Jim Bakker Show - The Attacks on the Church Are Increasing - Stephen Strang on The Jim Bakker Show
Aired: 2020-07-02
Duration: 05:03


=== Christians Under Attack (03:04) ===

[00:00:00]  As a journalist, you feel that Christians are under serious attacks on our religious freedoms just by what you cover, what you see.
[00:00:09]  Yes, you're absolutely right.
[00:00:11]  You know, I'm kind of an amateur historian in the sense that I'm very interested in history.
[00:00:16]  And if you study history, of course, Christians have always been under attack all the way back to the Roman Empire.
[00:00:22]  Interesting that Christianity replaced the Roman Empire, you know, the embattled early church.
[00:00:29]  And of course, all through the Middle Ages, and things were so bad in Europe that a lot of our ancestors actually came here for religious freedom, which was enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
[00:00:40]  And Christians have had it so good for so long.
[00:00:43]  It was just a given that we had religious freedom that we're like shocking to see.
[00:00:50]  But it's because of a different worldview.
[00:00:52]  We believe in God.
[00:00:54]  We believe in the Bible.
[00:00:55]  The Bible tells us how to live.
[00:00:57]  There's other people that, you know, I believe it's spiritual warfare.
[00:01:01]  They're motivated by the father of all lies, and they don't see it that way at all.
[00:01:05]  And they resent Christians trying to tell them how to live.
[00:01:10]  You know, that you telling them that they can't have an abortion or that you can't gamble or, you know, whatever the issue is.
[00:01:17]  And they want to get us off the scene.
[00:01:20]  They want to undermine us.
[00:01:21]  They want to intimidate us.
[00:01:22]  They want us to just stay in the four walls of our church.
[00:01:25]  And in there, we can shout and raise our hands and whatever we want to do, but it doesn't affect anything as far as they're concerned.
[00:01:33]  And they want to intimidate us.
[00:01:35]  This whole thing about shutting down churches.
[00:01:39]  And then there's horrible hypocrisy.
[00:01:44]  And the hypocrisy is that the same governors that were saying you couldn't have more than 10 people in a church because they're unsafe are refusing to stop the looting.
[00:01:54]  In fact, a friend of mine tweeted, you know, he's got a good sense of humor, or at least I think it's a good sense of humor.
[00:02:01]  He tweeted, hey, because of COVID-19, no more than 25 looters in a store at any time.
[00:02:07]  You know, I mean, somehow having thousands of people that are not social distancing in all kinds of protests are fine, but going to church isn't.
[00:02:17]  Or having the grocery stores and hardware stores open.
[00:02:21]  Yeah, we need those things, of course, but there's no constitutional right for Home Depot to be open.
[00:02:26]  There is a constitutional right for the church to be open.
[00:02:29]  And, you know, people need medical assistance and all that kind of stuff, but we need spiritual help.
[00:02:36]  Depression and anxiety are through the roof.
[00:02:40]  We need to be able to be with our Christian brothers and sisters.
[00:02:44]  I'm just very, very concerned about it.
[00:02:46]  And it goes right in hand.
[00:02:47]  It shows a trend.

=== Lord's Open Door Talk (02:14) ===

[00:02:49]  There's a trend with a lot of people in the government who have power that are exerting their power to be against Christians, against religious freedom.
[00:02:58]  And it's one more reason why we have no choice but to put Donald Trump back into office.
[00:03:04]  And that's the point of both of my books.
[00:03:07]  In fact, I consider that God, Trump, and COVID-19 is really Part B of the election, which is part A.
[00:03:17]  The two books go together.
[00:03:19]  One does not replace.
[00:03:21]  And it was my way to try to, so frankly, the media has been a lot more interested in talking about COVID-19 in relationship to the election and so forth.
[00:03:33]  And the Lord has opened up for me a lot of doors, including one week from today, I sat in front of the same computer monitor and Skyped over to the BBC in London.
[00:03:44]  They wanted to know what Christians were thinking of this unrest.
[00:03:48]  And people can go online or go to my blog and see it.
[00:03:53]  They said it'd be three minutes.
[00:03:55]  It was actually six minutes.
[00:03:57]  So, being on the Jim Baker show is great because we have more time.
[00:04:00]  But I was telling them from a Christian point of view that none of us approve of what happened in Minneapolis.
[00:04:07]  Nobody.
[00:04:08]  I said, there's no sane American.
[00:04:09]  We are not divided at all.
[00:04:11]  But then I talk about what's happening and even my book on how I'm trying to deal with it from a spiritual point of view.
[00:04:19]  And I said, I ended by saying, millions of Christians are praying and we're praying for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:29]  It's the only thing that's going to fix things in America.
[00:04:32]  And the people, the announcer, was very nice to me, although he kept pushing, pushing, pushing, but he said, we'll leave it there.
[00:04:39]  Interesting that on live TV, the Lord gave me an open door to talk about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
[00:04:45]  That's really what's needed.
[00:04:46]  I believe that 100%.
[00:04:48]  That is just not rhetoric as far as I'm concerned.
[00:04:51]  And that's what comes out in my books.
[00:04:53]  In fact, I talk about the spiritual dimension.
[00:04:56]  I talk about how even a lot of leaders, Christian leaders, are talking about a mighty revival.