hashtag pray for James coats has started. Um, and, um, uh, so, so, uh, so yeah, it's, uh, this is what, uh, this is what, um, she said to me today.

Um, Hey brother, uh, here's James update. I'm sorry for the copy and paste. Uh, she said, quote, quote, quote, quote, she said at court date for his charges.

It's very possible. They will, they will remand him until his court case. The crown has called him a danger to the health and safety of our burdens.

May God have mercy on our nation. I read to my children, the work that the

Lord is doing in P in the people's though. So, so I'm sorry, I I'm sorry. Let me read that again.

Um, I read to my children, the work the Lord is doing in peoples through James, so they can see the sacrifice of their father is not in vain.

My prayer is that men will stand. They can't see that if they shut us down on this issue, they will shut us down on any issue they deem to be a, quote, danger to the health and safety of Albertans.

So then maybe an hour later, she sent me another message and it says this, quote,

My heart is broken. They tried him in secret. The officers lied to us and told us he wasn't there.

They tried to hide him and sneak him out the back door in the providence of God. One of our men was there.

The officer only allowed him to tell him that he loved him and we're here with him.

They pulled him away. They have remanded him as our lawyer seeks the appeal. The conditions of his release are that, and I quote, he would not pastor anymore.

And she said, I cannot visit him. I asked her permission to share this and she said, and I quote,

Yes, share, get it out. This is so evil. Okay, so I'm going to bring in, we have a guest,

I think he's in his car, but none other than Mr. Carl Hargrove, who is here.

Welcome, Carl. Hello there. How are you doing? Good. Good. Good. We're glad that you were able to jump in even from the car.

Yes, sir. I'm traveling the wide open spaces of Southern California highways.

Hardly anyone around me. And you're probably snow free, unlike us.

Yes, indeed. Boy, I am, I just got in on the call and heard the letter from the updates from James Wife and heartbroken.

I was on the phone call earlier with Mike Hovland, and my connection to both men has to do with the

Master Seminary and also Grace Community Church. Mike Hovland and the ministry that I oversee at Grace Church, Grace Advance, he is one of our, he's in our

Grace Advance network there in La Crete, Alberta, a beautiful area which

I've visited before and hope to go back again once we get out of this COVID environment.

And I actually spoke to Mike, it could have been mentioned already, Mike was actually driving down about seven hours from La Crete to go to Edmonton to speak with the elders.

And actually now, I think they would be in their meeting now, discussing their next steps in ministry.

And at Grace Community Church, our men are aware of it, and it will be a point of discussion in our elders meeting this, well actually tomorrow evening.

And surely we'll be praying for them, and we've thought about, at least we've offered

Mike some counsel on what they might do next, and even if it comes to other arrests taking place and how we may be of a support to them.

And I'll hold that close to my chest until we think that through a little bit more and make it public.

But we are definitely supportive of them and what is happening there.

When I saw the tweet, and then even got the information from Mike Hovland, who although he's in La Crete is still an elder there at Grace Life Church.

And I saw this image, although I didn't see it, it was so clear in my mind of a man who is cuffed in his ankles and in his wrists, as if he is some serial murderer that we must accost at sort of every expense, lest he go and do damage to others.

The image is just repulsive, really. That was the thing when I heard that from Chris, I was just shocked, that he's such a threat to society that they have to, you know, not just handcuffs, but when he turned himself in, and yet he's such a threat that they have to cuff his ankles.

Oh yeah, cuff his ankles? I mean, this is just ludicrous, that they would take some steps, as if, what is he going to do?

He's turned himself in. He's a preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is trying to save lives.

That's right. And you treat him as if he's one that's seeking to take lives. Yes sir. How unfortunate.

But this is the spirit of the age. Yes sir. And this goes beyond, for right now, at least in my opinion, it goes beyond the debate of should they gather, should they not?

Obviously some churches have decided not to gather, some are just having virtual meetings.

But how do you handle a man of God this way? Why would you do that?

Unless there is something that is even undergirding, I believe, the policies and restrictions that you have in place.

This is justifiable. I don't understand it. Well, I do and I don't.

Yes sir. Pastor Hargrove, I could not agree with you more sir. It's the offense, and he was so crystal clear in his sermon on Sunday about what the intent is, and he even said, he said,

I don't care if we're being persecuted. I'm not doing this because, I'm not saying we're going to gather because of persecution.

I'm saying we are going to gather because we have a mandate and a command from our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to gather together. And so that's what I'm going to do.

And he went on to say, he's like, I'm not a faith leader, I'm an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ sent from heaven with a message of light in the gospel.

And I think back to, of course, where you are with Dr. MacArthur. He said all the time that the gospel is an offense and to hear that you are a sinner and you must, the

R word, repent of your sin. It's offensive. And they're seeking to make an example.

Well, I think so. It surely is with the means that they've taken, they want to make some statement to place the fear of men and others.

And he's an example at this point of that. You know, one of the things that I noticed,

I did a quick search and I see a number of mosques that are open. Now, I don't, you know, for anyone in the

Edmonton area, I would challenge you to go Friday and check out the mosques.

I know when this whole COVID thing started and they were shutting down churches in New Jersey, I actually drove on Friday to some mosques and parking lots were full.

They had no problem with it. There seems to be a bunch of other places that can have 50 % capacity, 100 % capacity.

You know, it's just the church that they're limiting to ridiculous numbers.

You know, Pastor Carl, you had over at Grace Community Church when it was first opening, a seating that could seat,

I believe it's 3 ,000, and you were told that you can only have 100? Yes, 100.

You know, that's a little bit more than six feet. Yeah. In what sense does that make?

There's such inconsistency in the application of it. You know, had they said, say, for instance, you can seat 3 ,500, surely you can, let's have 800 or 1 ,000 in there.

That will give you proper distance. Nope. Well, he is driving. Yeah, here's someone that's saying they got the bars open.

You know, it is interesting how the government is using this to choose, to pick and choose which businesses can stay open and how they're targeting, it seems, at least in the states we've seen them targeting churches and synagogues, but it's not an equal standard.

Right. No. No, it's not. And we should expect it,

I think, that this would occur. And think about it, the body, within the church body, there's division over this because obviously certain churches have made a decision to do otherwise, and we're not here to debate that at this point.

A part of it is they've made a decision as an entire body to gather so that they can worship their

God. But again, the treatment is not commensurate to the crime.

It isn't. So the question is why this sort of treatment? And I think what's underlying it is,

I believe, and this is surely just an opinion, perhaps is it a hatred for the gospel message itself?

Yes, sir. I think so. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I actually think that this is, they've been wanting to do this for the longest time, many, and now they're using

COVID, someone had commented about that, that they're using COVID as a means to an end.

The end is they want to get rid of the gospel, and they're using this as, oh, you don't care about people's health.

Well, and yeah, no, they're using COVID as the vehicle to do exactly what

Jesus said in John 15. If the world hates you, you know it has hated me before it hated you.

And verse 19, if you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you.

And the message of offense, and so they're using the vehicle of the pandemic to do so.

So let me ask this. We have a Facebook user that asks a question, and, you know, Carl, I'd love to get your input here.

The question is, what should Christians, especially Canadian Christians, do in light of the recent event?

It's kind of frightening to think that this is happening right in my home and native land.

At least for me, the call's breaking up a bit. Okay. So the question that was asked was basically, what should

Christians do, especially Canadian Christians, in light of these events? Well, they should follow their spiritual leadership, but that's also hoping that their spiritual leadership will make decisions based on biblical convictions.

I want to be careful in saying, because Grace Community Church has made this decision that you must do the same, someone, you need to understand this, even at Grace Community Church, we initially, we were not meeting face to face.

That's right. We were not for months, and we made a decision to say, what is really happening here, and who has the ultimate authority over the church?

That authority has been given, obviously, through Jesus Christ, and then through Jesus Christ to the elders and leaders of any local congregation.

And now we have to make a decision for our local congregation, what is the best decision for us?

Will we jeopardize our clear authority of Jesus Christ by not gathering?

And we had very engaging conversation amongst the elders over this issue. How do we apply our call to submit to authority?

Is this an example where we can disobey the authority? And obviously, we drew a conclusion that it was.

But people need to understand that that conclusion wasn't automatic.

It involved us engaging with one another in considering the implications of Scripture, and also the clear commands of Scripture as well.

And I would say that for our brothers and sisters in Canada to go through that same process, that you have biblical convictions, and once you can arrive at those, then you can make a decision, but at the same time be prepared for some consequences.

Now we have had some brothers in other parts of the world, where there were very strict...

Oh, sorry, let me see, it went out there for a minute, where there were very strict, very hard restrictions, that is, and they made a decision for a while to simply go underground.

And that was their decision. We will gather, but they decided to meet underground after they had been threatened that the next time they meet, because it was a different country, that they would be shut down.

And that was their decision to make. But now what has happened since then, some of those restrictions have been lifted, and in part because there are any number of churches throughout that country that were disobeying, and the message got to the highest powers in the country that this is wrong, you can't do this.

Especially when malls are open, and bars are open, and other places are open.

Had there been a universal application of it, perhaps we would consider it, but it's not.

It's not a universal application. Yeah, I had real trouble here in the

States when the churches were shut down because it spread a virus, but then they had all these riots and protests, and they said, that'll bring healing, that'll bring herd immunity.

It really displayed the hypocrisy of what was going on. That's almost comical, isn't it?

Yeah. Sadly comical. Gentlemen, I would love to talk with you more, but I've made it to my appointment, and I have to bid you adieu.

May the Lord bless the rest of your conversation, and let us all be praying for James and Grace Life Church, that God will be honored through it.

Yes, sir. We thank you that you can make some time to join us. We appreciate that. Thank you.

Sure. All right, take care now. You as well. You know, Chris, let me ask you, there's a question that's come up a couple times here, and that is, people are asking how we can help the family.

I'm trying to find the actual question so I can put it up, but the question basically is, is there a way to financially help this family to help with their,

I mean, obviously, this is not going to be, here it is, Shelby for Christ said, how can believers help this family financially with legal fees and et cetera?

Because this is going to get mounting. Do you have something? Do you know of anything that they've started?

I know we know that GoFundMe now doesn't let Christians actually raise funds. They shut that down, but do they have anything set up?

I reached out to Erin to ask her that very question, just because I was asked that question on Twitter this afternoon, and she said right now they are good financially.

They're supported in every way. Their attorney is a solid attorney who is working pro bono for the glory of God and for the edification and the building up of his bride, and so I did ask that question, and so should something like that come up,

I mean, we will absolutely let everybody know. Definitely, but fantastic questions.

I would say this, one practical way that you can bring some awareness and visibility to this is the premier of the section of Edmonton that they are in is on social media like most politicians are, and there have been numerous people who have asked him,

Jason Kinney is his name. Are you going to let this stand? This is not right.

This is not okay. Shame on you. God will judge you for your actions, and so listen,

I would say this, and I want to be careful when I say this. Yeah, I was flipping to the passage of Scripture that Daryl posted.

Yeah, I was going to read that, because look, for folks who don't see what I just put up, someone said, strike the hammer,

B3, Daryl Hammers is in the house, and Daryl posted

Matthew 5 .10, so let me just read that, because look, for folks who don't know Daryl Harrison, wait, have you had your head in the ground somewhere?

Like, where have you been? Just thinking podcast, go subscribe and listen, and then you'll know why we're wondering where you've been.

Absolutely. But Daryl had said, Matthew 5 .10, which says, Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Come on. Come on. Well, I tried getting him on. I gave him the link. I gave him the link to say, hey, come on in, because, you know, we want him more than just in the house.

I would love to know. I would just love to just let him— Look, Facebook user, show him the love.

Love Daryl and Virgil. That's right. Strike up that Hammond. If there are two people who are exactly alike, it's

Daryl and Chris. And those two talk all the time, I know, because Chris tells me.

Yeah, we do have a lot of conversations. But yeah, no, hey, listen,

Daryl's spot on here. And blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, and for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And that's evident by what you've seen God do at Grace Life.

That's evident by what you have seen through the views for James's sermons that have shot through the roof.

And he doesn't care about stuff like that. That's not what it's about. But let me say this. If you're going to suffer, if you are, we need to remember that when we are—I'm getting there—1

Peter chapter 2, verse 23. Oh, actually, let me back up. I'm going to back up to verse 21.

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, an example for you and to follow in his steps.

Verse 22, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Verse 23, and while being reviled, he did not revile in return while suffering.

He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to the one who judges righteously.

So James has done this. I mean, he's not standing up saying, woe is me.

Look at me. I'm persecuted. He has faithfully stood and said,

I cannot and I will not go against the mandates and the commands found in the scriptures.

He has stood faithfully and said, the government is overstepping its bounds.

The government is reaching into a place and trying to assert authority where they have none.

The Bible is the highest authority that we have. It is the written word of God.

He has stood on that and said, I can do no other. Here I stand.

And then he has now entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously.

James, he was arrested at the church a few weeks ago, and thankfully, the authorities did it behind the scenes in the office.

He went out quietly. He didn't make a stink about it. He didn't stand up and say, look at me. He pointed to Christ.

And then today, according to Aaron, when they said, all you have to do is recant and rescind your

God -given mandate and call. That's all you got to do. We'll let you go. That's it. We're done. And he said,

I can't. I cannot do that. I think of the words of Dr. Stephen Lawson when Dr.

Lawson says, and I think he's quoting Drew. You may have to help me out here. But he said, if you've been called to be a slave in the master's house, why would you stoop to be a king?

Yeah, and quoting Spurgeon right there. Right, right. Thank you. Thank you. And that's it.

And today I'll have to pull it up. But Jeremiah Johnson, again, if you're not following guys like Jeremiah Johnson, please, you're missing out.

But he I don't know if I don't know if I'll be able to find it like on the spot, just because there's been a lot of interactions on Twitter today.

But he posted a quote from actually, I can probably find it pretty quick. Posted a quote from the book

Final Word. And it's it's by Dr. John MacArthur. And I am scrolling.

OK, you scroll because we're going to we're going to bring the man into the house. OK, I found it. Well, you've just been upstaged.

I mean, look, there's Daryl Harrison. What's what you get him there? There's my man. The B3 be free right now.

What's going on, gentlemen? Can you guys hear me? We can hear you. Awesome. Hey, Andrew, thanks for the invite, man.

Yeah, no, it would be good to get, you know, your thoughts on some of this that's that's going on.

You guys are a welcome break from this course I'm taking at Princeton right now. So this is this is much better than this.

Now, so so the quote I found from from Jeremiah just along those lines, and then I'm going to turn it over to my brother,

Daryl. This is Dr. MacArthur. He said, quote, John Bunyan, the great

Puritan preacher and author of the Pilgrims Progress, remained in jail for 12 years. But it wasn't the prison bars that held him there.

He could have walked free if he simply if he would simply promise to stop preaching.

Sound familiar? Facing that option, Bunyan wrote, quote, if nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and slaughter shop, unless putting out my own eyes,

I commit me to the blind to lead me. I have determined the almighty

God being my help and shield yet to suffer. If frail life might continue so long, even until the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows rather than thus to violate my faith and principles, period, close quote.

That is conviction, Dr. MacArthur said. Yeah, I mean, he stayed he stayed in jail.

And what did he end up doing while in there? He ended up writing something that is the closest thing that you can have to being up to the

Bible in as far as a book being read. It is the most read book outside of scripture, you know?

And so, he didn't just sit in jail and say, well, I'll just sit here. He sat in jail because he refused to stop doing what he felt

God called him to do, regardless of what government said, and he used that time for God's glory.

Mm hmm. That's right. Most people know of Bunyan because of Pilgrim's Progress. And if folks haven't read that book,

I highly recommend it to you. It is something that, it's just, it is actually, from what

I understand, it was the first book of its kind as far as using allegory in the way that he did.

Mm hmm. And it's a masterpiece. When you look through that and you read that book, it's scripture all over.

Mm hmm. Everywhere. And so, here's a man who was being punished by the government, and he used it for God's glory.

And, you know, my prayer is, as long as they're going to hold Pastor James in jail, that he would find ways to use it for his glory.

It's, I mean, this thing has, we've seen how God has used this, as we've already talked about, that their church is booming.

Yeah. They're busting at the seams. Why? Because people want the truth. This is the thing, I wish more men that stand behind pulpits,

I don't know if I can call them pastors, some I just don't, but I wish more of these men that stood behind pulpits claiming to preach

God's Word would stand up and have this kind of conviction to say, thus says the

Lord, and not care what the government is going to do. We need more men like this.

We need more men that are willing to stand up, take a stand on what God says, and say,

God, to God be the glory. Not my platform, not what

I can build, to God be the glory. And that's why you see what's going on at Grace Life, that they're bursting at the seams, because you guys who sit behind pulpits realize there's a lot of Christians that want the truth.

That's what we want at pulpits. We don't want this mamby -pamby feel -goodism.

We want the truth of Scripture. That's what should be preached. And when you have people that do that, this is what happens.

That church is mobbed, because people want the truth. Yeah, now if I could just say something about John Bunyan real quick.

Well, we haven't let you say a word the entire show. I know. I have been so styled with letting everyone else speak.

But John Bunyan, he had a daughter that was blind, and it pained him to be away from her.

But to be in prison for preaching Christ, he would not budge, no matter how much he pained to be away from his blind daughter.

And another resource I would also encourage people to go read is the letters of Samuel Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford was in prison for preaching the gospel as well.

And when you read his letters from prison in Aberdeen, you'd never know that he was actually in prison.

They're so warm. They're so full of hope. He says, I make my prison my palace, and I feast with Christ every night.

So what you got, D? Yeah, I was gonna say, so Darrell, let's get you to weigh in on some of this and with what's going on.

Man, I just have so many thoughts running through my head. I want to try to not confuse you guys by trying to articulate them all.

But let me just start with what my brother just said about Samuel Rutherford. One reason

I was compelled to comment that you guys look at Matthew 5, 10, because this is one of those paradoxes, for lack of a better word, for the church, for believers, in that what the world may see as a worst case scenario, where our brother in Canada has been in prison, but for the believer, this is an occasion to rejoice.

Now, and so that's what I mean by it. But it's not paradoxical for the believer.

It's really not. What makes it seem paradoxical is because we've taken our eyes off of Christ and look too much at the worldly situation as it is.

When you look at Matthew 5, 10, the very first word there is what? Blessed. So that's an occasion to rejoice.

We should be rejoicing just like our brothers rejoiced in Acts chapter 5.

When you look at Acts 5, I'm going to look at verse 38. I'll start at verse 38. When you look at Acts 5, 38 and then following, you really pity these government officials.

You really have to have pity for them because they're in the same predicament as these forces here who were mistreating and maltreating the apostles here.

Let me just read Acts 5, 38 and a couple of verses following. So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone.

But if this plan of action is of men, it will be overthrown. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them or else you may even find yourself fighting against God.

So they took his advice and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus.

Do you sound familiar? And ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and then release them. So they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing, not that they had been released, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name.

And I'm sure our brother in Canada has that same attitude right now. I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does.

And Chris, you mentioned that word conviction earlier. And one of the reasons I praise

God for this situation that this brother is in, again, I'm saying this in the context of Matthew 5, 10.

This is one of those situations where we get to see whether people's beliefs are conviction.

Hmm. That's when you really get tested on whether you really believe what you say you believe is when you're in a situation where your beliefs are tested as to whether or not they're convictions.

See, this brother, James, these are convictions that he has. He's not just mouthing off the yes,

I believe, you know, and he's not just standing up there in the public area, not the office of a preacher.

This brother is he has demonstrated that his beliefs are convictions. See, not everything that we believe are convictions.

Hmm. They're not. So you see, Chris, this is what this is. We got some we got some we got some milquetoast believers out there who

I refer to in our unity episode is those campfire Christians. You come by our Christians who want to get around the campfire, sing that Coca -Cola song and just kind of lock arms and hold hands with each other.

You got a brother here in James who has demonstrated for all to see that my beliefs are convictions.

Yeah, you see. But but we got folks here and I'm not going to name names, but there are some prominent evangelical leaders who we haven't heard a peep out of in this situation.

You haven't heard a single peep out of them. And for the reason is, is because they want to protect their platforms.

They want to protect their logo. They want to that blue check mark that they have on social media. They want to protect that for some reason.

But again, I think this is a situation where we should all be encouraged. We should we should take scripture for what it says.

Come on. These words are from the mouth of Jesus. I'm so glad one of the apostles didn't say this because then we'd have a new perspective on Paul going all over again, a new perspective on a new perspective on Matthew.

No, Jesus said these words himself. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So let's pray for this brother. Obviously, we want him released from prison. We want him released.

But at the same time, we should be rejoicing because, you know, who's getting the attention here? Jesus. Jesus. Amen.

Look, look, look, look at what's getting the attention here. Jesus and his gospel through this brother's imprisonment.

OK, so I would just encourage everyone, let's have let's have a biblical perspective, a fully or theology of what's going on here.

And let's let's let's let's revert back to our to what we know from scripture. Just just look back, revert back to what the scripture says.

And let's let's let's take this holistically, not compartmentalize it. This is this is this is not a woe is me situation.

This is a situation where this is a this is a victorious situation where people are talking about people are missing the name of Jesus.

They're mentioning the gospel. They're mentioning this brothers as a faithful preacher of the gospel. Listen, God has been glorified all over the situation.

How you spin it? And then lastly, I just want to point again to access.

Now, this is my church growth strategy first right here. You guys are talking about how grace life is. This is my church growth strategy verse right here.

You want to know how to grow your church? Follow the example of grace life, because grace life is following the example of Acts chapter nine, verse thirty one.

This is how you grow a church in one verse, how you grow a church in one verse. It's a one verse seminar on how to grow a church.

Acts nine thirty one. So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoy peace being built up.

Here's how you grow your church right after that semicolon and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the

Holy Spirit, it continue to increase. That's how you grow a church. Obey Christ, trust the

Lord, allow the Holy Spirit to guide your leaders and your church. God will send you souls.

But yeah, so I just want to say that. And let's continue to let this brother, his wife, who was specially pleased, strengthen his wife.

Oh, yeah, yeah, his wife and strengthen those children. I don't know how young his children are.

Give attorneys wisdom. But as much as we want this brother released, we want

God to be glorified in his imprisonment as long as God should see fit for him to be in this situation.

Okay. So that's, you know, that's something what you just said there, Daryl, that is shocking to people to think about, that it's not more important to get out of prison.

It's more important to glorify God. This is the thing that's just foreign to, unfortunately, many people that name the name of Christ.

The thought of, well, if I'm in jail, if that's where God wants me to be, then that's where he gets the most glory.

I mean, people just think about in Mark. Here you have the disciples where they're at sea. Some of them have been on regularly.

And all of a sudden there's a storm. Now, that's not a common storm. If you actually look at the Greek there, it says it's a mega hurricane that just comes out of nowhere and they're afraid.

You know what? God's will was for those disciples to be in the center of a mega hurricane, a super hurricane.

That was God's will for them. Yeah, Jesus was going to make it mega calm is what it ends up saying there, a super calm, all of a sudden, just no waves at all.

But that was God's will for the disciples at that time to be in the middle of a storm.

Of course, they ended up learning that the one thing that's scarier than being in the middle of a storm, you know, as part of God's will is realizing you have

God in the ship with you. Then they got really scared when they saw the power of God before them.

You know, there's a lot of Christians that we all know, we could probably name names.

But the reality is there's a bunch of Christians out there who are saying they're hearing from God on a regular basis.

And they're always talking about how they're getting this experience. And they're trying to, you know, they're trying to make everyone else feel that they're special because they have this special relationship.

You want to know something? You really want to see and experience some of that. You do what

Pastor James is doing. Take a stand on God. Let God get all the glory. And you're going to get to know him in a different way.

Yeah, you know, yeah. And that's that goes right to a letter from Samuel Rutherford.

This is what he writes. It is one thing to read of Christ in a book and to speak of him with the tongue.

But Rutherford continues with talking about his sufferings. He says to come nigh to Christ and clasp him and embrace him is another thing.

He's talking about in this suffering, he's actually coming closer and laying hold of Christ in a more experiential way through his suffering.

But think about here in America, there's been a lot of talk about the Equality Act, right, that that's that's eventually going to be coming down the pipeline.

Now, there are some out there who would say that, you know,

Jesus whispers about sexual sin. Well, no, he doesn't. And he doesn't whisper about these things here either.

And what some of these pastors are going to end up doing is they're going to end up giving a pinch of incense to the government in order to to not have to go through what

Pastor James is going through. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the Equality Act, because on the

Just Thinking podcast, we were talking about the Equality Act in 2019 when nobody else was. Yeah, we dropped two episodes on the

Equality Act. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's just correct the record here. Just Thinking drops everything before anyone else is talking about it.

So don't make it sound like it was just the Equality Act here, brother. I mean, I'm not charismatic, but I might call y 'all some prophets.

Y 'all are talking about this stuff before everyone else. No, no, no. They're prophets from the biblical sense.

We'll just put that out there. You know, someone posted this.

Brad said this. If you love God's love more than God's holiness, you are an abuser of grace.

That's an excellent point. Yeah, I was doing the Hammer B. That is a Hammer B moment right there.

You know, my brother said something earlier, again, love Rutherford. And by the way,

I can't help but looking at the brother's screen there and look at the words that are right above the top of his head.

Yeah, Andrew, go back to that. Andrew, go back. There you go. Look at the three words that are right above his head.

No, you can go back to where you were. I want them to see it the way I saw it. Just sit next to him.

See, right above his head is three words, right? We preach Christ. We preach Christ. You see,

I think what's happening here, again, your Rutherford quote reminded me of something else here.

I think, and I hope, I say this optimistically, I hope this situation causes those of us who are looking at the situation from the outside in, those of us who are believers who are looking at the situation from the outside in, hopefully causes us to examine ourselves and put to ourselves the question.

Wow, am I, am I one of those folks who John is talking about in 1 John 2, do not love the world.

I mean, when I first, so ask yourself the question. When you first heard about what had happened to James, that James had been handcuffed around his wrists and his ankles and hauled out to jail, was your first response fear, anxiety, or was it praise

God? Well, praise God, God, you get the glory. Were you, were you at a sense, did you have a sense of peace about this situation?

I'm not, I'm not trying to paint a broad brush to everyone. However, my point is this, is that I'm hoping that this situation helps us to examine ourselves and say, you know,

Lord, do I have, do I have idols in my life in place before you, before serving you with my whole heart and not loving the world?

Are there things within my, my life right now that I've gotten so comfortable with that I don't want to part?

And I wouldn't want to be in that situation that he's in because I love these things too much, or I love these people too much.

And I just couldn't stand to be away from these things or these people or this comfortable type of Christianity that you've given me.

Was that your first reaction? Would you fear you might lose if this happened to you? And I think that's one reason why again, you know,

I'm not, I'm not generalizing, but I feel, especially someone who was here in California.

Okay. Where, where you guys know how aggressive the government has been towards grace community church and John MacArthur.

So I sit, I say this as someone who's in the hotbed of, of government overreach.

Okay. But at the same time, I think, especially in California, a lot of these churches aren't open because they're scared.

They're fearful of what they're going to lose by standing up and defying the government in deference to their, their obligation to their

Lord and savior, to gather their people together and meet for worship. We got pastors are scared.

Yep. Yeah. They're scared. Yeah. And they really should be honest with themselves, confess that sin and ask the

Lord to give them the strength and the courage to stand for him. Even if that means going to prison, getting padlocks on your doors, whatever the case may be, because see here, here we have one of these and I call it a bumper sticker, uh, theology.

So we'll say, see, when we're not going through anything, when we're not going through anything, we're, we're just prone to say, you know, well, you know, uh,

Jesus said, uh, um, uh, uh, the gates of hell shall not stand against his, his church.

Praise God. Praise God. See, once that fire comes, once that trial comes, once the adversity comes.

Okay. So, so, so we know nothing will ever stand against the gospel, but that doesn't mean nothing.

We'll try to not stand against it. And this is, this is what we have. So what, so, so when we have these worldly forces, these spiritual forces in, in, in the places that Paul talks about in Ephesians, what are you going to do?

Are you going to stand around and be cheerleader and help somebody else lead that to somebody else? Knowing in your heart, see, we, we know in our conscience, we know in our own heart, whether we're being cowards or not, we know it.

We know that. And here you have a bunch of sideline pastors, a bunch of second, third string pastors who are scared to get in the game.

Your brother in Canada, I mean, you can't get more. You can't get more courageous than both in this brother.

And I just want to, I want to remind those pastors to something. These pastors who are quietly protecting themselves against adversity like this.

I want to, I want to take you to Revelation chapter 22.

Correction. Revelation 21 verse 8. Revelation 21, 8, this, this, this, this is where we have sort of a, a, a list of characteristics that are going to be sent to the lake of fire.

And what's first right there? But for the cowardly, but for the cowardly and unbelievers and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and adulterers and all liars, their part will be in the lake of the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Now, why do you think, why do you think God listed cowardly there first? That word in the

Greek means timid. It means it means to not have a backbone. It means to run.

It means to run out of fear. It means to run away. So this is one of those

Barbara Snicker moments. When you say that the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear, is that just a bumper sticker phrase for you?

Looks good on a t -shirt. Looks good on, it'll fit well on the bumper sticker. Or are you ready to live that out when the time comes?

Yep. Yeah, that's, uh, well, let me, uh, before you, before you answer it, let me just real quick, because we had someone that's going to be short on time.

He's got prayer meetings. So I want to bring in Kofi, um, who is with us.

He's on, what's up brother? Hey, how you doing guys? Is that Gareth with you? Yeah, the little, there we go.

Oh, hold on. Yep. He's here. Evening brothers.

Good to be with you. I'll keep it real brief because I've got to go. But, uh, firstly, uncle Daryl. Always good to see you.

Good to hear from you again. I hate we won't see each other for Shepcon, at least for the time being. I know that's so hard to deal with.

What can we do? Yeah. Yeah. Um, just a couple of things real quick, as I look at what's happening with the situation.

And, um, I know Mrs. Coates via Instagram, follow her content on there and have seen her posting her husband's sermons of late.

So I reached out to her this morning, I believe it was. Um, they said, I saw the news, just know that we're praying, our church is praying.

Um, we've got a prayer meeting at the top of the hour. So I'm going to keep it real quick. Um, as a student of history, um,

I'm, I'm, I'm of the belief that history kind of repeats itself, not in a sort of a never ending cycle kind of way, but human beings are the same, which means human beings will tend to do the same things over and over again.

When you look at history, whenever you have the government functioning in very secretive ways, hiding quote unquote dissidents and fine and acting inconsistently, that's a government that's on its way to being totalitarian.

That's not being insulting. That's just history. You look at Nazi Germany. That's what happened. You look at, um, the various communist governments.

That's how it happens. Inconsistent application of laws. I'm sorry. It doesn't make any sense to me. I live in Southern Oregon.

You know, thankfully we have a lot more freedoms here, but for a while, um, we weren't allowed to meet above a certain number or certain capacity, but Walmart was full all the time.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh, we've got marijuana is legal here in the state of Oregon.

All the weed shops were open. All the vape shops were open. Whoa. But Portland was open for the, for rioting and protesting, looting, rioting that, that you could do.

And it was there. Yeah. That's the thing that drove me nuts that the hypocrisy in the fact that you can have the protests going on, masks not required, distancing not required.

You know, I think John MacArthur, even when he opened said, this is our protest. I mean, exposing the hypocrisy community church, peaceful, correct.

It's a peaceful protest. And therefore then, then because they actually had rules and, and I know

Darrell was, was out there for this, but it was like a weekly thing where every week it's like, okay,

Monday, this is what grace community church is going to drive. We're going to set up the tents that we set up for shepherds conference.

We're going to have church outside. And then Thursday they come up with a law to shut that down. Okay. Next Monday.

It's like, okay, we're going to, every time it's like, they're creating the laws just to shut down grace community church.

Cause they have the nerve to apply the laws for protesting to the church.

I think we're called Protestants for a reason. Go ahead, go, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, I think something to point out too, is the fact that these rules are, you know, and Andrew, I know you were just, just talking quickly, but they're not laws.

That's right. They're mandates, right? They're, they're mandates.

They're not laws. They're health mandates. And, and so, so here's, here's something else. And as we're getting ready to record an episode on fear on matter of theology, and it should drop the

Lord willing the end of this week. But, you know, one of the things that, that, that drives and perpetuates fear are lies.

And so one of the things that you have going is you have these health mandates that are coming that are based upon lies.

That's right. We're being told this is the deadliest virus since the black plague.

You turn on CNN, you turn on any news station anywhere, and you see the little ticker up in the screen up here, this many cases, this many deaths.

No, no, no. Chris, Chris, you don't see that anymore. Biden's now president. You don't see that anymore.

Biden's president. Oh, that's true. We don't blame the deaths on Biden. Right, right. To James's point and to, to, to grace life's point there, if you go on their, on their websites, you will see they have a public statement there that talks about what they have done since COVID's appeared.

And so I won't, I won't go into all of that necessarily, but I will say this concerning that this, you know,

James is told being told that being said, it's being said about him that he is a death threat. He is a threat against the health and safety of Albertans for a virus that as a 99 .7

% recovery rate for anyone under the age of 65. What? So, so you're going to go after people.

And again, and this is to, to, to pastor Hargrove's point earlier, you're going to go after people based upon lies.

You're going to go after people based upon untruth. And, and, and Andrew, you said, you know, people crave truth from the pulpit.

I'll say this, the true Christians believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ, they do for the most part, but, but there are a lot of professing believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ who, who profess or carry around the moniker of Christian that true do not truly possess.

So they're willing to sacrifice truth on the altar of convenience, as long as they get their stimulus check.

Yeah. So I can't help but, but, but state that, and I also want to go back and echo something that Daryl said, because this is so good.

And this is something that I brought up on our last episode too, is, is if we are possessing faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, we possess faith in him. We are an adopted son or daughter of God.

Persecution is a fruit of that. And, and, and, and to, to our brother

Voddy, he preached an incredible sermon at the shepherd's conference in 2019, where he, he reminded us that look, suffering is not persecution.

Okay. You can, you can experience suffering and not experience persecution. And here's how you'll do that.

Here's all you have to do compromise. All you have to do is compromise. And, and so, yeah,

I, I, I, I am, I'm floored at some of the response that, or lack of response that we've seen from, from certain evangelical leaders.

And I'm resisting the urge to name names as well. They're, they're the same people who said, you know, when

Dr. MacArthur opened grace officially back up that this is a, you know, do we don't, we want to die on, you know, we don't want to give up the ground that we've made for this.

And here we are. Yeah. Yeah. To those people that would say, you know, is this the hill that you want to die on?

Well, any hill that you go down, down on proclaiming the name and kingship and lordship of Jesus is a hill worth going down on.

And, and, and, you know, to, to what Daryl said about, you know, these, some of these pastors who are sitting on the sidelines, you know,

I'll, I'll, I'll quote Dr. Steve Lawson, what he says all the time, when in his football days is you, if you want to get in the game, you got to get blood on your practice

Jersey, you know? And right now what we're seeing is we're seeing, you know, a lot of guys that don't even want to get in on practice.

They want to sit out on practice and they don't even want to want to fight. And if I can jump in, you know, the second thing

I wanted to say is I want to talk to Christians in particular, because one of the things I've seen in the last few days,

I got politely told off a number of times about talking about shepherds conference and what have you, and that being canceled.

And some of the responses to that. And again, this today's been the same thing in mentioning this story.

Well, Kofi, nobody's telling people they can't meet. They're just saying, you can't meet in this way.

My response to that is look at the Bible and look at every time that people tried to do that.

You know, the first person to do that, that I can recall Pharaoh in the Exodus story. Let my people go.

Okay, you can go, but you can only go so far. Now, it sounds to me like some of these folks would have told

Moses, Moses, this is a good deal. Pharaoh doesn't let people go. Usually. Take the deal.

And he's like, in the words of the TV show, which I'm from the UK, we came up with, and I know it's over here as well.

Deal or no deal. And Moses says, no deal. No. And it sounds to me like there are lots of people out.

I've encountered them today. You know, look, guy, you just sent me some DMS right now saying, well, you know, our church has been able to meet.

We just have to keep by these guidelines. That's what they're saying today. Yep. Kofi, let me, let me ask you a question.

Kofi, let me ask you a question. Go ahead. I want to, I want to just, just, just exposit the language that they use there.

Just for a second. Somebody is trying to turn a can't into a can't.

Do you see what I'm saying? Somebody saying, well, Kofi, they're not telling you, you can't meet.

They're just telling you, you can't meet in that way. So they're turning a, they're trying to make a negative into a positive.

Not realizing that the word can't means cannot. They're telling you what you can't do.

I don't care what they say you can do. It's the can't that's the problem. Do you not understand this?

And here's the thing that I, Kofi, we get a little bit of an echo from you. So I keep muting you.

But here would be the question. Let's, let's apply this. And so I'll give this to you,

Kofi, since you brought it up. What do you think would happen if we applied this same argument to the

Black Lives Matter protest? Firstly, you call them because you're white. So that's your problem.

So let's, let's start there. Wrong skin color. I see a lot more whites in the

Black Lives Matter protest. Anyway, argument. We will get told. Okay, but this is what actually

I did get told by somebody. But lots of the protesters were wearing masks and they were socially distanced.

So all I did at that point was I pulled video after video from YouTube, cell phone video. Just does this look masked and socially distanced to you?

No. Like people, what people will do is just try and find another way to not deal with the argument. Like at the end of the day, we can all recognize this is being applied inconsistently.

Every time I drive by Costco here in Medford, where I live, I'm reminded of the fact that this is being applied inconsistently.

Because Costco Medford looks booming right now. Our local

Fred Meyer supermarket is booming right now. People can go do that all day long.

Hundreds of people, in fact. But churches can't. And for Christians to kind of get in bed with that kind of thinking and say, well, you know, daddy government said we can do this, but we can't do this.

I have to be honest and say, I don't respect it. And I think it kind of exposes the weak thinking and weak ecclesiology that so many have had in the church for quite some time.

And I think we're going to start to see a bit of a sifting here. Like, who's for real about this and who's not?

Good. Yes. And here's the thing that I find interesting. Let me just look at some scripture, basically with what

Daryl just said. There's a ploy that's not new that we see being used all the time.

You see in Genesis chapter 2, verses 15 and 16, then the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden, cultivated it, and keep it.

The Lord commanded the man, saying, from every tree in the garden you may freely eat.

But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. The day you eat of it, you will surely die.

So they could eat all the trees. Nothing wrong with any of the trees. There's just one you can't eat.

Just one. But then look at what Satan ends up saying in Genesis chapter 2, when he speaks to the woman in the garden, because he says something different in verse 1.

Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field, which the Lord God made.

And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?

Do you see what Satan just did there? There's only one tree they can't eat of. But Satan makes that the end all be all of everything.

If you can't have that one tree, you can't have anything. This is the sleight of hand that gets done.

And this is what we see going on. And then it's like, oh, well, you know, just give in on this.

It's just a little thing. No, in this case, this is saying, we're going to tell you,

Church, how you can run things. That's what upset me so much, Andrew, about Russell Moore's response on Twitter to the

Supreme Court decision where they were allowing churches in California to meet at a 25 % capacity.

He was lauding the Supreme Court decision as if that was a win, as if that was a victory. Now, I don't know how good

Russell Moore is at math. Meeting at 25 % means that 75 % of you can't.

Yes. So how is that a win? How is that a win when the government is telling the church to see the law?

The Supreme Court decision is to automatically relegate the church below the government.

Just like that. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You got a lot of Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court over the church, over the church, over which the

God of all the universe reigns and has authority. You're going to applaud nine sinful, fallen human beings for giving you a little crumb off the table?

That's just absurd. That was laughable, his response to that.

Okay, so look at how many people do that, though, right? They look at this and celebrate stuff like that.

Again, we just have such a poor ecclesiology. And then you have leaders like that that pontificate on social media and everywhere else celebrating stuff.

Hey, the church can meet. Well, did you forget the opposite side of that coin to your point earlier,

Daryl? When you look at Romans 13, right? And everybody's all Romans 13, Romans 13, obey the government,

Romans 13. Remember that Romans 13 is a minister of people need to realize there's that word of in there of God and then go back to who the church is.

What is the purpose of the church? Who is the church built by? Who is the foundation of the church?

Who holds it all together? God does. And nothing is below that as far as institutions go.

I don't I don't understand that. And then now, look, they're silent again.

Chris, you know, speaking of Romans 13, you know, that in our doctors of the doctors of elections episode, we parked on Romans 13.

We parked on Romans 13 for quite a while. And then we exegete that word minister.

And we told our listeners that that's in the Greek. That's the same word for deacon. So we know that deacons are servants of the church.

You know, they're sort of equated to the Levites in that in that role. They serve the church.

They serve the body. That's right. So when you look at Romans 13, for it is a minister, the government is a deacon.

The government is a servant of God, is a servant of God to you for good.

So we stayed on that verse for quite a while in the episode. The logic should go that if the word of God says that the government is a servant of God, that means that the government subordinate to God under God's authority, number one, and that the government in that subordinate responsibility is to serve

God for the good of those, for the good of the governed. So the question must be asked, is what the government doing right now good?

Is what the government doing right now for our good? No, it's for their good.

Absolutely no. It's for their good. I mean, they're using this for what they can use it for, controlling people, controlling specifically the church, being able to tell the church how to function.

In America, at least, we have this fake separation of church and state. I find it so evident now when they say that there's a separation of church and state when they want it to be.

But now you're seeing that they really don't want a separation of church and state. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that, it was that the state should stay out of the church's business.

But they've gotten into all kinds of business. They've gotten into marriage. That's a church issue. If the state really believes in separation of church and state, stay out of the church issue.

Now they want to tell the church what worship is. They want to tell the church they can't sing.

Lisa posted a comment here that says, the Supreme Court also decided the church can't sing in California.

Well, I'm sorry, Supreme Court, but Christ says you are to sing. So churches in California will sing.

But what you said about the separation of church and state, what people don't realize, they'll say that's constitutional.

It's not. It appears in a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist. Now what's interesting about that—

Let's get the context of that because that's what I was saying. The context of why he wrote that is crucial in the separation of church and state argument.

Right. So every state at that time, and I think there were still colonies at that time.

They're referred to as colonies, territories. They had a state church. And what you had was you had the

Danbury Baptist, were still kind of a newer church in Connecticut.

And you had the state church that was trying to shut down the Danbury Baptist. And they wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson for help.

And Thomas Jefferson said, there is a wall erected between church and state to protect the church from the state.

Correct. And that's the thing that you end up seeing is that now what we see is we see the state that wants to not only get involved in church issues, but be the one that dictates what the church can do.

And this is what we see going on in Canada. They're going to say, no, you have to do this. And look, they could say follow the science all day long.

But the fact that the CDC now, of course, after the Biden election, now comes out and WHO with the new way of doing the testing.

I mean, it's no surprise that the numbers coming down everywhere. Because now they're doing the testing properly.

And so where before they were doing so many cycles, everyone was tested positive. Now, all of a sudden, oh, wow.

So now we're getting more realistic numbers. So whenever you play, whenever you mix politics and science, politics always wins.

Yeah. Well, I mean, at the beginning of the whole pandemic, you had the CDC, you had Dr. Fauci coming out saying, don't wear masks.

Why? Because he said what everyone's always known about the masks. They're for blood spatter.

And they're porous. And the ones that everyone wants everyone to wear are porous to one point four microns on a virus.

That's point one microns. It's just not going to help. Oh, so wear two masks.

OK, then you have breathing problems, two masks. So when you look at when you look at the facts and the fact that more, you know, the bacterial pneumonia, because nobody, nobody wears these things correctly.

No, right. And they don't change them out and they don't wash them. You touch everything with your hands and then you touch your face as soon as you walk in.

All right. So if you're just 15 minutes of breathing on most of these masks, be aware it breaks down because it's meant for blood spatter.

Yes. And you're done and you're supposed to change it. And you're supposed to wash your hands immediately after you touch anything.

And I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, and look, first masks, right?

Wear a mask, right? Let's let's we're going to mandate that you wear a mask. Because that's going to save us. Yep. Then then it then it turns for three.

Brad is saying three masks and a face shield is what you need. First, it's it's masks.

OK, and then and then what? Right. And then if you if you if you speak up, you're censored, you're silenced.

And then look at what we see now with within the whole reason that we're here tonight. You know, you've got

James preaching the gospel gathering as he's supposed to. You've got a government overreaching its authority to try to regulate how a church is to operate when that's not to be their function.

To Darryl's point, and Darryl had to drop off. He sent me a message. Andrew wanted me to thank you. And we obviously he's welcome.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I was the one texting him back and forth, but he thanks you. OK, well, yeah, so.

So but to his point about Romans 13. And if you haven't heard that episode of Matter of Theology, it's entitled

The Doctrine of Elections, episode 105. Listen to it. Listen to it is a minister of God to you for good.

So what happens when the government doesn't do good? You do resist and you say, no, you you have no authority here.

You have none. Now, thankfully, and let me say this, too, in regards to the details in Canada, Canada's laws, not mandates, laws, states that churches in any religion can gather for worship.

And in doing so, they assume their own risk, but they are free to gather. That's the law in Canada.

Well, and that's OK. So this is one of the things I wanted to bring up earlier, because I'm not as familiar with Canadian law, and I don't know if they have a law.

We have an amendment that gives us the freedom of religion. It's you know,

I will admit I loved absolutely loved John MacArthur. I don't know if you saw this video, this interview.

He's being interviewed by a reporter and the reporter says, what is it that you think gives you the right to be able to open your church and have church services?

And he says, the same First Amendment that gives you the right, the freedom of speech and freedom of the press, it's together.

And there's a reason all that's together. But so if the Canadian law specifically allows for churches to worship without these restrictions, then they're violating their own law.

Correct. They are the ones breaking the law. They are the ones not doing good. People have been saying all these things about James, which are not true.

He's a threat. It's a cult. He's evil. This is a tyrannical one. Just look at the reaction to him.

OK, you know, Pastor Carl brought this up and this exposes it. He he gave himself up.

Right. He went. He knew there was an arrest warrant for his arrest. What does he do? He goes and turns himself in.

Is that someone that's such a danger? Huh? He's done that every time. Yeah. But see, here's the here's the thing.

Is he such a threat? They he's going to be a danger to society. They have to put him in ankle cuffs.

No, that was all for the image. Yep. OK, the overkill, like Chris said, they have police officers that are attending the church.

Yeah. Being saved that know him. And then the first time he was arrested, they had I believe they had a police officer saying, we don't want to do this.

We don't agree with this, but we're making us do this. So they know they already know he's not.

I mean, one thing we need is some of the police officers to stand up the way L .A. did to John MacArthur when when the mayor said you're going to arrest him.

Maybe the sheriff said, you can you can make that mandate, but we're not obeying it.

You know, so so let's because we do get a wrap up. You know, we want to talk, you know, this is there's a couple of things, right?

Want to highlight what's going on, because as we've seen many of the comments, this is coming our way in America.

Don't be fooled, right? We need people that are going to stand up. We need people that are going to going to say this is truth and we stand on truth.

And there is a higher authority than government. It is the one who gives government their authority.

That's God. And we obey God over government 100 percent of the time.

Why? Because God's the one that gives them their authority to do what they do.

There is no government if God doesn't allow it. God's the ultimate authority.

God's the one we obey. Even the unbelievers who say they don't believe in God obey

God's authority because he established it. OK, so so let's we got to wrap this up.

I want to wrap it up with this. Where do we go from here? I want each of you to kind of give some encouragement to folks.

I know you're going to talk about fear in your next episode, so don't get us all afraid. But but but seriously, there's a lot of people you guys, you didn't mention,

I don't think, on the show, but on Matter of Theology, you recently did a podcast on basically preparing for persecution.

You had a, you know, an outline of what to do. And so, folks, if you haven't listened to, well, if you haven't listened to Matter of Theology, you're missing out.

Let me just start with that. But if you if you haven't listened to that episode, that last episode, it's one that's going to prepare you for what's coming.

So I encourage you to go check that out. Go subscribe to Matter of Theology. But you did that, you know, in there, you talked about this, the case going on here.

And what I want to do is just give some encouragement to people who are listening to this.

There's some who may be afraid, some who may be—and here we go, good, a Facebook user who

I don't know who it is said, just subscribed. Amen. Thank you. So, you know, the thing that—let me just read what

Brad says. Not obeying government, how will we feed our family? That just shows a lack of trust in God.

He is not wrong. I don't know who Brad is, but right on. You know, so let me start.

Let me start with you, Drew. Give us some encouragement. Where do we go from here? Do we just sit here and weep and just say, well, we'll pray for this pastor?

Is there more we could do? Well, of course, there's more we can do. First, we don't sit on the sidelines and be inactive.

We're active in our prayer, for sure. But we also need to prepare our own hearts and our own souls.

So I want to encourage everyone to go listen to the episode we did on training for persecution.

But I kind of want to run through real quick kind of the five points that I just kind of came up with with that. First is submission to God and his word.

You, as a follower of Christ, you must be submitted to God and his word, because that's how you're going to know who you're supposed to follow, which is

God, our Lord Christ. And what to do. And his word instruction instructs us on how we are to do things properly in order to glorify him through whatever we're going through.

Secondly, we must study the scriptures. We can't be in submission to something if we don't know them.

We must study the scriptures. Then we must stay in prayer. Now, the scriptures anchor us and they comfort us by giving us truth.

But prayer comforts us in a communal way with God. But not only that, we're also interceding for, say,

James and Aaron and their family in this trial and the things that are going on.

Fourth, we need to surround ourselves with other faithful people because we need people to lift us up.

But also we need to be the ones coming up under others and lifting them up as well. And then fifth, we need to suffer with joy when persecution, when suffering does come our way.

We are to receive it with joy. And then like Paul and Silas in Acts 16, if you get thrown in jail, then you sing the midnight hymns and you sing them with joy, fear.

People may be looking at this and they may be fearful, but they look at what's going on in Canada with Pastor James and then say, oh, my goodness, it's not long before it comes to America.

We know that, but we're fearful. What do we do? Well, you don't have fear in the things of this world.

If you are a believer, your fear is in the one who can destroy both the soul and the body, and that is the

Lord. But our fear in God is not the same. We have kind of this awestruck, reverent fear where we understand

God is sovereign. We understand that he is the one that is all powerful. He is the one that is in control.

So as we have a proper understanding and a proper fear in the Lord, those other fears we have of the things of the world, they begin to lose their grip.

And we end up—our faith is actually strengthened the more our proper fear of the

Lord grows. So I want to encourage you. Submit to God. Submit to his word. Study his scriptures.

Stay in prayer. Surround yourself with faithful people. Suffer with joy, and have a proper fear of the

Lord. Chris? Yeah, brother. So many thoughts just along those lines.

First and foremost, 2 Timothy 1 -7. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity or cowardice, but of power, of love, and of discipline or sound judgment.

Peter says that we don't suffer—if one suffers for being a murderer, that's different than suffering for Christ and being persecuted for the cause of Christ.

So what happens when that does come? And notice I said when. James is experiencing that now.

So we trust God. We trust God. Titus chapter 2 says this, verse 11.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires.

So we deny the ungodly. We put to death the deeds of the flesh, right?

The worldly desires, as Daryl pointed out earlier. We're letting go of the things of the world. We're letting go of the perceived and false security that we think we have by our hold on the things that we have, okay?

The things that have been given by God. So then Paul continues in Titus, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, verse 13, looking to, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

God and savior, Christ Jesus. And so that's what we focus on.

So when the persecution comes, like what James is experiencing right now and has experienced is going to continue to experience, that's what we focus on.

That's what we hold on to. And then we can join in with the apostle Paul.

We can, great company, right? One of the things that James said this past Sunday is that we have a deficient view of ecclesiology and of history, both church and secular history.

And we see the example that's been set by Christ himself, that the apostles, and as far as the martyrdom that they experienced for the glory of God and the

Lord Jesus Christ, what the apostle Paul experienced. And so we can join in with Paul in the letter

Philippians, when he wrote in chapter two, starting in verse 12. Now, I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole

Praetorian guard and to everyone else. To Daryl's point earlier, the name of Jesus is being spoken right now because of this situation.

Knowing James, knowing the type of man he is, the name of Jesus is being spoken up right now in the prison where he is.

Verse 13, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole

Praetorian guard and to everyone else. Verse 14, and that most of the brethren trusting in the

Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

Without fear. Be encouraged, believer. Speak without fear because of the example that's been set before us in the scriptures and throughout church history.

Well, let me try to wrap some things up here myself. Let me just encourage you, folks.

You know, you've heard already the encouragement from these two brothers. You know,

I did an episode on my podcast, Andrew Rappert's Rapp Report, on political activism.

One of the things that we end up seeing there, we end up seeing that I had said there is many

Christians have become sidetracked with politics at the expense of their relationship with God.

Do not allow that to happen. Do not allow the fear of politics and what could happen if we disobey government and obey

God to sidetrack you from your relationship with Christ. Get into the word of God.

My encouragement, memorize scripture. You know, there were questions we put up for those watching the video throughout.

People were saying, can Pastor James have a Bible in jail with him? And some people were saying that's probably the one thing they won't allow with him.

But you know how you can always have the Bible with you? Memorize it. That's right.

Memorize it. And it's always with you. No one can take it away from you then. And whether you're sitting in prison or if you're out on the street, you have

God's word with you. But Andrew, I can't memorize. Wrong.

You do all the time. The only question is how important is it to you?

Is it important enough that you will set time aside so you're not memorizing all of those pop culture lines from all the movies you're watching to memorize scripture?

I mean, you're able to memorize movie quotes and songs. You can memorize scripture.

This is the best time to be alive, Christian. It is the best.

Share the gospel. We have people out there who are in fear.

They don't know what to do. Everything going on. They're so worried. They're afraid. We have an answer for them.

It's the gospel. That's what we have to do. We have to be sharing the gospel.

That's what is going to help these people. As of today, Rush Limbaugh died.

He entered into eternity. Unless something changed in his life, he has entered into hell for all eternity.

People are going to be screaming at me. I'm going to get in so much trouble for that. The reality is it's true.

He was Roman Catholic. He didn't know Christ. It seems his brother David did. But think about what happened for him.

All that money he had, all that fame he had, he would give it all up to be in heaven.

It's useless to him now. Now starts eternity of punishment, which he rightly deserves because he disobeyed

God. Just like every single one of us rightly deserve the punishment of God because we break his law.

But for some of us, God chose to regenerate us. God chose to adopt us into his family and call us his children and give us a new heart from a heart of stone to create in us as a new creation that we can be called brothers or inheritance of Christ, that we are adopted into his family, that we have the

Holy Spirit indwelling us. This is all because of what Christ did on the cross, not because of what we did.

It has nothing to do with what you and I do. Someone's saying that Rush Limbaugh made a confession of faith.

If he did, good. I haven't heard that. But the thing is, is if he didn't, this is what eternity is for.

And this is what eternity is for any of you watching or listening that don't know Christ. I know we have the

Canadian atheist has been going throughout. If he dies today, this is what he has for eternity.

I don't want that for anyone. We all break God's law. God made a way of escape. God himself came to the cross, died in our place that we could be set free.

He took the punishment that we owe. He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

That's the good news. That's what we have to look forward to as Christians. But as Christians, we don't have to fear.

Pastor James is, I'm sure, not sitting in prison going, Oh, what was me? No, he's looking at this as an opportunity to glorify

God. That is our role as Christians. We seek to glorify

God, and that's the primary thing. That's what we seek to do.

So before we turn out, I want to just encourage you guys, be praying for Pastor James and the family.

Be praying for the Church. They knew the consequences, and they're willing to suffer for the cause of Christ, not to say,

Oh, look, I'm suffering. Let me try to build a platform. No, because Christ is being glorified. So be praying for them.

Pray for the family. Pray for the Church. They need that. You know, you guys already heard, go check out

Matter of Theology. The episode they got coming up on fear, I'm sure is going to be good, because all of their episodes are.

So just saying, not just thinking, that's good too. But tomorrow night on the same channel, we're going to have the 100th episode of Apologetics Live.

We've got some special guests. Hopefully we're going to be greeted by Phil Johnson. I still haven't heard from Todd Friel, but Justin Peters is going to try to, from an airport, tune in.

We'll see. We have a couple others, Paul Taylor and others, who are going to pop in and explain to us what they think is the most important thing about apologetics, something that's needed for us today.

If we're going to go out and share the gospel to this world, this culture we have, we're going to need to be able to defend the faith.

So check out Apologetics Live. You can always subscribe to it on podcast, Apologetics Live. Just search for it.

If you want to join the show, we'll ask questions, have discussion. Every Thursday night we do it, 8 -10

Eastern. You just go to ApologeticsLive .com and there's a way to join and ask questions.

Maybe, just maybe, the guys from Matter of Theology will drop in. We're just, you know, trying to, you know, maybe we could put some pressure on them live.

I love apologetics. It's true. Our very first episode, it was about kind of apologetics, right?

Yeah, sort of. I mean, so I went back to, when I went to school, it was to get my degrees in Bible and theology so that I could be an apologetics teacher in a private school.

How'd that work for you? So I love apologetics. How'd that work for you? Well, I'm doing a podcast instead of doing my day job.

So, and let me just, and so someone is saying, a

Facebook user is saying, should invite Pastor John MacArthur too. Wouldn't that be awesome? Well, that would be, except he doesn't do podcasts.

Or not very often. It's very rare that he'll do a podcast. Let me also let you guys -

If you get Phil, I mean, you pretty much, I mean, who else do you need from Grace TV, you know? Yeah.

So let me, let me, two more things is, I did an episode on this book, Yours Till Heaven.

This is the love story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon. If you haven't read this, it is a wonderful book written by a friend of mine,

Ray Rhoads Jr. We're giving away three copies, a part of my Rap Report podcast.

All you have to do - Chris Hunholds. Huh? Yeah, Chris Hunholds will win, I'm sure. All you have to do is go to, to leave us a review.

That's all that you have to do. And you could email us, email us so we know it's your review, because not everyone has names that we could find.

But the place to give a review is called lovethepodcast .com slash rap report.

Rap is with two Ps. So lovethepodcast .com slash rap report. You can leave a review there.

And then email us at info at strivingforeternity .org. Just let us know.

So there's one last thing I'm going to mention, because there were some comments here. John, aka

Atomic Apologetic, says he looks rested. Humble Clay is saying, glad you're doing better,

Andrew. There was one comment that I saw. Here we go. Joanne says, the

Karm prayer team is praying fervently and earnestly for Andrew. I told these guys, or at least

I told Chris, I was planning on just starting up the show. I was going to kind of duck out, and Chris was going to text me when things were done, and I'd just come and wrap up so that I could get a time of rest.

And my wife said, basically, she thought it would be good for me to take the time and spend with you all.

And I think it was good. I don't think my blood pressure went too high. Listening to this.

But I do thank you for all the prayers for my health. I am doing better.

And, you know, still just learning how to readjust life to, you know, recognizing that our bodies need to be cared for.

And I need to, you know, I told my wife, and this would be more of a marriage counseling for some of you guys, but I told my wife today that, you know,

I used to run. And this is something I've shared on my podcast. I used to run because I was a glutton.

I would run anywhere from 30 to 60 miles a week. And I'd always say, I run so I can eat like a pig and it doesn't show.

And then I was counseling a man with gluttony. And I mean, the words coming out of my mouth, slapping me up the backside of the head, because I realized they were true for me.

And it ruined my running. It absolutely ruined my running. And I've never been able to get back into a good,

I mean, I trained for marathons and I, you know, I've done 20 mile runs and I couldn't run anymore because I really was running because of my gluttony.

I told my wife today, you know, I'm back to running. I'm being consistent with it. I'm running twice a day some days.

And I'm running, you know, basically three to seven miles a day. And I told her, I'm running for you.

It's not for my health. I mean, my health is good. That's not why

I'm running. That's not why I'm starting to lift again. It's not why I'm starting to exercise and do all this and diet.

It's because I don't want her to be stuck without me having to, you know, be without me and me to be there to care for her.

That's my responsibility as a husband. And so I'm getting in shape. I'm getting exercise because I love my wife.

I'd rather be with Christ. I'll be honest with you. Avoid all this stuff, all the nonsense we talked about today.

But I love my wife. You know, God gave us that day of rest for a reason.

That's right. Okay. So and I did, you know, for folks that haven't heard that don't know, you could go listen to my

The Wrap Report podcast. The last one I did, The Importance of Rest. And it explains some of the health conditions and why

I'm making changes. It's a very good part. It was very convicting. It will make you think and reevaluate how you're resting and why you're resting.

So go listen to it. Brothers, it was hard to do that podcast. I bet it was. So glad that you guys could join us and go check out the different podcasts we mentioned.

And we're so glad you're with us. Check out christianpodcastcommunity .org. That's where you'll find all of our podcasts, or at least you'll find

Matter of Theology and all of mine. You know, we don't have Just Thinking on there.

They're on the Bar Network. But we should just bring the whole Bar Network over and then we'd all be together. I've said that to Dwayne, and I've said—

Bar Network is a sub -network or a branch network of Christian Podcast Community.

The way we do it at Christian Podcast Community, we don't sit here and say, oh, you have to be only with us. So I told him,

I'm like, we'll give you a whole section. So it's like, here's all the Bar Network podcasts. Like, that'd be neat.

But we're going to call it a night for folks who watch Apologetics Live. They know Anthony time is when we go over two hours.

That's what Anthony always likes to do when we're not doing that. So this will be a longer episode, at least for the wrap report, and way long for Matter of Theology.

But it's an important one. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, it's usually, what, an hour and a half sometimes?

Sometimes. So I'll leave with the quote that's over Drew's head there.

We preach Christ. Amen. is included with your

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