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July 25, 2023 - Babylon Bee
30:53
John MacArthur Defies The Government On The Babylon Bee

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church fought Gavin Newsom and the State of California to keep his church open and won. He argued that the church was essential and there is a new movie about it: The Essential Church. The Babylon Bee shows him their award-winning journalism covering his exploits and tempts Pastor John with a beer. Check out The Essential Church in theaters July 28: https://essentialchurchmovie.com

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What did it feel like for you, having closed the church in March of 2020, to a unanimous decision to reopen in July of 2020 in defiance of Governor Gavin Newsome's orders?
If you're being told that people are going to die in the streets and you're going to kill your congregation and kill your grandma and kill your wife, you might want to slow down and think about it a little bit.
But as soon as we knew that was not true and that we were being lied to, then it was just a matter of being faithful.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon B podcast.
Welcome to the Babylon Bee interview show.
This is a huge day for us.
I'm Sam Greer.
I've been known to, around these parts at the Babylon Bee, pitch a headline or host an interview or write an article in my day.
We're here with a very special guest, Pastor John MacArthur, you might know as an author.
You might know him as a gentleman who's pastored the same church for over 50 years and preached through the entire New Testament at a rate of, on average, five verses a week.
That's slow and thorough.
Finally, Pastor John, you might know as the man who wrote the Bible.
Thank you for joining us.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you.
Now, you didn't write the Bible, but what was it like to be there with the gentleman who did write the Bible?
Yeah, you know, that was the real issue with me when they said we'd like you to do a study Bible.
I had to get over the hurdle of putting my words in God's word.
Even at the bottom of the page, that was a stretch for me.
And it wasn't until I was given a Geneva Bible from the 17th century and saw that they had study Bibles to help people understand the word.
So for at least a few hundred years, I was in good company.
You were in good company.
And of course, you presided over the legacy standard Bible, which is going to be a huge component of your legacy.
Right.
That was just making sure that we had a good translation because translations are tending toward, I guess you could say, the reader.
In other words, there's a concern about the reader, and so you change the language, when translation, by definition, has to be about the writer.
And once you shift from the writer to the reader, you have walked away from the authorial intent of the text of Scripture.
So I was trying to yank the chain a little bit and say, let's go back and what would we have as a translation if we went right back to the author and took what God gave the inspired author and that's what the legacy is.
Amen.
And we're grateful for it.
We're going to talk about parts of your legacy, but today will be a rather focused conversation.
The Essential Church is the new documentary from Grace Productions.
It comes out on July 28th in theaters.
I'm telling you this news for the first time.
You know probably that we had already closed AMC and Regal.
What you might not know is that we were at 72 theaters yesterday.
As of today, 150.
That's wonderful.
The film, we want to get massive reach because it's got a massively important message.
It follows the story of you shepherding the elder board from having closed the church in March of 2020 to a unanimous decision to reopen in July of 2020 in defiance of Governor Gavin Newsome's orders.
What did it feel like for you to be under the sizzling microscope of the full force of the state and the county?
Did you feel fear?
Did you feel like you were maybe making the wrong decision and should just buckle and bow?
I don't know that I ever felt anything.
I'm not that kind of a person.
I mean, I wasn't looking for emotional cues.
I knew what was right.
I mean, it's a simple thing.
It doesn't matter what comes.
It only matters what your convictions are.
And if your convictions are immovable and unchangeable and eternal, then whatever comes, you have the same response.
And so you respond on a biblical basis.
Now, it's true if you're being told that people are going to die in the streets and you're going to kill your congregation and kill your grandma and kill your wife.
You might want to slow down and think about it a little bit.
But as soon as we knew that was not true and that we were being lied to, then it was just a matter of being faithful.
Amen.
Our top journalists at the Babylon Bee were on the case, following the story closely.
We wrote some headlines about the sheer rage of the state that was leveraging its power against you.
I'm going to read some out loud.
Chuckle or don't chuckle or respond as you see fit.
Our first is this.
Let my people go to church.
Bellows bearded John MacArthur to hard-hearted Gavin Newsom.
I love that.
I love that.
Yeah, yeah, he's Pharaoh and I'm Moses.
I'll take it.
Then you'll take it.
It's a gift.
Thank you.
Dump it to your left.
Go ahead.
Don't let me interrupt.
Were you going to respond to that?
No, no.
Look, standing up against Gavin Newsom, who sees himself as Pharaoh-like.
He doesn't see himself as a part of a republic.
He sees himself as a king, an authority.
Standing up against him and realizing that the judge that was basically handling our case was a man married to a man.
We knew he wasn't on our side morally and ethically and spiritually.
So our attorneys basically said, we felt you had 1% chance to win the case.
That's from our attorneys because the enemy is too formidable and too hostile.
But the Lord knew it wasn't 1% to win the case.
We had 100% chance to win the case.
Amen.
Because he was involved.
Amen.
And Pharaoh's, of course, Pharaoh massacred babies.
Governor Newsom has set himself up as a Pharaoh-like figure.
Here's another.
Outraged Governor Newsom orders furnace to be heated seven times if John MacArthur will not bow down and worship him.
Do you recognize the reference?
Absolutely, yeah, from the book of Daniel.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, and I honestly remember years ago on Larry King, I don't know if you've seen it, I did an interview with Gavin Newsom.
And he was talking about how he had basically legalized same-sex marriage in the city of San Francisco.
And the conversation got to a point where I said, well, what's your authority for doing that?
The Bible is against that.
Clearly, the scripture is against that.
And he made some kind of comment about, well, I'm a Christian.
I'm a Christian also.
And I said, well, then you must accept the authority of the Bible, right?
I mean, that's what a Christian is, somebody who accepts the Bible.
And then it was like, well, he said, I'm not a theologian.
I'm not going to get into a theological debate.
I saw the clip.
Yep.
And then he said, you know, he's going to wave on the theology issue of it.
But again, those conversations with him or with anybody else in that environment was always an authority discussion.
So you're saying this.
Maybe it was Deepak Chopra who was spouting off about all kinds of things and denying things that were biblical.
And I would just say to him, what's your authority?
What's your authority?
Are we supposed to accept you as the authority?
sole authority, purveyor of all truth, architect of truth, source of truth.
That doesn't go over real big with a guy who thinks that's true but doesn't want to admit it.
Governor Newsom had a formidable foe in you, and so does anyone who has the misfortune of facing you down on Larry King Live or elsewhere, because you have the source of truth.
Last but not least, Newsom demands John MacArthur the Baptist's head on a platter.
And for this one, our top journalists wrote a bit of article that I'll share.
Sources say the governor was fed up with the constant calls to repentance and that during a wild party at the French laundry yesterday, he demanded that the head of John MacArthur the Baptist be brought to him on a platter.
He said, this MacArthur has been a thorn in my side long enough.
I want you to give me at once the head of John MacArthur the Baptist on a platter.
Governor Newsom spoke to a confused server in answer to the question, what would you like, sir?
Any final responses on this, John MacArthur the Baptist?
Yeah, you know, all I can say is you want to identify me with Moses and Daniel and John the Baptist?
I'll take it.
Where do I sign up?
Well, so...
Could you send those over to my critics?
Yeah.
Yes.
I'd appreciate it.
Now, next question is about the sheer focused might of the ire of the state against you.
There was credible threats of arrest.
I was friends with your research assistant at the time, and he said that you were genuinely preparing to potentially be hauled into prison, an octagenarian pastor being hauled into prison for holding church services.
At that time, did you feel any final hesitation, or did any elders or other leadership who were under the same threat, did they feel any fear or worry?
You know, they may have thought this might be an opportunity for us to get a different guy talking to us since we've been listening to this guy for 50 years.
They didn't say that.
But no, again, it was never about what I felt.
I never ever had a thought.
I remember saying to Jenna Ellis, who was the constitutional attorney in the thing, you know, if I go to jail, like the Apostle Paul, I have a jail ministry.
Whatever's going to happen is going to happen.
And they were piling up fines, and every Sunday was another dollar fine and another period of time in jail.
I was honestly eager to see where the hand of the Lord would take it because I'm such a strong believer in the providence of God.
If I look back over my life from this vantage point in my 80s, I have seen the hand of God, the unseen hand of God in Providence, work in every imaginable and unimaginable way for all these many, many years.
I trust him completely.
So whatever his plan is, is exactly where I want to be, whatever that means.
So I don't respond emotionally.
I wasn't fearful of anything.
Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.
But in honesty, I did feel that if there were any vestiges of legality left in the state of California and America, there was protection from the Constitution.
And we had the right attorney to make sure that she ran that flag up all the time so everybody remembered that.
Yes, Grace Community Church is not a very clappy or loud amenity church, but when you thanked Jenna Ellis for her service during a Sunday morning, standing ovation.
Again, a rarity at a rather conservative church.
Well, the film.
It's a two-hour development of a sustained argument.
After a screening, I was able to see, I heard Bill Brandenstein commenting to the producer, Jacob Hoffman, that the film maintains interest and focus over the course of two hours, and it really does develop an argument.
What is the core biblical argument of the film?
Well, the core biblical argument of the film is very simple, that God has designed government to have a certain role within a certain sphere and not beyond that.
The government doesn't become the father to your children, although they would like to.
We're going to fight that battle continuously.
What they're trying to do now is allow children to be influenced by a teacher toward transgender surgery and not be able to tell the parents.
So the government will go wherever you would allow it, but in God's design, it had a very limited social purpose and structure of protection and sort of social welfare.
The design of God for the church was to come under the headship of Jesus Christ.
So in the simple statement of Jesus, he said, render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, which means they're different.
So the church doesn't run the government and the government doesn't tell the church what to do.
And the statement you made was, Christ, not Caesar, is the head of the church.
Now, what about state overreach that doesn't interlope in Sunday morning services?
You famously have the unpopular stance that the American Revolution was unbiblical due to Romans 13.
Do Christians have discretion to push back or not be subject in areas that don't involve Sunday worship?
Or is it just the church where Christians are allowed to not be subject, if the church is being intercepted by the God?
What answers that question is the reality that we are to obey the laws.
We are to be model citizens.
So you don't start a riot.
You don't start a rebellion.
You don't start a war.
You don't start shooting people.
You don't march on capitals and you don't overthrow the powers that be.
None of that is acceptable Christian conduct.
We submit to those authorities.
We pray for the salvation of our leaders, but we are model citizens.
If there's going to be a change, you know, there's only two possibilities.
Either you can change laws and therefore change men, or you can see God change men and therefore change laws.
And the latter is the only way to make a difference.
We want to live quiet and peaceable lives, so we pray for the salvation of our leaders.
We pray for mass salvation.
Of course, the story ends on a happy note, with around a million dollars in legal fees being the big banner dollar amount.
The happy ending wasn't always in view.
So just rewinding to the beginning, did you initially believe that church was essential despite any COVID risks?
Or did you believe that church was essential because the COVID risks were trumped up and misrepresented?
Yes.
I believed that the church was essential and the risks were trumped up and they were lies.
But I also said, and I said this to our leaders, I don't care if it's the bubonic plague and the black death, the church is essential.
And maybe more essential if this thing is as dire as they say it is.
And so then the shift is, not are we willing to meet in church and break the law, but would we be willing in a real plague to risk our lives to take the gospel to people?
And the answer has to be yes.
I mean, you have history with that.
Amen.
Now, a semi-parallel situation.
In cold, cold, snowy Moscow, Idaho, there was a proactive protest and expression of First Amendment rights, and some of the protesters were arrested for not showing IDs.
They had showed up to City Hall during the lockdowns to sing hymns in protest.
Is that a fair parallel to what happened with Grace?
Or is what happened with Grace different because the government was interrupting our Sunday morning worship and we were just being reactive?
Is the proactive versus reactive, does that make the parallel incomplete?
Yeah, I think, I mean, I'm not going to say you couldn't do that or it's wrong, but there's nothing in scripture that encourages believers to protest government, but to live quiet and peaceable, godly lives.
Pray for your leaders.
Let the sanctification of the work of the Spirit in the church be made manifest.
So the church affects the culture, not by marching on City Hall and carrying placards.
The church affects the culture by its virtue, its godliness, its holiness, its prayers, its compassion.
And when it is the church, then even though society doesn't like it, it is a restrainer.
It is a source of good in the midst of evil.
It balances off the inevitability of destruction.
So the church, in order to be the church, it has to be more than just open.
It has to be transformative, which means it's not just the meeting of the church, but it's the living, breathing members of the church in society that make the difference.
Amen.
I was in our adult Sunday school class, the Steadfast Fellowship Group, and I attend there with Shannon Halliday, the writer and director of the film.
We had him stand up and speak into a microphone to explain the film a bit.
And he was asked what was the most challenging part about making the film.
And he said, it was a complex story involving legal, scientific, and biblical argumentation.
And he said, I also chose to weave in church history.
And juggling it all was a challenge.
I believe it pulled it off beautifully.
It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
How did the church history element enrich the film and enrich our understanding of what happened with you and Grace Community Church?
Well, I didn't want it to be about our church.
I didn't want it to be about me.
I wanted it to be about the church and the position it has been forced to take throughout church history.
We could have picked a lot of different eras in a lot of different locations through history.
I mean, even today, you could find the persecuted church in parts of the world even now.
But we landed on the Covenanters in the 1600s because it's such a dramatic story of the faithful in Scotland when they were being threatened by the King of England.
And it brings to the fore the fact that the stand that we took was just us doing what believers have done in the past.
And to be honest, the sacrifice that we made was nothing compared to the sacrifices the Covenanters made.
I mean, they were literally burned at the stake.
We show the very location.
There's still the grass market in Edinburgh is still there.
You can see it.
I've done that many times.
So they gave with their lives.
We were inconvenienced and we were criticized, but nobody died.
But there have been Christians, literally, the headship of Christ in his church is a doctrine that has come down through the ages really on a sea of blood.
People have died to protect the headship of Christ.
We haven't done that yet.
The scene with the rising tide is harrowing.
I mean, speaking of sacrifice, and I'm assuming you don't endorse throwing stools at Governor Gavin Newsom?
No, we wouldn't do that.
That's an inside joke if you haven't seen the film.
Jenny Geddes was so outraged she did that.
And the story of the two ladies, the two Margarets, who I've been to that place, I've seen those monuments, who were drowned.
I mean, these two women were drowned because of their unwillingness to bend to the government.
So it's a costly stand for some to take.
And, you know, conveying that, communicating that with the brilliance and genius that they did using dramatic special effects pointed up the fact that if you're doing that now, you're part of a wonderful history.
You're connected to some amazing people in the past who took a stand that cost them more than it cost you.
Amen.
Which is a very noble thing to think about.
So we wanted people to understand that this was not just in the moment.
This is the church's battle from the very start.
Amen.
Something like sharing in the sufferings of Christ.
And the gentleman in Canada, of course, suffered tremendously.
James Coates was the scene that tears your heart out as a father is when he's reunited tearfully with his family in the film.
And then, of course, the film where Tim Stevens is arrested in front of his weeping family.
I mean, that was all okay because they were science deniers and misinformation peddlers, right?
Right.
By the way, Tim is right here today.
I've been talking with him today.
He's here for the MDiv program.
I saw his beard a couple Sundays ago.
Yeah, but again, the price for them was really severe.
And they didn't know what the end of that was going to be.
I mean, there's no way to know what's going to happen.
So taking the stand at that point puts them in the category of the noble who are willing to lay their life down if that's what the Lord asks.
Amen.
Now, in your book, of course, you co-wrote it with Dr. Nathan Buznitz from the Master Seminary, Right Thinking for a World in Chaos.
The early chapters gesture towards storm clouds of persecution on the horizon.
We accept and acknowledge that that can be a part of the Christian life, but of course, those of us with small children don't relish the idea of future generations being bereft of the wonderful privileges and freedoms we've had in this country.
What is the practical to-do for Christians who want to try to safeguard a future for their children?
Is it something approximating Christian nationalism where you band together and create laws that are recognizably Christian?
Or is it something quieter and just a quiet faithfulness?
What's your take?
Well, first of all, you have to start with what the Bible says.
And the Bible says that things are going to get worse and worse, not better and better.
So it's not likely, unless you're a post-millennialist, you know, unless you believe things are getting better all the time, which is not what Scripture says.
If it's difficult or nearly impossible now to make such laws, why would we think 10 years or 15 years from now it would be easier to make that?
Like, it's going to get better.
It's not going to get better.
Evil men get worse and worse.
So it really doesn't matter what the government does.
You've got to get off that train.
And you've got to say, I am a part of the church of Jesus Christ.
So, how do you protect your children in the future?
By having them in a church where the word of God is exalted, where Christ is lifted up, where God is worshipped, where the pursuit of holiness is manifestly the pursuit of the congregation, where there's compassion and care, clarity about truth.
The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
The protection for families in the future is not going to be the government.
It's not going to be the government.
Because eventually, according to all the prophecies, the government will turn on the church.
The government is always the persecutor because they're the only ones who can put people in jail and kill them.
You know, your neighbor can't be your persecutor.
He can't come over and shoot you or he's going to go to jail.
So government is always the ultimate persecutor, and they've shown that they're willing to do that.
So you've got to get off that train, and you've got to stop thinking that there's a solution with them because that's not the trajectory.
And you've got to find the church which is most faithful, most sound biblically, where you have godly leadership.
And I look at my kids.
I have four children, 15 grandchildren, five little great-grandchildren, three and under.
And people say to me, What about the future?
And I say, I'm so excited about the future because they're in churches where they're being led to the truth of God, where they're coming to know the Lord.
And this is their time.
I have no fear for them because this is God's time for them.
But I would say you don't want to leave them exposed.
And you have to think beyond even the church.
And I think parents are going to have to think this way in the future.
You're going to have to think seriously, I mean really seriously, not just a passing conversation, about Christian education and homeschool education.
Or you're literally going to turn your kid over to a brainwashing process.
Well, and I've heard about the sweet tradition of you bringing the great-grandchildren up to your office after you preach to grab some candy from the candy jar.
And I appreciate the word of hope and encouragement here at the end.
Be faithful.
Don't worship your vote, but steward your vote responsibly.
And of course, Psalm 146, do not put your trust in the Son of Man in whom there is no salvation.
Instead, put your hope in the Lord, the God of Jacob.
Pastor John, last item.
We know that there was a wonderful clip floating around from mid-COVID where you acknowledged, you're famously a teetotaler, you acknowledged that the aluminum had been diverted from non-alcoholic beverages towards beer cans because alcohol consumption was up so high from the dramatic overreach.
I wanted to ask you just a very simple question.
Would you be interested in us refreshing you with some beer right now?
No, I think there's a new product that I'm interested in.
It's fresca with a John MacArthur face on the can.
You're in luck, Pastor John.
I know the owner of Tango Packaging who put the stickers on the fresco.
Really?
I was kidding about the beer.
Here is a Pastor John Fresca from Shepherd's.
You know, I saw one of these on eBay the other day for $125.
I'll be keeping the rest of these.
Well, what do you got?
You got 12 in there.
I got a 12.
You can sell them.
Pastor John.
Yeah, really, it was for sale for $125.
Incredible.
Thank you so much.
It just went down, however, now that we know there's more.
I diluted the value.
Sorry, eBay resellers.
That was interesting because I had no idea you had that.
I know.
Our brains are going down the same track.
Correct.
You must be a Grace Church guy.
Correct.
I want my fresca.
I want my fresca.
This has been the Babylon Bee interview show.
We were thrilled to have gotten a chance to sit down with Pastor John.
Pastor John, this is normally the moment in the show where we say, where can we find you?
And people plug their podcasts.
You famously say, God takes care of the breadth of my ministry.
I just worry about the depth of my ministry.
So I know you won't plug your podcasts or anything.
I'll just say, grace to you is the resource for John MacArthur's sermons.
There's an upcoming podcast, season three, coming out in August, of the MacArthur Center podcast about your life and ministry.
Any way that we can be praying for you?
Well, I think I always think about what Paul said, pray that the gospel will have free course, that it'll go forward with power.
I don't fear the culture.
They can't stop the purposes of God.
Christ said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it.
And I read the end of the story, we win.
Christ wins.
Christ triumphs.
We will triumph in Christ.
So I'm not worried about the end of it.
I'm worried about only the fact that the church needs to build itself strong so that it can stand against the tide that's coming.
And I would just make one further comment.
There's a big trend in what's called deconstruction, Christian deconstruction, the hashtag exvangelicals.
The reason so many people are defecting from the church is because they were never converted in the first place.
You have the shallow, and there's not enough gospel in some churches to reject it.
So people think they're Christians, but it doesn't survive.
And it's like the parables of the soil.
They don't survive.
Whatever comes along chokes off the seed.
So I think we're going to see a lot of continual defections and deconstruction.
Not only because they're not true believers to start with, but secondly, because it's now cool to do that.
Now you're part of the new victim group.
I can think back in years past that when somebody that I knew of, say, in my college days or younger years, was a Christian and claimed to be a Christian and they defected.
It was kind of a quiet thing.
They went away.
There was shame and embarrassment.
It was sort of like being a homosexual, say, in 1945.
No one knew that.
You wouldn't let anybody know that you wouldn't have a parade, that's for sure.
So they didn't parade their apostasy.
But that's a new category of victim in which you can garner popularity and you can make a whole lot of new friends if you don't mind limiting your friends to the internet.
So I think this is going to continue, which obviously calls on the true church to be faithful and to be strong and preach the true gospel so we don't produce half converts who will eventually deconstruct and fall away.
Amen.
We'll pray that that trend reverses or dies on the vine.
We'll pray that the gospel flourishes.
Again, thank you, Pastor John.
The film comes out July 28th.
The big order of the day is buy tickets if you're in a city where it has it.
Call your friends who are in a city that has it, if you're in remote Massachusetts or what have you.
Pastor John, the Essential Church, thank you so much for being with us.
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