Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 372 | Canadian Pastor Jailed & Lessons from Limbaugh

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

First we quickly address reports that Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, during the major Texas power outage. Legendary radio host Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday, and not a moment went by before the Left began viciously attacking him. We'll discuss the hypocrisy of the Left as well as some things we can learn from the late Mr. Limbaugh. Also, a Canadian pastor in Alberta has been arrested and is in jail for opening his church in violation of COVID restrictions. Thrive Women's Clinic in Dallas --- Today's Sponsor: Annie's Kit Clubs: Every month, Annie's Creative Woman Club will send you a brand-new craft kit to engage your mind & calm your soul. They send you all the instructions & special supplies you need to create a new piece of boutique-worthy decor. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/Allie & save 50% on your first kit! Fundrise: See for yourself how 130k investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate. It takes just a few minutes to get started. Go to Fundrise.com/RELATABLE! --- Past Episodes Referenced: Ep 350: Explaining the 'Logic' of Leftist Hypocrisy | Guest: James Lindsay https://apple.co/2Zvdh96 --- Buy Allie's book, "You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love" https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week. The weather is getting better down south in Texas and the state surrounding Texas. We talked about yesterday why all of this craziness is happening, not just weather-wise, but I'm also talking about the power outages. Some people are out of water. Apparently, some people are going to be out of power for several weeks.

So please continue to pray for these areas who, unfortunately, are just unprepared. for a variety of reasons. In relation to that, I did just want to mention this one story that just came out. Apparently, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas is on his way to Cancun. So there are some mixed reviews on this. Some people are saying, who cares, no big deal? Like, what's he going to do? Anyway, he's a senator. There's really nothing that he can do. And part of that is true. I would say it's not necessarily a good look in the same way that it's not a good look for Gavin Newsom. to be eating at the French laundry when restaurants are supposed to be shut down or Lori Lightfoot or Chuck Schumer to be out in crowds when they're telling everyone else to stay

home or Mariel Browser or I think that's her last name. Yeah, Browser, the mayor of D.C. going to celebrate Joe Biden after he won the election while making sure that everyone stays home in D.C. So I don't think that it's necessarily the greatest look. Surely there could be something that could be done. Surely there is like some kind of service opportunity for families in Texas that possibly Senators Head Cruz could have taken. It's just, I don't know. I'm not trying to drag in through the mud or anything like that. It's just when I look at all the suffering that's happening right now in Texas, and I think about all of the people who would love to be warm just by having heat. And then I think

about the senator from Texas flying to go on vacation. in Cancun. It just doesn't necessarily sit right with me. But I don't know. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But continue to pray for Texas. Continue to pray for the surrounding areas.

Today is my birthday. It's the start. Yesterday I said it's my last year of being 29. No, it is my last year of being in my 20. So I am 29 years old today. And I would love for you to donate to Thrive Women's clinic. It is a pregnancy center, a pro-life pregnancy center down in Dallas, and they've set up an Amazon registry. And all you have to do is follow the link that I'll put in the description to this

podcast and you go to the Amazon registry and you can donate an item. So you can donate just one item. That's $5. You can donate an expensive item or you can donate several items. There are a lot of moms who are pregnant moms who are in crisis or moms of newborns who are in crisis. And they may be in especially dire situations right now and unable to get all the resources and the tools, the formula, the diapers, the wipes that they need because of the weather and because of stores being closed down. And so if you can donate to Thrive Women's Clinic, then you can really help out a lot of pregnant moms in need in Texas. I would love for you to do that in honor of my 29th birthday.

All right. Today we're going to talk about a couple things. We are going to talk about Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio legend who died yesterday. We're going to briefly talk about that. And then we're also going to talk about discrimination, at least in rhetoric, against Christianity by, for example, the UN and then several other influential media outlets and what that means for us. and I will end with some encouragement. I promise you I will end this. I will end this episode and end this week with some encouragement for you guys

because I know it's been, well, at least for those of us down south, it's been a crazy and somewhat heavy week for us. And so I will try to end not just with some levity, but with some real encouragement and equipment for you guys. All right, let's first talk about Rush Limbaugh. So a lot of you have been listening to Rush Limbaugh for, you know, the past, I think he hosted for 31 years. Some of you have been listening to him that entire time,

either from the time that you were kids or the time you were a young adult, depending on how old you are. I did not grow up listening to Rush Limbaugh. We were more focused on the family, like Christian radio, country radio type people growing up. And so I don't remember listening to Rush Limbaugh. Honestly, I listened to him maybe a couple times

when I lived in Georgia. like right before the Trump election. But he's just not someone I listened to because I haven't really listened to talk radio very much throughout my life. And when I said that on Instagram, a lot of you reached out saying that I really missed out. And I understand that because a lot of people truly feel like Rush Limbaugh was a father-like figure in their life. And what I keep seeing from people is his generosity of spirit. And now I know if there are liberals who are listening to this, or liberals who are watching this, I have seen the absolute vitriol, the hatred, the venom that

is coming from people who didn't like Rush Limbaugh and just cackling their heads off at the idea that he was any type of generous or kind guy. But for those who loved him, for those who listened to him, it was his joy and it was his generosity in a variety of ways, generosity of spirit and generosity monetarily that made people love him. And I think that whether you agreed with him or not, whether you liked his commentary or not, it's still useful for us to take a step back and to ask ourselves, what made him so successful? Like, why was he such a pioneer? Why did he change talk radio for so many people? Obviously, you know, I work with the talk radio legend, Glenn Back, Sean Hannity is another talk radio extraordinaire, Laura Ingraham. There are a lot of people in this

space, Larry Elder, who have done an excellent job. And they all credit Rush Limbaugh for paving the way for them and they kind of set him up on a different pedestal than the other amazing talk radio hosts that conservatism can claim. And it's just because he had that thing, whatever it is, a lot of people have this who are in media or who are in different forms of entertainment. They have that intangible thing that makes you want to watch them and makes you want to listen to them. On paper, they might not necessarily have, you know, more credential. or any kind of tangible reasons why they should be more successful than their competition or other people.

But Rush just had that thing that made people want to listen to him. He was good-humored. He was funny. And what I've also heard from people continually is that he always left you with a sense of optimism. Is that he never allowed you to panic. That even when things are going really bad, even when things were chaotic and confusing, that he still left his listeners feeling like there's a really. reason to hold on. Like we don't ever run away from the country. We don't ever run away from our

problems, but rather we run into our problems with with bravery and with boldness and with a sense of purpose. And so whether you liked him or not, understand that's why people loved him. They fortified. He fortified their patriotism, their love of country, their care for the country. He never just left them feeling desperate and hopeless. And people throughout the years for the past three decades have been looking for that. And they found that in Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Now, there were a lot of people celebrating yesterday because of his death. And I have a list of tweets that I could read, not just from random trolls, by the way,

but from blue check marks, people with thousands, hundreds of thousands, in some cases, millions of followers. very grotesquely, ghoulishly celebrating Rush Limbaugh's death, bringing up everything that he ever said, that has offended him, has offended them. And look, I've watched some of the videos. I've read some of the stories. There are things that he has said that are offensive, that I wouldn't say. But there are a lot of people who say things that I find highly offensive that I wouldn't say. And I still would not celebrate their death. Unfortunately, this seems to be the rule among leftist Twitter that when someone they disagree with dies, they celebrate.

And I don't want to list these specific tweets because I don't want to give them any more of a platform than they have. And honestly, I don't want to depress you because it will depress you and it will reaffirm your knowledge and your confidence and the total depravity of man if I read some of these tweets. So just understand that I'm not making this up, the absolute ghoulishness of some of the celebrations and some of the tweets surrounding Rushland Baasdad by prominent leftists on on Twitter. And, you know, it does make me sad too when I think about it, when I think about

the state of people's hearts, when I think about the state of the world. And I think not in a self-righteous way, but just in an honest way that I would never do that. Like, I just wouldn't do that. If Cecil Richards, who was the head of Planned Parenthood, who I believe to be one of the most evil and bloodthirsty and rabid organizations that has ever existed, who has been responsible for the brutal murder of millions of babies. If she died, with all the qualms I have with her, with all of the righteous indignation that I feel against her, I still would not celebrate her death either publicly or privately. What I would say is, wow, I really hope that she repented and put her faith in Christ.

I hope he called her to himself before she died or else it's not looking good for her. And that's my hope, by the way, for all people, whether it's Rush Limbaugh, who says he did say recently that he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. So praise God for that. Or whether it's someone on the other side of the aisle, whether it's someone like the head of Planned Parenthood that I adamantly disagree with. My hope is that God would save their soul, that they would have been brought to repentance before they died and that they would spend eternity with Christ. That is my sincere hope for even my most

mortal enemy. I do not celebrate when someone I disagree with dies. And it seems to be that that is the mentality of a lot of people on the right when someone on the left dies. For example, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, there was an outpouring of respectful tributes coming from the right towards her. I'm not saying there weren't any random trolls or weren't any people who said anything bad. But the vast majority of prominent conservatives came out and respectfully paid tribute to RBG. And now I know some people are saying, well, RBG is so different than Rushland Ball. Rushland Baugh said this. He used to have this terrible segment.

He used to do all of these horrible things. And RBG was a pioneer for women's rights and she was a Supreme Court justice. So it's not the same. No, no, no, no. that's not my argument. My argument is not necessarily to compare those two people. My argument is that RBG is someone that I disagreed with on a profound level, on a very profound level. I could say that she is responsible in some ways for some of the most grotesque atrocities like abortion in the United States because of some of the decisions and the arguments that she put forward. I mean, on a

profound level, I disagree with RBG on a variety of things on a moral level. on on issues that I think have eternal significance. I disagree with RBG. And still, I would have never. And most people that I know, most prominent conservatives that I know would not ever have celebrated her death or would have ever posted the kind of ghoulishness that we are seeing about Rush Limbaugh. And I know people are still going to say, well, it's different. It's different. It's not different. That argument that, well, my cruelty is justified because the object of my cruelty is worse than the object of your hatred or the object of my hatred

is worse in the object of your hatred and so my cruelty is justified. It's not a good argument. Don't you see that that makes you a hypocrite? But you know, the interview that I had with James Lindsay a few weeks ago now where he talked about, you know, we were talking about, for example,

how Democrats are, they're calling out the violence at the Capitol but they had no problem with the violence that happened, that happened in the streets over the past, you know, six months by BLM and Antifa, how they even excuse and condone that. They whitewashed that and they call that okay, but they are up in arms about what happened at the Capitol. My argument has always been, why can't it be both? Like, why can't we just be against political violence? And James Lindsay talked about that this is actually part of a

consistent philosophy, a guy named Marcuse in the 1960s. He argued very prominently. And persuasively, unfortunately, for a lot of people, that left-wing violence is always justified because the cause is good, but right-wing violence is never justified because the cause is bad. And so once you understand that that is the first principle of leftism, and therefore a lot of people who ascribed to leftism, not all, but a lot of prominent people, at least people on Twitter and activists that ascribe to leftism, that's how they see things, is that it is actually consistent because they believe that the cause is good and that everyone who is against their cause is an enemy. So it's okay to celebrate the death of someone like Rush Limbaugh.

It's not okay to celebrate in their minds the death of someone on their side because they don't see any kind of equivalence between their cause and our cause. They see themselves as the right side of history. They see us as the wrong side of history. They see themselves a storming the beaches of Normandy. They see everyone else as the fascist Nazis. And so of course, you are allowed to celebrate when a Nazi dies, but you're not allowed to celebrate when a hero dies. That's how they see things. So once you understand that it's all part of a cohesive worldview, that it's not just a double standard, that it's not just hypocrisy, that they actually, a lot of people who ascribe to this mentality, they actually think that they're being consistent and even worse than that.

Virtuous, you realize that it's not even worth sometimes pointing out the hypocrisy and the double standard because conservatives don't have the same mentality. Now, I'm not saying the conservatives didn't have some grotesque reactions to RBG or, for example, John McCain or when George H.W. Bush died. There are a lot of people that I would categorize it. And I'm not saying that support of Donald Trump makes you this way. Obviously, you guys know that they voted for Donald Trump, but it seems like people who die hard in the maga camp. They really didn't like John McCain. They really didn't like George H.W. Bush, which I understand policy disagreements and all of that, but some of the posts that conservatives, or I don't even know just, I guess, Trump supporters or people on the

right that they posted after those two politicians died, that was also grotesque. But again, any like mainstream voices, any people of influence saying that kind of stuff, it just doesn't really happen on the right to be perfectly honest. And it's because we have a different philosophy. We have a different way to view the world. We don't view things as simply, okay, we're on the right side of history on all things. We're storming the beaches of Normandy. Everyone else is Nazi. We would rather say no. Let's say no to political violence in general. Let's say no to dancing on people's grave in general. And again, I can't speak for all conservatives. I'm certainly not speaking for all leftists. But there is a stark contrast between the reactions of the right and the left when someone

on the other side of the aisle dies. And for the people saying, oh, no, Rush Limbaugh was just really bad. He was just really, really bad. No, I mean, you had a lot of leftists also had the same reaction when George H.W. Bush died. They also had the same reaction when Herman Kane died. And so really, it's anyone who is not a Democrat or in the Lincoln Project, but I repeat myself, that they celebrate when they die. They have tolerance for absolutely everyone except for those who disagree with them.

And the other piece of irony that I see is that progressives never believe in hell. Hell is so terrible to believe in. The only people who believe in hell are bigots. The only people who believe in hell are just these terrible, awful, exclusive, intolerant people. They don't believe in hell until someone who disagrees with them dies. As soon as someone who disagrees with the progressive dies, all of the sudden hell exists and Satan exists. And it's this firing brimstone, absolute merciless, intolerant, puritanical, religious fervor that these live and let live moral relativist,

progressives show. And it just shows that no one is actually a moral relativist. No one is actually, oh, just live and let live. No one is actually your truth, my truth. Even the people who say that obviously believe in an absolute truth. They obviously believe in a right and a wrong. They obviously have some desire for what they view as evil to be avenged and the people that they don't like to be punished. And we all have a desire for justice. The question is, what's your definition of justice and where is it coming from? But the very people claim to have my truth and your truth and just to be tolerant and loving of everyone. And there is no hell and everyone's just going to end up in the same place. They believe in hell real quick. They become a merciless,

a merciless version of Jonathan Edwards when someone that they don't like or someone that they disagree with dies. And as Christians, like we just don't have to play that game. I also don't like it when people say that when people who they really like, like a fellow conservative that wasn't a Christian is in heaven.

Like just because someone you like or someone that you agree with, dies doesn't necessarily mean they're in heaven. And just because someone you disagreed with or didn't like dies doesn't mean that they are in hell. Obviously, as Christians, like we haven't even stand. for that. John 146, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth in the life. No one comes to the father

except for me. That's the standard. No matter whether that person disagreed with you or not, and that's my hope for all people. That's my prayer for all people, whether I disagreed with your politics here on earth or not. That is my hope for repentance and for people to know Christ and to be forgiven of their sins, to be given that grace and that eternal salvation. And so as a Christian, we just don't even have to, you don't even have to play that game. If you're a liberal, my encouragement to you, even if you hated him, if you just hated Rush Limbaugh, and I know, I've heard some of the stuff that he said, I understand, you can hate him, you can think that he is hateful, understand two things.

Number one, speech is not oppression. Like, there are things as, such things as dangerous ideas that can lead to bad consequences that can be oppressive. But speech itself is not oppressive. When I see people say that Rush Limbaugh harmed them or oppressed people, speech is not oppressive. You know we've reached peak privilege in society when we are saying that we are harmed by someone's speech. Yes, you can have hurt feelings, absolutely, and I'm not negating that. You might be justifiably offended by what someone said.

What someone said could be wrong. It could be bad. It could be slander. It could be highly offensive and it could be hateful and you can call it out and you can disagree with it and all of that stuff. But to say that it's actually oppressive is to belittle the. actual oppression that's going on in the world. A talk radio host, like having an opinion that you are not forced to listen to, that you have never been forced to listen to is not oppressing you. It's not oppressing any group. Let's look at the oppression throughout the world that is actually

happening where human rights, not just privileges, but human rights are being stripped from people on the basis of their religion, on the basis of their gender, on the basis of whether they're in the womb or out of the womb before we say that someone's speech is oppressing us. Okay. That's that's number one. Number two, if you disagree with someone and you want to bring up all the terrible things that they did, you have every right to do that and you can do that any day of the week. I would just suggest that maybe like the one day that you don't do that is the day that he dies, like or that someone dies. Maybe, maybe if you could just take a break for one second, for one second and think about whether you like this person or not,

they're a human being. They have family. Like they have, they probably have a spouse, not in Russia's case, but people have kids, they have grandkids, they have brothers and sisters,

they have people who love them. And you might hate them, and it's so hard for you to imagine them being loved by anyone else, but just for one second, put yourself in their shoes and understand there are people who hate your views too. There are people who really, really don't like you and think you're dangerous and think you're a bigot and think you're on the wrong side of history. Would you want your family seeing other people celebrate your death and saying terrible things about you on the internet?

In your death, I don't think so. So treat other people how you want to be treated. And I know it's so hard for that to get through to people who believe that everyone who disagrees with them or every conservative or everyone on the right is a Nazi. that is so hard for you to just kind of like grasp in your head, but I'm hoping to be able to break through, that treat other people how you want to be treated. Loving your neighbor as yourself includes Rush Limbaugh. By the way, if you consider yourself, for example,

a progressive Christian that's still a command that applies to everyone. And so don't celebrate people's death. Number three, I really don't want to take, it's hard for me to take seriously the complaining about Rush Limbaugh's morality from people who excuse every kind of moral atrocity in the book from people who they politically agree with.

So if you look at the New York Times, for example, and there are various headlines that they have released at the top of obituaries over the years when it comes to brutal dictators and you compare that to Rush Limbaugh, it's just really hard to take the moral preening seriously. I'll read you some.

For example, Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary who defied U.S., dies at 90s. So that is a hero's goodbye from the New York Times from the guy who jailed and murdered all political dissidents when he was the communist dictator of Cuba and ran Cuba into the ground to where they haven't even recovered. Ayatollah Rahola Khomeini, 89, the unwavering Iranian spiritual leader, another terrorist that they seem to be glorifying. Hugo Chavez, a polarizing figure who led a movement, again, ran Venezuela into the ground.

They still have not recovered, not just thinks to Chavez, but also thanks to Maduro, a brutal communist dictator. Yasser Arafat, father and leader of Palestinian nationalism dies at six. 75. Yet again, another terrorist. And yet, when they are talking about Rush Limbaugh and they are paying him tribute for his obituary, here's what they say. Rush Limbaugh, who built talk radio into right-wing attack machine, dies. Mr. Limbaugh 70, who helped transform the GOP, pushed talk radio to the right with misogynistic and racist language and conspiracy theories. Of course, they also paid tribute to Mao Zedong several years ago or several decades ago saying that he was the father of the Chinese revolution. Mao Zedong's revolution was responsible for the brutal murder of tens of millions of Chinese people during his reign of terror. It wasn't the actual rate of terror, but it was a reign of terror. And because these people are on the left, because these people are communist or because these people are non-Western in some cases, they are given these kind of glowing reviews and headlines by the New York Times and unfortunately by some people

on the left, but someone who said things that they don't like and said things that they deem offensive, well, he is dragged through the mud even on the day of his death. So it's hard for me to listen to this kind of like moral preaching and this self-righteous indignation from people who glorify dictators who are literally, not metaphorically, literally responsible for the the murder and the torture of millions of people. So please, just, just spare me, spare me these few days surrounding his death. And think about your level of consistency and integrity when it comes to whose death you celebrate and whose death you mourn or whose death you at least gloss over because you agree with their politics. It's really gross. It's really, really gross. All right. That's all. I've got

Rush Limbaugh. Now I want to talk about a couple more things while we still have time. I want to talk about this really alarming story that I saw about this pastor in Alberta, Canada named James Coates. He's the pastor of Grace Life Church. He was arrested for holding a church service and for not following COVID rules and is remaining in custody right now. So I'm going to talk to you about that story and analyze what I think about it, especially in light of, for example, Romans 13, because a lot of you have been asking me about it. All right, before we get into this pastor story, there's one, there's actually one more thing I want to say. And this is what I meant to say it a few minutes ago, and then I lost my kind of thought about Rush Limbaugh and the whole thing. So it used to make me

really sad to think about, wow, that when a conservative dies, there are people who celebrate on the internet about their death. And that, makes me really sad. And Rush Limbaugh had actually talked about that, that the hardest part of his job is being hated by the people that he once wanted to like him. And I don't care about people liking me, but thinking about people celebrating something bad happening to me or celebrating something bad happening to people that I really respect, that does really make me sad. And, you know, sometimes that really does weigh on me. But I've had to realize that that's going to happen. Like that's going to happen to people.

It's going to continue to happen to people on the right because again, it comes from a, it comes from a philosophy. It comes from a belief system. It's not just random hypocrisy or immorality or depravity. It is depravity. It is hypocrisy. It's all of those things. But it comes from that deep seed of belief system that we were talking about. And so unfortunately, we are going to see that probably more and more.

And the people whose death is celebrated, it's probably going to move further. and further to the center. It's going to end up being people who are just, you know, to the right of AOC, their deaths are going to be celebrated in some way by these terrible left-wing activists. And I think that rather than trying to, I saw someone say, live your life in such a way, it's where people don't, you know, aren't reminding the world of the hateful things that you said after you die. Well, the only way to do that is to not talk or to be a leftist.

And every sense of the word, you can say all the hateful things that you want to about unborn babies or about any group that the left doesn't see as worthy and you'll be perfectly fine. But if you say something that they disagree with, they'll deem that as hateful no matter what. And so they're going to bring it up after something bad happens to you or after you die and they're going to say, see, this is karma. Do not live your life in such a way as to avoid that. rather think about who you want to hate you and who you want to celebrate when that happens. Because the fact of the matter is that you're going to have enemies.

As once in Churchill said it paraphrasing, if you don't have enemies, then you probably haven't done anything. I think it's you have enemies good. That means you've done something at some point in your life. You've stood for something. At some point in your life, if you stand for something, if you say things that are controversial, if you preach the gospel, if you stand up for the word of God, if you are a Christian and you are outspoken about your faith, they're going to be people who deem you as hateful,

no matter how many good things that you've done, no matter how many positive, wonderful things that you've said, no matter how much they might agree with you on some things, I guarantee you if you stand for the gospel. I guarantee you if you're just a conservative, people are going to say that you are a hateful person, they're going to celebrate harm and, harm and death befalling you. And so do not live your life in such a way that you are scared about that or that you're trying to avoid that because that is a perfect way for Satan to push you into paralysis and to push you into silence. These people, these trolls who celebrate the deaths of those that they disagree with, they don't

matter. They don't matter. They just don't. Like they are revealing more about themselves and their character than anyone that they are condemning than anyone whose death that they are celebrating. And it is, it is evidence of their hard heart and their callousness. And it's going to be a rude awakening if, tragically, there is not repentance before their death. You are beholden to God. And remember Romans 8, if God is for us, who can be against us?

It is God who justifies who is to condemn. Christ Jesus is the one who died. more than that, who was raised, who is seated at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us. And so that is our confidence, and that is our hope. And that is why we persevere. And that is why we say the things we do. That's why we believe the things we do. That's why we do the things that we do, knowing that there will be people who call you hateful no matter what. Do not live your life in such a way as to avoid criticism or avoid celebration when you die from people who hate you.

Just make sure it's the right people celebrating. And you can't worry about that. Please, do not. Do not avoid saying what is true for the sake of that because you're not going to be able to avoid it. They will be celebrating. They will come after you. They will cancel you if you continue to say anything

outside of what they don't like and you can't avoid it. You just can't. So please don't live in fear of them. That's another lesson that I wanted us to learn. And speaking of not living in fear, I want to talk about this particular pastor, James Coat, James Coates in Alberta, Canada. So he was, like I said, arrested for holding the church service.

And I want to give you the full context of everything that happened. So the church did initially, this Grace Life Church in Alberta, Canada, they did initially suspend in-person gatherings according to the Alberta government. restrictions in March of 2020. But quote, this is from JCCF.ca. But even in the summer of 2020, it had become apparent congregants of grace life that the government lockdowns cause far more self-imposed harm than the natural harm of COVID, stated James Kitchen, staff lawyer with the Justice Center who is representing Pastor James

Coates. The congregants of grace life fear sickness and death less than they fear government oppression being isolated from their fellow congregants and disobeying the God they love and worship. And so they started to open up their church about last summer, I think last spring summer. And the government came after them saying, look, you've got to follow all of these restrictions. You can only have 15% of your building capacity. Everyone in attendance must wear a mask. Everyone has to be socially distanced no matter what.

and Grace Life basically said, look, that makes us almost inoperable to only be able to have 15% of our congregation, be able to meet for every service. That means that we're going to have to turn people away. That means that there are people who want to hear the gospel, who need the encouragement that comes from in-person fellowship, who I actually have to deny and say, no, you can't have that.

And he believes that that is against the call that God is placed on his life of being an ambassador for Christ by pastoring a church and preaching the gospel from the pulpit. The church leadership released a public statement saying this. We believe people should responsibly return to their lives. Churches should open. Businesses should open families and friends should come together around meals, and people should begin to exercise their civil liberties again. Otherwise, we may not get them back.

In fact, some say we are on the cusp of reaching a point of no return, and protect the vulnerable exercise, reasonable precautions, but begin to live your lives again. Living life comes with risks. Every time we get behind the wheel of a car, we are assuming a degree of risk. We accept that risk due to the benefits of driving. Yes, though vastly overblown, there are associated risks with COVID as there are with other infections, human life, though precious is fragile. As such, death looms over all of us. That is why we need a message of hope. So a lot of people obviously are very angry about that. The truth is, is that in Alberta, and in Canada in general, but especially in this area of Canada, the COVID infection rate is very

low. Hospitalization rate is very low. The ICU rate is very, very low. And so it did seem like the risk in general of congregating was low. And this church just didn't want to have to turn people away who wanted to hear the gospel and who wanted to obey the command of Hebrews 10, which is to meet together and to not neglect meeting together. It says, as is the habit of some. as we see the day drawing near. More restrictions were imposed in November and December in Alberta through the orders of the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Dina Hinshaw, saying that churches could only gather,

again, like I said, at 15% of their building capacity, that everyone in attendance must wear masks and be socially, being socially distanced. The Justice Center who represents James Coates, who reports that, quote, each Sunday morning during the Worship Service in Alberta Health Services Inspector, often accompanied by law enforcement, demanded to enter the building. December 17th of 2020, and AHS inspector issued an order against the church.

January 21st in 2021, AHS filed a court application to enforce the December 17th order and to be given the power to throw Pastor Coates in jail if he continued to lead grace life and normal worship services. The church and pastor codes continue to exercise their constitutional freedoms to gather normally for in-person worship services. January 29th, 2021, AHS issued a closure order to close the church down to prevent any attendees from gathering for in-person services at all. So that was at the end of January. They decided they wanted to punish the church by closing them down completely. February 7th, 2021, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers met with Pastor Coates telling him he was under arrest.

and to stop breaching orders. Pastor Coates refused to stop. The officers left without arresting him February 14th, 2021. An AHS inspector was present at the worship service. They reported the activities and the RCMP told Pastor Coates he would be arrested on Tuesday, February 16th. And Pastor Coates did turn himself into the police and now he is in prison. His wife has been posting updates. And apparently he is able to get out of prison, but he has to agree to not pastor and to not preach anymore. And he's not going to do that. At this point, I don't even think it's an option for him to just be able to comply. I'm pretty sure that they want to shut his church down unless he is willing to no longer preach. And he's just not going to do that. And so people who are bringing up

Romans 13, which says that we are supposed to submit to institutions and the government was set up by God. I was just reading in 1. Peter how we are supposed to submit to authorities, even the imperfect authorities, even the authorities that we may not like. But of course, we understand in context of all of Scripture that that means insofar as we do not have to disobey God. So Romans 13, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. So I think that verse alone kind of tells us what we need to know in all of this is that, yes, we are supposed to submit to governing authorities, but the authority that they have comes from God. And so if they break God's law,

or they cause God's law, then we appeal to a higher authority than them, where their authority is derived from, which is God himself. And if God tells us, for example, for example, for example, for example, to meet one another in Hebrews 10. And he tells us that we are supposed to gather together. And we know that there is something special about in-person fellowship and congregation. And you could see how a pastor and a church would say, look, I've got to meet together. I've got to obey the Lord rather than man. And they're not violent. They're not forcing people to go to their church. They're not saying that, hey, we're not going to take any precautions whatsoever, or we believe that this is a fake virus. They're not saying that. They're not saying that they don't care for

the elderly or the vulnerable. They were saying actually, okay, if the hospitals get overwhelmed, if something happens and, you know, this sickness blows up even more than it has, then we will make sure to help out and we will make sure that you have all the volunteer services that you could possibly need. If that happened and the government, of course, of course said no. So let me read you Hebrews 10, 24, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So people who don't understand the importance of meeting together in person, people who don't understand that there's a difference between

watching a sermon online and actually meeting bodily with the body of believers. I just wonder, I wonder if you understand what church is. I wonder if you really understand what corporate worship actually does and how it actually works. Yes, it's true. You can worship anywhere. Yes, you can pray to God anywhere. That is true. You don't have to be in a pew to worship God.

You don't have to be in a few to hear the gospel and to be refreshed by the word of God. But there is something valuable about gathering with the body of believers in the government should not be infringing upon that right. They don't have the same rights in Canada as they do in the United States. Yes, that is true. But unfortunately, like, we don't even have, we haven't even been able to exercise that full freedom everywhere in the United States, even having the guarantee of the First Amendment.

And the fact that there are liberals here who don't understand that that's a fundamental right for a reason that doesn't take a break during a virus, which I have told you guys, I take seriously and have exercised every person, precaution possible and encourage other people to as well. The fact of the matter is, even in the seriousness of a virus that kills people, because this does kill people, the Constitution here in the United States doesn't take a break. And I do believe that this pastor in saying, look, I'm not going to turn people away from my church to try to meet these arbitrary restrictions. I'm not going to stop preaching the gospel. I do believe that he is standing firm on what God has called him to do.

And I understand there's going to be people who disagree with me. I tried to give you all the context possible in all of that. And it just confuses me to see Christians, to see Christians saying, oh, this is just embarrassing. Like he's trying to make himself a martyr. Really? Like, and you think that you're going to stand firm when real persecution comes here?

Like, you're rolling your eyes and you're laughing at this pastor who refuses to stop preaching the gospel under threat of, imprisonment and you think that you're going to be the one to stand firm when they come knocking at your door you think that you're going to stand firm in the gospel when persecution comes your way are you just going to keep laughing at people who are actually enduring it there's no way i'm sorry there's no way you need to take a really good assessment of your faith in where you actually stand if you look at a situation like this and you roll your eyes or you just ignore it or you think it's not that big of a deal, and you think that when tentation, the flee comes your way,

that you'll actually stand firm. I'm not so sure about that. Let us all humble ourselves and ask ourselves honestly what we would do in that kind of situation and ask for the Holy Spirit to reveal that to us and to bring us to a place of humility and a place of total dependence on God and wisdom and discernment to know what to do in these kinds of situations and to trust him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. All right, so I just wanted to leave you with a little bit of encouragement, because I know that you hear that story of the pastor in Alberta. And we've been seen in the news a lot recently,

a connection between evangelical Christianity and the perpetuation of violence. Bill Maher did this whole segment on his show about how Christianity is to blame for the riots at the Capitol. and I've seen various progressive Unitarians that I think still identify as Christians saying that the belief that the Bible is God's Word or the Bible is an errant or belief in John 146 or belief that we are sinners in need of a Savior that that actually leads to terrorism, that leads to violence, that Christians are violent people perpetuating violence. I told you guys about Lila Rose, the pro-life activist who said that, you know, abortion is, violence and then there was an abortionist who quote tweeted her and said that her statement was violence or her statement incited domestic terrorism. So just saying things that are true, representing things that are true, they are now being categorized as inciting violence or

even acts of violence. Someone told me that I am inciting violence and that I have blood on my hands because of the show. And that kind of rhetoric is very frightening. First, I think it shows like I said, the peak of privilege that we have reached in a society where people think that someone having a different opinion than you is not just hateful, but actually oppressive and is actually inciting violence. Look, it's not inciting violence unless it is actually asking for violence. And if you want to keep on changing that standard, I promise you that you are going to eventually not meet that standard. There is, there's a hate speech law in Germany, for example, that prohibits hate speech. You can be prosecuted for saying something that

someone considers hateful. And there was this anti-Semitic cartoon that was going around. And there was a politician, someone of influence in Germany, who shared the cartoon in dismay, in disapproval, saying, you know, this is a cartoon, this antisemitic cartoon is being shared around. This is so awful, so terrible. That person who shared it in disapproval was actually prosecuted under Germany's hate speech law. So just understand if you are someone who is against free speech because you believe that certain speech shouldn't be allowed, you're going to be on the wrong side of that eventually. I mean, Americans used to be smart enough to understand that kind of thing. We used to be able to kind of put the shoe on the other foot and to be able to say, okay, just because I don't like something doesn't mean it should be illegal. But unfortunately, it seems like we've gotten past that.

We have so dumbed down the American populace and so created a loathing and resentment for American values like free speech that unfortunately people aren't able to realize that anymore. And so I know that can be discouraging. That could be very scary for a lot of people. And like we were saying earlier, that can even encourage you not to share the gospel or not to say things that you know are true. Like men are men and women or women in life starts in the womb. is valuable and babies in the womb are humans and therefore are deserving of human rights. It can be very scary to say those things because you don't want to be canceled. You don't want people to wish bad things on you.

You don't want to get mean messages. You don't want to be categorized to someone who is inciting violence, even though you're not inciting violence. And so you start to self-censor. You start to not share things or not say that you agree with someone that you really agree with. You start to say things that you don't even really believe or you start to soften. your stance or caveat your beliefs or you start to go along with people who don't believe in the

Bible and their definitions of what justices or morality is, right and wrong is, true and false is because you're just hoping to insulate yourself from criticism and cancellation. Number one, let me tell you that it's not going to work. You're not going to be able to hide for long. The only way that you may be able to avoid cancellation is if you renounce your faith completely. If you become the type of so-called Christian, which is not a Christian at all, that says, sure, I'm a Christian, I believe in God, but I believe all religions are fine, and I actually believe that Christianity has caused a lot of harm.

And there is nothing morally distinguishable between me and any atheist. If you agree with them on everything politically, agree with them on everything sexually, agree with progressives on everything ideologically. but you still say, yeah, sure, I believe in some vague notion of God, then you might be okay for a little bit. If you become a moral relativist, if you harden your heart and make your brain a bowl of oatmeal, then yes, you may be able to avoid cancellation for a little bit, but at what cost? At the cost to your soul, at the cost to your legacy, at the cost to your kids' remembrance of you, at the cost to your country. It's not worth it. It's not worth avoiding individual cancellation or criticism or pushback or persecution at the expense of the gospel, at the expense of the country. It's just it's not worth it.

And actually, it's much more difficult to cancel a whole group of people who says, yep, this is what I believe, who says, yep, I agree with that now controversial statement. Yep, I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Yes, I do believe that Jesus is the way, the truth in the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Yes, I do believe that we have all sin and fallen short of the glory of God and that we, by grace, through faith, can have salvation in him and live with him forever. Yes, I do believe those things. Yes, it is the love of Christ that compels me to do good for my neighbor. And no, love doesn't mean that I agree with everyone's lifestyle. I agree with God's definition of male and female. Now, I agree with God's definition of holy sexuality. Yes, it's controversial to say those things. It's controversial to say, you know what? I actually don't agree with this worldly definition of social justice. I actually don't agree with the categories of critical race theory of oppressor versus oppression based on race. I actually think that that's ungodly and that it's untruthful and that it doesn't take into account real history and real

facts. All of those things are very controversial. Of course, of course, you're going to be castigated. Of course, you're going to be pushed to the margins. But listen to this. Truth tellers are always pushed to the margins. They always are. The church in particular is always pushed to the margins and the church does not die there. The church thrives there. So it's actually a joyous and wonderful thing that the church is being pushed to the mainstream, that the vine is being pruned, that the chaff is being thrown out, that nominal Christians are realizing that it's no longer beneficial for them to pretend to be Christians anymore, that people who don't really believe that Jesus is Lord are now

realizing that it serves them much better to just be agnostics or just be atheists. All of this eternally in the long run is a very, good think. Nominal Christians aren't going to be able to hide anymore because it's no longer going to be convenient or safe or comfortable to be a Christian. And so the only people that will be Christians are the people who have actually counted the cost. And that is how it should be. The church has gone through cycles like this for our entire human existence. And we're still here and we're still standing. And so praise God that he sees our generation as a generation to be able to push back against this craziness. Like praise God that he didn't put our generation at any other time in

history except for this one. In his providence, he has raised up the exact people that he wants to raise up to be able to continue to preach the gospel amidst the chaos and the confusion that we're seen in the world today. He did that purposefully. You're not pleased here arbitrarily. You're not pleased here accidentally. He didn't get your birthday wrong. You're not here by happenstance. You're here with purpose. If you are a Christian who believes in the gospel and who has a biblical worldview of all of these crazy issues that we're now being told her up in the air and up for a debate now, then you were called here for such a time as this, and it's not to back down and to fit in. It is to kindly and lovingly and compassionately be an ambassador for Christ by preaching the

gospel, by believing the gospel, by refusing to believe or tell lies, by serving and loving your neighbor, continuing the Christian tradition of making the lives. of those around us better. They can say all you want to, that the gospel has compelled people to violence. The fact of the matter is, the violence has compelled people, Christians, to do more good than any other group

or any kind of person around the world by far. And we don't take credit for that, but Christ certainly does. The Holy Spirit certainly does. All right, so leave here, feeling motivated, go into your weekend, feeling encouraged, and know that you have been called for such a time, as this to influence the small or large spheres of influence in which God has providentially and purposely

placed you. All right. I will see you back here on Monday.