Pastor James Coates of Grace Life Church details his five-week imprisonment for refusing to close his church during the pandemic, arguing that complying with such mandates constitutes sin by surrendering Christ's headship to Caesar. He asserts that physical corporate gathering on the Lord's Day is essential for spiritual growth and the administration of ordinary means of grace, which live streaming cannot replicate. Coates contends that resisting unjust laws protects believers from apostasy and preserves the Holy Spirit's unique presence within the community, ultimately framing his sacrifice as a necessary defense of conscience against government overreach. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Pastor James Coates Introduced00:01:24
All right, you guys are in for a real treat on this episode.
We have Pastor James Coates in Edmonton, Alberta, who has really reached international news for being imprisoned for five weeks for continuing to keep his church open on the Lord's Day during COVID 19 against the civil magistrates' orders.
And one of the big issues that we get to in this episode is really kind of addressing those who would oppose Pastor James Coates, who would Profess to be followers of Christ.
There are people who say that he's not actually being persecuted, that he's just playing the martyr, that he's really just experiencing the appropriate consequences for his foolish decisions.
And there are professing Christians who would say this isn't real persecution.
Pastor James is just playing the martyr.
And so that's the big question that we address in this episode.
And we try to provide for you a biblical criteria for what actually constitutes persecution according to the Word of God.
So enjoy.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right, so we're privileged to have as a special guest today on Theology Applied Pastor James Coates.
James Coates lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Is that correct?
Defining Biblical Persecution00:04:18
That's correct.
All right, and so would you just take a moment and introduce yourselves?
I think a lot of our listeners will be familiar with you and what's been going on with your church and the persecution that you've been experiencing.
We're going to talk about that.
But go ahead and just introduce yourself to our listeners.
Let them know who you are.
Yeah, my name is James Coates.
I'm a graduate of the Master's Seminary twice.
I graduated from TMS with an MDiv in May 2010, and then last year with a Doctor of Ministry.
And I've been pastoring Grace Life Church now for nearly 11 years and have been in the pulpit that entire time and just faithfully preaching God's word and find myself in the midst of.
Quite a significant battle.
You know, one of the things that I thought about sharing with your folks is one of the things that is sort of levied against me is that in this season I'm seeking attention, I'm trying to make a big name for myself.
And I wanted to highlight that that's totally inconsistent with my life and just how I've carried out my ministry.
I don't have a blog that I'm utilizing, I have no social media presence, no Facebook, no Twitter.
I haven't sought in any way, shape, or form to broaden my ministry beyond the walls of Grace Life Church.
And I've just been faithfully preaching the word verse by verse through books of the Bible these last 11 years.
And so the attention that I'm getting now is simply by virtue of the fact that I'm following my convictions and walking in obedience to Christ.
And that has put me in this position.
And it's not the most comfortable position to be in.
I certainly wouldn't have chosen it and really believe it chose me.
And my responsibility in it is to just be faithful.
Yeah, amen.
So, how long were you?
Because you were actually arrested, you actually spent time in prison.
How long were you in prison and when did you get out?
How long have you been out now?
I was in prison for 35 days and it's hard to even keep track of how long I've been out.
It was toward the end of March that I got out and it feels like a long time ago.
It feels like I've been out for a while.
And I would say that even at this point in time, just in the context of God using all things for good, there's just nothing negative lingering in my life whatsoever from that experience in jail.
I've seen the Lord just continually work in my life for good.
And just give him praise just for how kind he's been toward me.
Praise God.
How are your wife and children?
How many children do you have?
I got two boys.
One is 18 and the other is 11.
And they're doing well.
I mean, we just asked our oldest a moment ago if life was normal for him.
And for him, it is mostly normal.
There's tension around church.
And certainly my imprisonment was a difficult time for him.
But for the most part, his day to day living is functionally normal, which is good.
I mean, that's the way I'd prefer it.
And I think our 11 year old would say the same thing.
Now, we often talk a lot about COVID 19 and The government and all that we're going through.
So, there's no question that there are moments that are more tense in our home than they would be otherwise.
But I think they're doing well.
And my wife, I mean, she's a huge support.
Couldn't have asked for a better wife, a better partner.
The Lord has just blessed me richly with her.
And she's dialed in, incredibly supportive, and is there to encourage me when I'm weary.
And so, she's doing well.
She's faithfully putting one foot in front of the next and just been a A wonderful blessing in my life.
That's great.
So, your family's doing well, you're doing well, you've been out for some time, got out about mid March, you spent about five weeks or so in prison.
Well, at the church level, so that's your main call as a minister of the gospel, a local church pastor.
And it sounds like that's always what you were about.
And God has just providentially used these circumstances to extend your ministry beyond your church.
But I know that your church is still your priority as a local pastor.
How is your church doing?
Because it's one thing for your wife to be dialed in, like you said, you use that phrase.
For your children to be on board.
But I know as a pastor, I was pastoring in California when COVID first hit, and I'm now in Texas.
Church Response to Arrest00:06:39
But I just know that many pastors just struggled with division among elder teams, among congregations.
Just a lot of people have a lot of strong opinions on how churches should respond to the virus.
And so, with the uniqueness of your situation, I'm just curious how.
Have you lost people?
I'm sure you've gained people, but have you lost people from the church?
Are there people?
Has everybody at the church level been on board with your decision to say, hey, no, we're going to stand up to this and we're going to continue?
We're not just throwing unnecessary punches.
So we're not just being rebellious for the sake of being rebellious, but we're going to stand up in the sense that we are going to continue to do what we believe God's called us to do, regardless of whether or not the state tells us to stop.
Is everyone with your church on board with that?
Have you struggled to shepherd people along in that decision?
Our church is in a really good place.
You know, I think there were people in our congregation who had an appetite for remaining open right away.
And even in my own case, to be honest with you, it was not an easy decision to not meet and to comply with the governing authorities.
I did that reluctantly.
It was never something that I felt incredibly good about.
And so we did that for a little bit, and there was already some support for opening our doors.
And then I started to preach.
Some sermons that were pretty key.
I preached on Romans 13 back in, I think, June, and it was titled Putting the Government in Its Place.
And that was more of a straight, just preaching of Romans 13, 1 to 7.
And then I preached on the paragraph in Hebrews 10, where we have the call to not forsake the gathering.
And so I preached that.
And that kind of set the table for the decision to open, so that we had quite a bit of support already at that point in time, where we knew, look, we can be.
Subject to the government, but that doesn't mean that we're going to comply with everything that they want us to do.
And then, if we are out of step with the government at some certain point, well, we're going to submit to whatever consequences they want to enforce against us as part of our subjection, but we're not going to obey them as though they hold the position of God.
And so, our people were ready to open up at that point in time.
Now, there were some who were not of the same mind.
And really, that was super helpful because they began to interact with us in email and began to poke holes and challenge us and our thinking to force us to tighten things up.
Be more robust in addressing this issue from a governmental perspective, Romans 13, and even on an ecclesiological front.
And so I'm so thankful for those interactions.
Now, a lot of those folks, and it's not a lot of families, like if I had to count households, it wouldn't shock me if we've lost less than 10 households in this entire time, which is not a lot when you think about it.
At that point in time, we would have been a church that on Sundays would have had an average of 350 pre pandemic.
And so We haven't lost a lot of folks, and the ones that were protesting did subsequently end up leaving our church.
But so thankful for the engagement we had with them and still love those folks and still care for those folks and want them to flourish in the Lord.
And they're in other churches that we would consider solid but are complying.
And so, anyway, that was kind of where things were at heading into the fall.
And we didn't quite have everyone coming back yet, but then I preached a sermon on December 20th.
That was kind of laying down the gauntlet.
Things were heating up with the government.
The RCMP was coming to our services.
AHS was coming to our services.
And the RCMP is our police force.
And media was outside our gathering and taking video and photo of our parking lot and people going into the facility.
And so I preached that sermon, which addressed the ecclesiology, it addressed the science and the medicine, it addressed the law.
And as it relates to the supreme law of our land, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And so that sermon was a catalyst for our church just coming back.
Like anybody who was just not sure, that sermon brought our folks back.
And then, you know, from, and then my imprisonment takes place.
And if there were any stragglers at that point in time, I mean, that clinched it for them.
I mean, they went from being not sure at that point to, you know, all in on the stand that we were taking.
And so that, my imprisonment really was a blessing for our church.
Really united us.
I mean, if you could have been there on a Sunday in our gathering that I wasn't there for, the testimony that I heard of what was happening in those gatherings is just everything you would want the corporate gathering to be.
And I got to taste it once I got out and have been able to taste it since then.
And so our church is doing really well.
We're united.
I'm not sure that we have anyone that is in a position where they're.
Considering leaving Grayslave at this point in time, I think they know where we're at.
And there's folks that haven't even come to the gathering at all because they've opted to live stream, and we're not binding their conscience on that.
There's good reasons for that in some cases.
And so, and they're so supportive of the stand that we've taken.
And so, our church is doing really well.
And, you know, there is an uncomfortable side of it for me because shepherding your people without a facility is more difficult.
And there's a lot that our energy is going into that it wouldn't be going into.
If we weren't under the gun and the pressure of our government right now.
So, there's no question that there's some discomfort for me as far as knowing how our people are really doing.
But that's when you lean on the ministries that you've put in place to care for your people, your Bible study shepherds, that they're caring for the people that are in their studies.
And then as we connect with them, we can get a pulse on how everyone's doing and make sure that no one's falling through the cracks, as it were.
Yeah.
So, where are you currently meeting?
Is it week by week, like basically every Monday morning when you wish that you could just be expositing God's word?
Exegeting and preparing for your sermon, you're doing administrative work and trying to figure out where we are going to meet the next Sunday?
Is that where you're at?
Conscience Versus Civil Order00:15:53
You know what?
That's classified.
So at this point in time, we have just recently come into a season where we think that given the pressure from our government, we need to kind of go silent on what we're doing or not, for that matter.
And so we are at a point now where we're trying to encourage our people to be tight lipped on that.
And I guess that starts with me because they're going to listen to this interview.
And so if I'm being.
If I'm being public on what we're doing or not, then I'm not setting a good example.
Right.
Fair enough.
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
I didn't even think about that.
Yeah, wouldn't it be necessarily advantageous for you to share on a public venue like this where you guys are going to meet this next Sunday?
Well, I have been, just so you know, I have been, but it's just now that we're going, you know what, we need to be approaching this a little bit differently.
Yep.
Innocent as doves and cunning and shrewd as serpents.
That's good.
So let's go ahead and just dive in.
I told you, you know, we talked a little bit before we started recording and.
One of the things that I really wanted to just hear your response, give you a chance to respond to basically, you know, there are some people professing Christians.
Now, whether or not they're truly regenerate, I don't know.
And I have every reason, every inclination to assume that, you know, that many of them are truly Christians, regenerate believers, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And yet, still, there seems to be a group of people that, as it pertains to your situation, your arrest, and your decision to continue physically meeting with your church.
There are those who would say, I don't think this is actual persecution.
I don't think he's being persecuted.
I think he's just experiencing the necessary consequences, the practical results of a foolish decision.
I wrote it down, so I'm just going to read it the way that I wrote it.
You know, these individuals insist that you and other pastors like you are merely experiencing the appropriate consequences for your unnecessary rebellious actions towards the civil magistrates, very reasonable guidelines for the church's exclusion.
For churches exclusively based on the science, right?
So, for someone who's saying that, someone who professes to be a follower of Jesus, and they say, this isn't persecution, Pastor James, you know, people are patting him on the back and encouraging him, but he's not being persecuted.
He's just experiencing the appropriate consequences for making foolish decisions.
These orders have been based on the science, and Pastor James is putting people's lives in danger.
How?
How would you respond to someone who says you're playing the martyr?
You're not actually being persecuted?
You know, there's so much there.
So let's see if I can't try and address all of it.
At the outset, I think what that betrays on two levels is a failure to understand the conscience and the priority of the conscience.
And then, two, just a really weak grasp of what persecution is.
But let's deal with the conscience at the outset.
We have to obey our conscience.
Anything not done from faith is sin, Romans 14.
So, we are in a culture where, even in the Christian community, those who profess faith in Christ, there is just no room for conscience and principle.
There's no room for, I can't do that because my conscience doesn't allow me to do that.
As a pastor, one of my responsibilities as I shepherd God's people is to be a steward of their conscience.
Christ is Lord of the conscience.
And so, I need to ensure that one, I'm properly informing the consciences of my people.
And then, two, never doing anything that would violate their conscience.
So, when it comes to me personally, as a shepherd of the flock, knowing that I'm going to stand before Christ and give an account for my ministry, I have to act in a manner that's consistent with my conscience based on the information I have from God's word.
And so, Christians ought to respect that.
The only thing a Christian could do is say, well, no, it has nothing to do with conscience, and then read ill motive into it and say, he's just doing this, as you said, to To be a martyr or to make a name for himself.
And that's just reading my motive, which we're told not to do.
And furthermore, you've got individuals who are chiming in on this that have no idea who I am.
They're not privy to my ministry.
They've done nothing to really hear me out and consider where I'm coming from, even scripturally on this piece.
So I think fundamentally, one of the issues here is conscience.
Our government doesn't respect conscience.
The Christian community doesn't respect conscience.
And conscience is critical.
We have to.
Honor the conscience, anything not done from faith is sin.
So there's that piece.
Then there's on the conscience piece, because that's so good.
And I so appreciate that you said that.
And one of the things that I wrestled through was so there's my conscience.
And then, as you've already said, there's the conscience of your congregants as a pastor, the sheep that you're shepherding.
And we want to, you know, kind of one way that I would bifurcate it in terms of authority there's the authority of counsel and the authority of command.
And so we don't want to command someone, especially if it's something that's not explicitly clear in scripture.
We don't want to command someone to do something that would be a sin against their conscience.
That's what you're saying.
And with the conscience, we recognize it can be sharpened by the Holy Spirit, his conviction working in conjunction with the Word of God.
So the Holy Spirit illuminating the Word to us, most ordinarily happening through the preached Word, that sharpens the conscience.
And a person's conscience can be dulled through sin.
And there are some instances when a person, because of a refusal to repent of sin, an impenitent, Posture of heart, their conscience can be so dulled by their sin that we actually would command them to sin against their conscience because it is something explicit in scripture, like, Thou shalt not steal.
But their conscience says, You know, well, my conscience tells me it's actually really good for me to steal and really good, you know.
And so there are people who are so far gone, but most ordinarily, with a conscience, because we're made in the image of God, even an unbeliever, if their conscience is not so dulled by sin, There's this general moral compass.
And what we want to do is we want to command the things that are commanded in Scripture, the things that are less clear in Scripture.
We might have still a conviction as a shepherd, as a pastor, but we want to use the authority of counsel where we're using the Word of God to sharpen their conscience, but giving some leeway before we just outright say, Thou shalt do this or you must do this.
We're saying, I really think God's Word says this.
Like children, for instance, I'm always encouraging my congregation, children are a blessing, and you're blessed if you have a lot of them.
What I'm not doing is saying, Thou shalt have five children.
Or more, right?
But I am constantly pushing this general message of the goodness of children.
And you know what I mean?
And so, anyway, so my point is to say, now, as it pertains to the choice of an elder team, shepherds, should we meet or should we not?
Part of what I wrestled through with my elders, because we had a couple elders who we shouldn't meet, and we had a couple who we know were saying we should meet.
Well, part of the reason we ended up meeting was, and this is one of the arguments that I used, was that it allowed for both sets of people in our congregation to obey their conscience.
If we shut down the church and don't meet, even if that's my conscience as a shepherd, as a pastor, right, so I'm following my conscience, but.
It's very likely, it stands to reason that there may be members in my congregation who are very convinced in their conscience from their reading of the word of God that the church should meet.
And so, if I say the church isn't meeting, then basically I am binding every conscience in my congregation to forsake the gathering by force on the Lord's day.
Whereas, if I say we're going to meet and I say, and all of you better be there, you're under church discipline, now I'm binding the conscience the other way.
Which it sounds like that's what you're taking.
I think that's so wise and it's a proper understanding of the significance of the conscience and counseling rather than commanding with things that are less clear and saying, look, part of the reason we're gathering isn't because we think that there's no possible way a person could come to a conviction from the scripture not to gather, but we're saying there's certainly a possible way, and we as elders have come to this conviction that we should gather.
And so we are, by this choice, we are accommodating both consciences.
So, we're saying that we're giving a special grace to those of you who aren't going to gather at this time, whereas ordinarily we would follow up as your shepherds if you missed months of church and have some serious conversations.
But we're giving a special grace during the season to those who choose not to gather, but we're still gathering and administering the ordinary means of grace for those who have in their conscience are bound to gather.
And so, I think that's so good.
And I'm so glad to hear that you're doing that.
And I'm sometimes grieved when other pastors don't see it as two approaches either No gathering or gathering.
And I wish more would see this third approach that the choice to gather doesn't mean, that doesn't mean by default that we're choosing to gather and we're saying everyone has to be here, right?
There's no, like a choice of an elders to gather doesn't mean that you, and I think some of our listeners would be surprised to hear that because they'd see, man, this guy was imprisoned and his face is on the news and all this kind of stuff.
And they would write you up, they would make you out, James, to be like this hardcore.
Zealot.
And I think some of our listeners would be pleasantly surprised to hear, yeah, James is making this stand, and many other people are with him.
And he has members in his church who currently aren't attending, and they're extending to them grace.
So I just think that's impressive.
Are there any other thoughts on the matter of the conscience that you want to add before you go?
Because you had some other reasons you wanted to mention.
Well, just that, you know, in our case, our conscience is informed by our ecclesiology.
And so from there, you can get into the issue of.
Having a robust ecclesiology.
And what we see in our day is that the doctrines of the church that shape the way Christians think about the corporate gathering, for example, which is just an aspect of ecclesiology, is revealing that people think very lowly of the church.
There is not a high view of the church among many.
And so that's another reason why they're going, How in the world can't they just comply with this?
I mean, how is it that?
That they can't just do what the government's asking them to do.
And they aren't even allowing for the room for the conscience.
But they're also part of that is a failure to even think robustly through this issue ecclesiologically.
And so, because their ecclesiology is so low, there's not even a tension.
I mean, this isn't even a struggle for them.
I mean, they could do live stream Zoom church until the Lord returns, and they love it.
I mean, church at home in your PJs, I mean, this is phenomenal.
And that's just born out of a really poor understanding of what the corporate gathering is, how critical it is for our spiritual growth and development.
How not gathering is doing a harm to the holiness of the church.
And so, you know, to your point, we're opening our doors because we believe that's what the Lord would have us do.
Then it's on the people to decide A, are they convinced they should be gathering?
B, how are they going to wrestle with Romans 13 and the whole thing?
And then C, are they willing to assume the risk of gathering?
Because we're not saying that there's no risk with respect to the virus.
We think the risk is certainly overblown in the mainstream media and by governments.
But there is a risk, and it's on every person to assume that level of risk.
Every time you get into a car, you're assuming a risk, a level of risk that you weigh the opportunity cost of driving against the risk and you opt to drive.
And it's the same thing with the corporate gathering.
And so, you know, and it's amazing because at that point in time, you get into a whole other issue because then the argument is well, if you assume that risk, And then contract the virus, now you're becoming a vector to the rest of the community.
And so your freedom to assume risk and go to the gathering and be infected with the virus is now exposing your neighbor.
And we just have to understand that all of us have God given rights, that we have rights that we're free to exercise up until the point that our rights begin to infringe on others.
And if somebody wants to lock themselves in their basement and not come out until the quote unquote pandemic's over, that's their business.
But just because.
That's what they want to do, doesn't mean everybody else needs to do that.
And then that gets into a whole issue of, you know, basically what's happened at present is that the government has turned what were once God given rights into privileges.
And so now, as long as they have the justification to remove our God given rights, they can, which means now they're not God given and they're not to be protected.
They're just privileges that we get to exercise when the government tells us we can.
And so, I mean, that's getting off into a whole other issue, I guess.
But it's just, it's all connected.
I mean, all of this thing is interconnected.
And so you go from one thing to the next.
But beyond that, you got persecution.
And people just aren't thinking robustly about persecution.
You know, persecution, according to scripture, is not merely for the gospel, it includes that.
But Jesus says, if you're persecuted for righteousness' sake, righteousness.
So then the question is is gathering on the Lord's day to worship?
And administer the ordinances and practice the one another's, is that unrighteousness?
And then, if you say it is, then now your definition of good and evil is changing with the whims of the culture or based on the circumstances you're in.
So now it's no longer a matter of exegesis.
Now it's a matter of pragmatism.
And you get to decide when you're not going to obey the Lord based on whether or not it's convenient or expedient or whether the culture says it's appropriate to do that or the government allows you to do that.
So I think, you know.
The question has to be asked Is it righteous to gather?
And then, if you gather and you experience oppression for that, well, that's the definition of persecution.
If it's righteousness to gather and then you experience oppression and enforcement and you suffer to gather, then you have just met the definition of persecution.
And so, there's a lot of Christians out there that want to go, Well, this isn't persecution.
And so, they're going to basically approach it like this that, that, Unless it's persecution, we shouldn't really be defying the government.
And so we're going to basically kind of watch this whole thing play out.
And when it reaches the threshold of being persecution, then all of a sudden we're going to start obeying the Lord.
And now all of a sudden, pastors are going to open their doors and their flocks are just going to return.
And there's going to be no fear.
And they're not going to be concerned about the virus.
And they're going to be ready.
They're going to be ready to stand against the enforcement arm of the government.
The Threshold of Suffering00:05:58
It's utter foolishness.
And so, not only is it a bad definition of persecution, but you have to be, I mean, almost omniscient to know when the threshold of persecution is met according to your definition, as if you're going to be able to spot that.
And then you assume that you're going to have the fortitude at that point in time to open your doors and your people are going to come back.
It's not going to happen.
So, I mean, this just opens up massive issues on this issue of persecution.
You've actually addressed this really well.
And so, I've been very thankful for what you've addressed on this matter.
I think it's been a helpful contribution to this discussion.
But persecution fundamentally is experiencing oppression for your beliefs.
And so, if you believe it's righteous to gather on the Lord's Day and you are experiencing oppression as we are, we absolutely are.
And in some cases, our local church is being singled out by governing authorities so that we're actually getting treatment that other churches aren't getting, which then does, I think, for some, that would trigger their threshold for persecution.
Yeah, and then on the flip side, I'll just say this to kind of wrap this all up.
And I said this in my sermon on Romans 13 back in February 14th.
On February 14th, I just don't even care whether this meets the threshold of persecution.
It just doesn't even matter to me.
I'm not waiting for that to know when to obey.
I'm just doing what's right, and it's righteousness, obedience to Christ, that's resulting in the oppression.
Right.
I agree with everything that you said.
Hebrews, I think of Hebrews chapter 12, starting in verse 3, and I'm sure that this is a text that's been on your mind.
Plenty.
Probably, I imagine, even when you were imprisoned for those five weeks.
But it says, Hebrews 12, starting verse 3, the Bible says, Consider him, being Christ, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted in your struggle against sin.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
And then it goes on to discipline, how God disciplines those he considers his sons.
If you're not ever experiencing any discipline from the Lord, that it's actually a sign that you're an illegitimate.
Um, son, and so uh, Paul is basically he's well, I say Paul, I think you know, the author to the Hebrews is basically he's encouraging these people and he says, You're suffering, uh, but not yet to the point of shedding your own blood.
And elsewhere, he talks about how they've endured the plundering of their own houses and you know, the loss of their possessions.
And um, and the apostle, the scripture never says, And and because you haven't shed your blood, this is not persecution.
So, just to agree with your point, the Bible doesn't say that it becomes persecution.
When someone dies, you know, like if you're not bleeding, it's not persecution.
No, I think what you gave is a really great definition that it's, no, it's being oppressed, it's suffering at, and certainly there are varying degrees because I know that you would never say, like, yeah, I'm suffering more than any other Christian in the world right now.
Of course, there are people who are suffering, you know, more than you.
And then there are people like myself who aren't suffering hardly at all, you know, so there's a spectrum, there's a sliding scale.
And Pastor James Coates is somewhere on that scale.
But for us to be, I think, so cold hearted and to just say, you know, to make it just a black or white, right?
It's an all or nothing.
You're either, it's as obvious as someone putting a gun to your head and saying, will you deny Christ?
And if the person doesn't deny Christ, they blow their head off.
And that's real persecution.
And anything short of that's not persecution.
That's just such a truncated, oversimplified definition of persecution.
So I think to anyone who's saying Pastor James is playing the martyr, I think, You would be playing the martyr if you were pretending as though you were suffering or being persecuted to the same extent as people who are losing their lives, but you're not.
So you're just saying, no, this is wrong.
The state is overstepping its jurisdiction.
God has not given them permission or authority to do what they're currently doing.
So this is wrong and it's infringing and oppressing me for righteousness' sake, for doing what God's word prescribes.
And so therefore, it is persecution.
It's not this much persecution.
It's also not that much persecution, but it is persecution.
And I'm not claiming to be persecuted more than someone else, but I am saying this is wrong.
We're going to fight it.
And as they continue to penalize us for righteousness' sake, if that's not persecution, then I don't know what biblical definition you're using.
Would you agree with that?
I would.
And you've got these guys that want to reduce it to the gospel.
Well, what happens when the government says you can only preach the gospel?
I mean, that's what Germany did.
They said you can only preach the pure gospel, which begs the question in that context what is the pure gospel?
But what if they say you can only preach the gospel?
That's it.
Well, then now they've got to redefine their definition of what persecution is because they can't preach the whole counsel of God.
And you could see that coming, obviously.
I mean, as the issues around the LGBTQ community kind of infringe on the preaching ministry of the church, you could see how, yeah, you can preach the gospel, but you can't preach on these things over here.
And so, just the whole definition, this whole idea that it has to be for the gospel that we're persecuted is unbiblical.
It's at least, or it's at most, an implication that's inaccurate being drawn from Acts 5.
It's just a bad definition of persecution.
And I think it will prove, I think history will demonstrate how poor it is.
Loss of Freedom and Power00:05:31
And it betrays this you know, you think about just historically, like right now, You've got governments exercising more power in the Western world than they ever have before.
So the state is exercising oppression upon all people.
And when you look at China, you look at North Korea, you've got states that are in place that are applying the same level of oppression to everyone.
It's not like it's singling out a particular group, just state oppression.
And therefore, anyone who stands for the headship and lordship of Christ.
Over the church and even over all things, all of a sudden now that person is resisting the state.
And so the state wants to crush individuals who are not complying because the state wants total power.
And so in the Western world, what governments are finding out is just how much they can get away with and how much the people are going to be willing to hand over their civil liberties.
And in Canada.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
And use a crisis initially to get, right?
That's what the civil governments will.
In their wickedness, wicked civil governments will use a crisis to all of a sudden gain that initial power, right?
Because at the end of the day, it's basically one thing pitted against the other.
It's individual freedom or liberties versus public safety, right?
So individual freedoms are precious, and people die for the freedoms, at least here in the United States.
I don't know all the history of Canada, but I assume freedom never comes for free.
Freedom isn't free.
So somebody pays a price in order for citizens, individuals, to have the liberties that they have.
So, to persuade the public, a society, to give away such precious, often blood bought civil freedoms and liberties, you have to have something really enticing.
So, what you do is you have a crisis, you blow it out of proportion, right?
You talk it up and you tell them, hey, here's your choice freedom, individual freedom, or public safety.
And so, then all of a sudden, you get people, and you always make it temporary.
Hey, we're just asking for you to put your civil freedoms on pause.
It's just temporary.
And if you can just forfeit for a time your independence, Individual liberties will ensure public safety.
And then all of a sudden the crisis dissipates and the crisis is gone, but the liberties don't come back.
The state moves in, right?
You give an inch, they take a mile, they move in, and it becomes the new norm.
And countries, there's a progression to tyranny.
There's a progression to a loss of freedom.
And crisis is the play.
That's the way it happens.
And so I think we're being played.
And I think that Christians need to wake up and say, whoa, like this.
This is a slippery slope.
This is a snowball that can really get out of control if we're not careful.
Yeah, we need to responsibly and thoughtfully and carefully give up public safety to keep our civil liberties.
Let public safety die responsibly, thoughtfully, carefully to maintain our civil liberties.
And civil liberty is more precious than public health.
Amen.
And that's just not really, well, that's part of why we moved to Texas.
You know, in Texas, you want to ride in the back of the truck.
Maybe not the smartest idea.
You might die, but gosh darn it, it's your right to do so.
So, you know, like I don't want the government, you know, like when I'm taking a shower to, you know, some government official reaching his hand in and turning the hot water down.
I think it's a little bit too hot for you there, Joel.
It's like, get out of my house, get out of my shower.
What is going on?
And I know that's an extreme example, but it feels like that's kind of the direction that we're heading.
But there's one other point that you made that I think is so good.
So you said that, um, Part of the people have low ecclesiology, so that was really helpful.
One of the things I said to my congregation in California when I, you know, like you had a sermon that really kind of clenched it for a lot of your people, and they came back.
I had preached a sermon, you know, that had a similar effect that, you know, really persuaded a lot of our people.
One of the points that I made was if a person, it's commonplace for a person to miss, you know, five, 10, 15 Sundays in a year for lesser reasons, like our kids' soccer game.
Or vacation or travel or work, or then surely that individual would really struggle to see why a pastor like you wouldn't pause the church for a global pandemic.
And so I think it's what you're saying, it's exactly what you're saying.
It's a collection of multiple variables, it's a multivariant situation.
So it's seeing the crisis, the virus, as more serious than it actually is.
And a lot of that's due to the media and politicians who are trying to take advantage of a crisis in order to gain power.
So it's giving too much credence to the virus, too low a view of the church, right?
A lot of the churches that have closed and have still closed.
Not open back up are the same churches that were live streaming before the pandemic ever even happened, you know.
And so it's low view of the church, high view of the virus, and then this truncated, confused view of what constitutes persecution.
Multivariant Crisis Situations00:03:30
And so you said that, you know, some people they truncate persecution, they narrow it to it's only the gospel, right?
You can only be persecuted for preaching the gospel.
If you're preaching that homosexuality is a sin and you get locked in jail, that's not persecution.
Right?
I mean, that's the logic that you were explaining.
That's what they would have to say.
You know, it's only if you're preaching Christ and Him crucified and get some kind of penalty for that, then you're being persecuted.
So there's a truncation with persecution, this faulty thinking that truncates it and binds it to the gospel.
But there's also, and you were getting at this, there's also this truncation of persecution that binds it to where Christians have to be specifically targeted.
And so I just, really quickly, I just wanted to point out Daniel chapter six, where.
Where in Daniel chapter six, it says that, um, it says these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, O King Darius, live forever.
All the high officials of the kingdom and the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, right?
Some kind of mandate that whoever makes petition to any god, not just Yahweh, not just Christians, right?
But to any god, or and here's this is crazy, or petitions that's just makes a request from asked from any man.
So, your atheists, your agnostics, they're all included.
Everyone, any God or any man for 30 days.
Oh, and it's temporary, right?
Just 15 days to slow the spread, just 30 days of a ban on prayer to any God, Buddhist, Hindu, or petitioning any man, the atheist, the agnostic.
Whoever makes petition to any God or man for 30 days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.
Right?
And so I would just use that as an example.
And we know Daniel resisted that.
He continued to pray three times a day, as was his custom.
So he doesn't even ramp up.
I think that's important too.
He doesn't ramp up just to stick it to the man, you know, but he just continues with his custom to pray three times a day.
And he prays with the windows open.
And I think that's interesting too, because some people say, like, he's sticking it to the man, he's throwing unnecessary punches.
But Daniel is in captivity, he's in Babylon.
And one of the things that Solomon actually said, a covenant that he made between God and the people when he christened the temple, when the temple was built, that was if any man or any woman, even if they were in captive in a distant land, would pray.
Point towards this temple and pray towards the temple that God would hear their prayer.
And so, Daniel, with his windows open, even that is not trying to stick it to the man.
That belongs to the substance of his worship, not just the circumstances.
It's a part of the elements or the substance of his worship.
He's following a covenant that was in scripture.
And so, Daniel does his custom.
He's not ramping it up just to make a name for himself or to play the martyr or to upset the civil magistrate.
He's praying three days because that's what he always did.
He's praying with his windows open because that's obeying a covenantal.
A covenantal requirement that Daniel knows because he knows his Old Testament.
And Daniel is thrown to the lion's den.
But my whole point in saying that is this was not some kind of edict against only Daniel or against Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego and all the worshipers of Yahweh.
No one could pray to any God or petition any man.
It was a universal blanket.
Spiritual Threats and Apostasy00:15:36
And so the most recent example that I could think of is the one child policy in China.
So, what are you going to say?
So, the Christians in China who are doing the underground house church.
And getting arrested.
They're being persecuted.
You know, a lot of people would say, because that's unique to Christians, even though that's not, because a lot of Muslims are being persecuted in China also.
But let's just say, for argument's sake, you know, underground house churches are being persecuted for precisely their underground house church.
Well, you know, these people who have this truncated view of persecution would say that's real persecution.
Well, what would you say, though, to Christians who have a second child and hide them?
Right?
Because that's a universal, that's not just to Christians.
That doesn't target Christians.
That's Any person in China, you can't have more than one child.
And China was doing forced abortions and all these kinds of things.
And so, if a Christian woman's pregnant, by that logic, you would have to say, hey, obey the law of the land, Romans 13, submit to the civil magistrate and go and get that forced abortion and let them know that you're pregnant with your second child because that's not church.
That's not the gospel.
That's just life and family and motherhood.
And they would say at that point in time, the difference is that that would be asking the Christian to sin, at which point, well, we can't do that.
But that only brings us back to where I am, where if we comply with the government, you are telling me to sin.
That's right.
Because you are telling me to hand the keys of Christ's church over to Caesar and to let Caesar dictate to the church the terms of worship.
I simply cannot do that.
I cannot and will not do that.
And so that's where those individuals have to respect my conscience, even if they disagree, even if they think my view of the gathering is narrow.
It doesn't matter.
They need to respect my conscience as informed by scripture.
And I think it's fair.
I can say this.
I can put forward a fairly robust case for why it is that we ought to gather on the Lord's Day and how the health orders infringe on the gathering and the headship of Christ.
Could you actually just do that?
So I was just about to ask you could you?
So you said, okay, so they would push back on the one child policy and say, yeah, but that's telling you to sin.
And then your pushback, your counter to the counter would be, yeah, and me closing my church is calling me to sin, according to my conscience.
So that brings us all the way back to it.
So we talked about the truncated, all the false views of persecution, and we've talked a little bit.
We haven't gotten to statistics or anything, but we said that the virus in general is overblown.
So overblowing the virus, truncating and confusing persecution, but it really all keeps coming back to ecclesiology, right?
For you, you're saying that would be sin to close my churches.
And that's because.
That's because of what you believe about the church.
And it's because of what you believe about the state, because you made a comment, you know, handing over the keys to my church to Caesar.
And so, that being said, could you just explain to our listeners why closing your church doors, even in the midst of this pandemic, would be a sin?
Could you make an ecclesiastical case for why that would be a sin, according to your conscience?
Yeah.
So, the government is ultimately commanding us to.
Alter what the corporate gathering is.
Even their contention that, and they would say this, that live streaming your services is not infringing on your charter rights, on your, in your case, constitutional rights, because you are still able to exercise all of your religious freedom.
You just can't be together.
And that doesn't really matter because whether you're together in person or whether you're together through live stream, it's really the same thing.
Well, no, it's not.
The gathering has always been an in person reality.
And you cannot function as a body of believers when you're not together.
You can't practice.
The one another's, unless you're together in the same place.
When you think about the body as a spiritual organism that has arms and legs and feet, when you tell people they cannot be present for the corporate gathering, you are telling the body that certain parts of the body can't be present.
And that is shutting members of the body off from the gifts that every member has when they come together in fellowship and build up one another.
And so I would see in the corporate gathering that.
That you have the means of grace that are available in the Christian life, from the word to prayer, even to singing the ordinances, and that the means of grace are most fully operative on Sunday when the church gathers as one body, if you can.
Sometimes it's two, depending on the size of your facility.
And that when you gather in that particular way, you are bringing the entire body together.
The Holy Spirit is uniquely present at that time because the Spirit doesn't just indwell each individual believer, but He is present.
Among them, 1 Corinthians 3 16, when we gather so that we become a temple collectively, not just individually, and that in the preached word, you have the primary means of grace being administered to the body,
the filling of the spirit being a corporate reality, not just a private reality taking place in the corporate gathering, and then that nourishment of the word, the filling of the spirit, and the body being set free to now minister to each other is just critical for the spiritual growth and development of the body to go home.
And live stream is cutting you off from all of that.
Yes, you're still hearing the preached word, but you're not hearing the preached word with the body in the presence of the body.
Yes, you're hearing the preached word in singing, but when the fellowship begins, you're at home.
You're not with the body.
And so essentially, what we're doing is we're cutting Christians off from the ordinary means of grace, which I believe are most operative in the corporate gathering.
That is stifling their spiritual growth and development because we're cutting believers off even from all of the working members of the body.
Yep.
I can do that.
And so by doing that, Christ is no longer head of his church.
Now, Caesar is because the government has decided that it's now no longer safe to meet for the greater public good.
They can decide anything is for the greater public good and impose that upon the church.
And the same logic would have to mean that Christians need to comply, Romans 13.
And so it's a headship of Christ over his church reality.
And it gets into the lordship of Christ over the government.
Even as we look at what is the purpose of government, why do.
Why did God put government in place?
What's its role and function in a society?
And when the government begins to transgress into other spheres of authority, what is the responsibility of those spheres of authority in responding to government and pointing that out?
Yep.
Amen.
I completely agree.
Cutting the church off from the ordinary means of grace, you said like stifling their spiritual growth, stagnating this lack of spiritual nourishment.
It just made me think, and I know that you've preached on this text as well, so I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.
But it made me think of Hebrews 10, of course, verse 25, but backing up to verse 24.
But then I want to cross reference that with a text in Hebrews 3 that I think the two go hand in hand.
So, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, it says, and let us consider, right?
These are the one and others that you were talking about.
Because verse 25 says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.
But verse 24, if you back up just a little bit, it says, let us consider how to stir up one another or exhort one another.
It's the same kind of phrase, exhort or stir one another up to love and good works, comma.
It's not even a period.
He's not even taking a breath.
The very next statement in the same breath, Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as the day draws near.
And so, basically, if you look at Hebrews 10 24 and 25, it seems as though the apostle is saying we need to be adamantly thinking and considering how we can exhort one another, spur one another on, stir one another up.
These one and others that propel us, that bolster our faith, that feed and nourish us spiritually and supernaturally.
We need to be thinking about that all the time.
And then the very next statement, I mean, it's the same statement, but the next phrase of the statement is not neglecting the gathering.
And so I look at that in exegeting Hebrews 10 24 and 25.
And I look at that as the implicit point of that is that the chief context, not the only, but the chief context where believers most naturally stir one another up to love and good works is the gathering.
So I think that's what the apostle is getting at we need to be considering how we can further bolster one another's faith.
By stirring each other up to love and good works.
And the very next thing out of his mouth is not neglecting to gather.
Because the gathering is, I think the implicit point is, the gathering is the chief context in which we stir one another up.
And then if you take that and cross reference it over to Hebrews 3, verse 12 and 13, it says, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.
So he's talking about apostasy, the danger of apostasy.
You and I both know that if they, You know, 1 John chapter 2, they went out from us because they were never one of us.
And so we wouldn't say that this is somebody losing their salvation, but we would say that there is a very real possibility that someone who claims to be a brother, who bears the name of Christ, who professes Christ, doesn't actually possess Christ.
And so there can be people who are part of the visible church.
They could be members on our roster, and we need to take extra care lest there be any of us, even ministers who would say on that final day, Lord, Lord, you know, that have an evil, unbelieving heart that would eventually lead us to fall away from the living God.
And so, by contrast, how do we take care?
What should we do?
Verse 13, very next verse, but exhort one another.
It's the same phrase as stir one another up, Hebrews 10 24.
Now it's Hebrews 3 13.
Be careful because you can have an unbelieving heart that would lead you to apostasy, to lead you to fall away from the living God.
So, instead of that, verse 13, exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
So, my point is what I would argue in that, in terms of ecclesiology, and I know you'll agree with this, Pastor James.
Is that the gathering?
It's kind of like a logical three step process.
So, first step the gathering is the chief context for stirring one another up.
Yes, and I believe that's the Lord's Day gathering.
Number two, we need to be always considering how to stir one another up because it's one of the chief defenses that the Lord has given to us to guard against apostasy.
Yes, so if you take that just logically and you think about this, we basically have the physical threat that comes by gathering of the virus, but we have the spiritual threat to the soul, the very soul of man that comes.
By not gathering.
And so at the end of the day, now we're not Gnostics, both matter, but if we had to say what's more important, the soul of a man or his body, we would have to say the soul.
And so really what we're trying to weigh here is how serious is the threat of the virus to the body, and how serious is the threat of not gathering and stirring one another up to love and good works?
How big, because that's one of our chief defenses, our barrier, our shield to apostasy.
How serious is the spiritual threat that comes by not gathering?
And so what I would say, I would look at that, and I told you this before we recorded, I would say there actually are some circumstances where If I live in a coastal town and the mayor gives me a call and says, There's a tsunami of biblical proportions coming, and it's a Saturday night, it's coming Sunday morning at 10 a.m., you need to cancel church and get all your people out there because the death rate is going to be 100%.
Then, yeah, we're going to cancel church and we're going to use that Sunday morning to get everybody out of Dodge.
But here's the deal in that scenario, number one, everything would be canceled dispensaries, we dispensaries, and Black Lives Matter movements, and everything would be canceled.
But number two, We would be missing one week of church.
Now, granted, our building would be, you know, but we could, the very next Sunday, Lord willing, we could meet in the field or whatever we have to do.
And so we're missing one week of church, which, you know, over here, the spiritual threat, we're neglecting the gathering.
There's a spiritual threat of apostasy, but we're neglecting one week.
So the spiritual threat is low, I guess is my argument.
But over here, tsunami, the perceived physical threat to the body is very, very high.
So with this immense physical threat to the body and a relatively low spiritual threat to the soul, because we're only talking about missing one week, It's an easy decision.
But when all of a sudden the data keeps coming in, and it's not just weeks anymore, 15 days to slow the spread, but it's a year has gone by, and more months are going by, and you're talking about neglecting not just one Lord's Day gathering, but you're talking about neglecting 50, 60, 70, soon to be 100.
The spiritual threat is growing for apostasy.
And your role as a shepherd is I mean, you've got to be feeling as a shepherd of God's flock a righteous anxiety building in your soul.
I've got to shepherd the flock of God.
And the chief context, yes, I can give them a phone call and yes, they can live stream, but the chief context for stirring one another up and exhorting one another so that we don't have a believing heart that leads us to fall away from the living God is the gathering.
And that's what Hebrews says.
And so the spiritual threat is growing as time keeps going on.
And as time is going on, we keep getting more and more data saying the virus isn't nearly as threatening as we originally thought it was.
So the perceived physical threat to the body keeps going down.
And the more Sundays we miss, the very real, tangible spiritual threat to the soul is going up.
And it seems pretty simple, and yet pastors and Christians all over the world don't get it.
I don't.
Well, and here's what you're.
Yeah, just think about this.
So, everything you're saying is excellent.
I'm tracking with you.
And here's part of the challenge a lot of Christians aren't in churches that are functioning the way they ought to function.
A lot of folks show up for church on Sunday, hear kind of a watered down sermon, sing a couple of hymns, and then go home.
You know, they might get asked, hey, how are you doing?
Fine.
You know, they might get asked, Did you see the game last night?
Talk about that a little bit, but there's not any real meaningful fellowship going on.
So, functionally, Sunday morning is a spectator sport, they just come, they take, and they leave.
Well, in a real biblical context with a real vibrant, healthy body, where you're going to be asked, How are you doing?
and it's not just like, I'm doing fine, it's like, No, how are you doing?
and I want to get involved in your life to the point that.
If you're not willing to have that kind of involvement, you end up leaving because you just don't like people asking you how you're doing with that level of intentionality.
It's a completely different body life.
And so when people come to Grace Life Church, for example, even from churches in our area that are complying and they see what's going on, I mean, they're just like, it's a breath of fresh air.
Praying for Righteousness00:07:55
People come into our gathering and they forgot what they were missing.
We've got folks who come in and they're in tears from the first song until the closing prayer.
Because they just forgot about how much they needed to be with the body of Christ.
So, whether it's they've forgotten what they once enjoyed in their church or they've never actually enjoyed real, healthy, vibrant fellowship, that contributes to this entire issue.
You're right.
You can't miss what you've never had.
That's what you're saying.
So, that's a great point.
I didn't even think about it.
You're saying that maybe some of the opposing argument is coming from professing Christians, and maybe they really are Christians, but who have been a part of a Church that's maybe not as faithful in its preaching, that's more of a spectator sport, that's not stirring one another up to love and good works, that's not rightly administering the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and baptism.
And so for them, it's just like, James, what's the big deal?
Yeah, right.
So me and my friends are getting the same thing live stream.
And you're saying if a church really, for lack of a better phrase, if a church really sucks, then yeah, your live stream living room experience might be comparable, but that's not the kind of church that we're talking about.
Is that what you would say?
Exactly.
Yeah.
They can live stream because they're functionally live streaming anyway.
That's profound.
Functionally live streaming already.
That's good.
All right.
Well, I feel like I've already taken enough of your time.
And I know that your heart is not to be famous.
You want to make Christ famous.
But Christ in his providence has made you in this season famous.
And for such a time as this, and by God's grace, with the spotlight being shined on you, I think you've done a wonderful job.
You, your wife, and your church, and being faithful as long as the light is there, and even when it's not.
And so, that said, I know that you're getting lots of requests for interviews, and so I don't want to take too much of your time, but this is what we like to do on the show.
We like to have our guest kind of similar to Tom Askell and Jared Longshore.
They have the armory where they keep a guy on for just a few minutes extra.
And so, we call it our responders.
Those are our club members.
If you're not a responder and you're listening to this and you want to become a responder, get access to all of our bonus content.
We encourage you to do so.
You can do it on our website, www.rightresponseministries.comslash donate.
So, James, I'd like to keep you on and just to whet our listeners' appetite, I'm going to give them the question ahead of time before we go ahead and close out this episode.
But here's my question.
And I know you're a master's grad, so you're a MacArthur boy.
So here we go.
John MacArthur famously said, Christ, not Caesar, is the head of the church.
And I would certainly agree with the statement.
I know you would.
However, I personally would be willing to go even a little further in saying that Christ, not Caesar, Is actually also head of the state.
I would have some scriptures to back that up.
Would you personally agree with this statement?
I think there's a sense in which you would.
And then what sense would you disagree?
That'll be our question.
We'll talk about that in our bonus hour edition if you don't mind sticking around.
But could we just close the episode by you just telling our listeners how they can be praying for you?
How can they keep up with you and follow you?
Even if you don't want to be followed, maybe follow you in a way that doesn't get you in trouble.
What can we do to help?
Well, you can be praying that we would win some of the issues that are in the courts right now.
We could use some wins, and we really think there's some opportunity for some wins on the horizon.
So, you could be praying for just what's in the court system currently, that would be huge.
You can certainly be praying for our government, and that includes their salvation.
But we really need to see our province open up.
We need to get our building back and be able to carry on and execute ministry.
You can just be praying that the truth will continually come out, that the real science and facts that revolve around this virus continue to come out, that our province and even our country would wake up and realize what's really going on.
And that this has been overblown.
And then for our church, you know, just that we would have the grace and the wisdom to be able to persevere.
We're still in kind of the heat of a window where enforcement could come.
Basically, every single Sunday, we walk into the potentiality of an arrest.
And that wouldn't just necessarily implicate me, it could implicate my entire leadership.
And so we continue to need grace and wisdom to be able to navigate the tumultuous time that we're in.
And, uh, and yeah, we just pray for the health of our body.
Pray that if there are any issues in the body that need to be addressed, they would be brought to the surface where we can ensure that we're caring for those folks and meeting those needs.
And, uh, and, and that Christ would just continue to be glorified through the work that's happening at Grace Life Church.
Amen.
Well, James, I'm so grateful for your ministry and I'm so grateful to have found you.
Uh, in God's providence, you know, a lot of people have been able to benefit from your ministry, and otherwise, we.
Likely would have not.
And so I know that it's been difficult, but I'm grateful for the way that the Lord has used you in this hour.
Would you mind if I actually just pray for you even now?
I would love it.
Please do.
Okay.
Father, thank you for Pastor James Coates.
Lord, thank you for the blessing that he's been to me and to many other pastors and Christians all over the world.
Father, we pray for favor with his court hearings and cases.
Lord, we just pray for righteousness.
Lord, we pray that those who you have sovereignly appointed in positions of civil authority would legislate and that.
They would rule righteously, not just in favor of Pastor James Coates because it would benefit him, but because it's the right thing.
We pray that they would do righteousness.
And so, Father, we pray that you would convict them of sin.
And, Father, like Pastor James already said, we pray most of all that you would save them, that you would reveal to them their sin and reveal to them Christ as the only substitute for sinners, the only hope of.
Salvation.
We pray that you would give them the gift of faith and repentance, that they would turn from their sin and turn in personal trust to the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work on the behalf of all those who trust in him.
Father, we pray that you would strengthen Pastor James' church, that you would give them courage.
And Lord, I just pray for immense, an immense measure of wisdom for Pastor James and his elders.
We're grateful for texts like James that say, If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask.
God, who gives without finding fault, without reproach, that you don't hold our sin against us, but you generously give wisdom to those who are humble enough to ask.
So, Lord, I pray that you would bless him and his leadership team with wisdom as they navigate unprecedented waters, at least in our lifetime.
And so, Lord, we pray all these things ultimately that you might be famous, that you might get the glory, that your name would be great in all the earth.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you, brother.
Yeah.
Pastor James, thanks for coming on the show.
That concludes our episode.
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