On Cancelling Church - True Beliefs are Being Exposed

Alright, well let's think more carefully about this whole idea of cancelling church and all that kind of thing, hopefully in a very winsome way. Alright, so here's the bottom line. I think that lots of people with takes on Twitter, YouTube, wherever, talking about cancelling church and obeying your authorities.

Why Cancelling Church Is a Complicated Issue

This is one of those things that you can't oversimplify. This is not a simple issue at all. And let me just put all my cards on the table here. So, two things. One, I go to a church whose elders made the call two weeks ago to no longer meet until further notice, essentially.

And I said on YouTube that I supported that decision. I said, hey, I think you're making the right call. And I trust my pastors to make that call. You know, at the end of the day, I wouldn't go to the church if I didn't trust my pastors to make that call.

And our congregation is super elderly. We've got like two young families and then the rest are over 60 kind of thing. There's some sick people and stuff like that. I think it was the right move for that particular church.

And then my brother, on the other hand, goes to a church. He's an elder in the PCA. And they've decided to continue meeting. They met last Sunday. I'm not sure about this coming Sunday. The governor in his state has decided to order a shelter in place, that kind of thing.

And so I don't know what they're going to do. And this is so this is not really theoretical for me or for anybody at this point. But but let's just let's not let's not oversimplify this. I saw a take on Twitter from Gavin Peacock.

I don't know who this is, but this is what his take is on this. Do what you are told by the authorities set over you. It's very simple. It will be difficult, but it is simple. Obey your authorities and you will save lives, even your own.

I think that there are two problems with this tweet. Number one, it's definitely not that simple. You don't just do whatever the authorities above you tell you to do. And I'm not going to say that Gavin would say that this is no exceptions.

Of course he wouldn't. He doesn't. Nobody would do that. But but it's not simple because these are complicated. These are complicated issues. And I'll explain why I say that in a minute. And then he also says, if you obey the authorities, you will save lives, even your own.

Two problems with that. I don't think necessarily you'll save lives. But also it seems to think that the highest good is to save lives, including your own life. And I again, I don't see that as the highest good necessarily.

That needs to be proven. That needs to be discussed and debated. And I think that we've got a lot of biblical warrant that that is not necessarily the highest good. Here's the here's the reality. This is how you know it's really not that simple of an issue.

Just thought experiment with me for a second. Let's just say the president gets on TV. I don't think he would ever do this. The president is not this kind of guy. But let's just say, you know, Cuomo, the governor of New York, got on TV and he said, all right, New Yorkers, listen, this is this is a crisis.

This is a crisis. This is a major crisis. Thousands upon thousands of people are dying. And so what we're going to do is we're going to ban all non-essential meetings of 50 or more for 18 months. Starting today, 18 months, all non-essential meetings are banned, and that includes church meetings.

So I think every Christian in the United States would say that is out of line. 18 months is entirely too long. And I think that they'd be right. 18 months is completely out of line. The government governor has no authority to do something like that.

The Church, the Civil Magistrate, and the Limits of Authority

Now, here's where the rub is, though. Where's the cutoff point? Where's the cutoff point where the governor can do that and when the governor cannot do that? Is it three weeks? Is it three months? Is it a couple of weeks?

Is it one week? You see, that's that's a question that's not answerable. You can't answer that question because and here's the this is the real trick here. According to Scripture, the governor does not have authority over deciding when the church does and does not meet.

It's just that simple. It is really that simple. The governor does not have that authority. Now, that is not to say that there are not times when the church should not meet. What I'm saying is the civil governing authority, the civil magistrate, the crown, whatever you want to call it, that's not his call to make.

That is the church's call to make. And so it's really not that simple. Obey what the authorities tell you to do. Well, that's obviously not all inclusive. I don't think Gavin would say that it is. And the question is, how much authority are you going to give that governor?

You see, people like to quote, you know, back back when things were more normal, people like to quote. What was it? Ben Franklin or anyone who's willing to give up essential liberty for safety. Yeah, they don't deserve either.

And then and it sounds all really well and good. But but but here's where those this is where that matters. Do you have those principles or not? Are you willing to give up liberty for safety? Because it's times like this where you need to decide.

And furthermore, it's times like this that reveal what you already believe. If you already believe that freedom is more important and liberty is more important and the and to be against tyranny is more important than safety, then chances are right now you're on Twitter with a take that says something like this.

Look, we should shelter in place, but you don't have the authority to tell me to do that. I don't want to give you that power. And likewise, if you like to LARP, you know, LARPing, that's that's like phony fake.

If you like to pretend that you like liberty more than safety, chances are you're today going right now. Well, you got to do what the governor governing authority tells you to do. You got to obey because you might save lives.

You see, this is the thing. What's happening here right now is revealing what your true commitments are. And you see, I'm not all about defying governance, not governments. No, I'm about obeying governments, but I'm also about God's law determining what those governments can and cannot do.

It's really not that simple. So if you think it's just as simple as obeying the governor because he's got your best interests in mind, I've got news for you. No, he does not. And I can prove it because babies are killed in your state every single day.

So, no, he doesn't necessarily have your best interests in mind. It's not just as simple as, well, if you obey, you'll save lives. No, that's not the case at all. You see, this is the reality. Like this is a crisis and a lot of people are scared.

And this is the time when your principles matter most. And so it's not just as simple as obeying whatever the governor says. Look, the governor, I think, should be giving guidelines out, should be saying, look, this is a serious situation.

You guys should shelter in place. But but when it crosses the line and says, OK, churches cannot meet until I say they can meet until I say that the threat has subsided. You don't want to give a governor that kind of authority.

You just simply don't. And so if a church decides to not meet like mine has, I'll tell you right now, my pastor told me he called me and said what we were doing. And I told him I supported him. One thing he definitely did not mention to me is, well, you know, the governor of Vermont decided that we can't meet.

So, you know, we're just going to obey our governing authorities. Romans 13. No, he didn't say that because my pastor is a smart man. He's not meeting because he thinks it's the right thing to do, not because a governor told him to.

They're totally different things. And I think I think a lot of people think, well, we're nitpicking here. We're just we're just trying to cause problems. No, we're not. It's all about the fundamentals.

It's all about what you actually believe, because once you give the governor that kind of authority to tell you when it's safe to meet and when it's not safe to meet. Well, I'm not so sure that you're ever going to get that back.

Preserving Life Without Making It the Highest Good

All right. Here's the other thing. I was talking, talking with my brother about this yesterday. And, you know, the point came up, OK, we should, you know, to obey the commandments, we should not only not kill, but we should also try to preserve life.

And that's definitely true. It's something that you should consider when you're deciding whether or not to close your church. It's the reason why we closed our church. Again, that wasn't my decision, but I supported it.

But the reality is, though, that there there is a limit for that as well, because at the end of the day, if this pandemic last 18 months, we're not closing our churches for 18 months just to save lives.

Because we know as a church, we know as a church that the reality is that the spiritual, the soul is just as real as the physical. Right. And so it's not just about physical life and death, although that's important.

It's also about spiritual life and death. And I think that this the fact that this has become such a simplistic thing. Well, we have to preserve physical life, even if it means closing our churches for who only knows how long.

Like it kind of reveals sort of an unbelief in us, because the reality is when you step behind that pulpit and preach to those people, it's a matter of life and death every single time. Every decision that you make about the theology that you teach, about about how we do our worship and stuff like that.

That's a life and death decision. What does Jesus say? He says, don't fear those who can just kill the body. Fear the fear, the one who can kill the body and the soul. You see, like the physical and just the physical.

And that's the only thing that's in your consideration. That's a problem. And I think that this is revealed again that a lot of us and I'm putting myself in this category as well. So don't hear me just trying to rip you guys.

I'm putting myself in this category as well. A lot of us have a lot more regard for the material, the physical safety than the spiritual, because when it becomes a situation of our spiritual nourishment over and against our physical nourishment.

Kind of like the physical kind of wins out. It's like, well, I don't want to get the COVID. I don't want to spread the COVID. But what about the the soul care that that happens at church? To borrow a line from Kyle Howard.

What about the soul care? Is that not important and real? Is that is that nourishment not important? And again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't close down your church given the circumstances. I'm not saying that, but it's a much more complicated discussion than a lot of people are making it out to be.

A lot of people are basically saying, well, if it saves lives, then you got to do it. That's actually not the case at all, because if that's the case, then the lesson we learned from COVID is that during every flu season, we shouldn't meet either.

Because that would save lives, probably. Again, I'm not saying this is just the flu. This seems to be more deadly than the flu, but the flu is deadly. And so what if you gave the flu to an elderly person at your church during a normal flu season?

So not meeting would potentially prevent that from happening. See, this is the point. This is the point. This is about principles. We got to be careful the precedents we set here, because all of a sudden, this COVID crisis is going to turn into all kinds of other crises.

And you think you can trust the government to make the decision between what saves lives and what doesn't. You're going to have a rough time. You're going to have a rough time because there's going to be plenty of governments that are going to say, well, you know, what you guys say against LGBT, that's harmful to them, and so you can no longer do that.

And because you've already given them the whole argument, you really have nothing to say to it. You probably will say something to it, because a lot of you guys are going to be inconsistent here. But let's just be careful, because the fundamentals, the principles, the foundations of your beliefs matter very much.

And I think what we're seeing in this time of crisis is really a lot of us, our fundamentals, our foundations are in many ways compromised. And so we need to reevaluate, because during a crisis is not the time to figure out what you believe.

It's always going to be more difficult, because the fear and the anxiety and the emotions are going to start to come into play. So what you should do is figure out what your fundamental beliefs, your foundations are.

And so that way, when you're in the crisis, you can stay rock solid on those. And I'm not saying your plans don't change when circumstances change. No, plans change, but foundations do not. God's Word does not.

God’s Word, Worship, and the Spiritual Necessity of Church

God's Word didn't give the civil governing authorities the authority to tell you when and where to meet before the crisis, and He certainly doesn't give it to them during the crisis. And so we can't just be overly simplistic here.

We can't just be like, well, you know, you love your neighbor, you won't meet. No, I love my neighbor. Some churches love their neighbor enough to meet, because they know that the spiritual need is important.

It's real. It's just as real, if not more, than the physical. And so this whole argument that's put forth, oh, just listen, because you're going to save lives, it's the highest good ever, that's just not how it is.

It's just not how it is. That's not what Jesus taught. That's not what the apostles taught. Jesus taught man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes to him. So where are you going to hear that word?

Don't we realize that every Sunday when we worship with our family, we are hearing from God through our pastor? Do we believe that for real, or do we think a Zoom call can suffice for that? I'd like to know.

I mean, do we really believe that when we're communing with the bread and the wine, that something really spiritual is happening there, or can we just do it at home and it's all the same, or just go without for weeks or months or however long until the civil governing authority tells us it's okay to meet again?

Seriously, guys, you don't want to give the civil governing authority that much power, because you think that you would have enough sense to know when it's real or not. I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure we do.

Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. I hope I didn't just confuse things even more, but it's really not a simple issue. It's not a simple of just obey or not. We've got to think about our foundations and our principles here.

And to be honest, a lot of what I see is just way overly simplified. Anyway, pastors, I love you guys. I pray for you guys. I'm very proud of so many of you. You've got a lot of work to do ahead of us.

And anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.