God’s Word Trumps Government Mandates
John MacArthur issued a statement about the government forbidding churches to meet: “Grace Community Church has always stood immovably on those biblical principles. As His people, we are subject to His will and commands as revealed in Scripture. Therefore, we cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings. Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord’s clear commands.”
When almost everything was closed down, he agreed with the government mandate but as many other things were opening up like casinos, bars, and restaurants, he recognized the bias in the government’s mandate that couldn’t be ignored.
Throughout the centuries, Christians who lived in countries like communist ones risked their lives by gathering together to worship the Lord. We are to obey God rather than man. When a government conflicts with biblical commands, we obey God. God’s Word trumps government and He didn’t give any government the right to restrict His clear commands to the Church.
Kyle M., in the chat room, wrote this: “What about Rahab who was listed in the Hall of Faith and she had lied to the authorities (Hebrews 11:31)? What about the apostles who were told to stop spreading the Gospel? What about the Hebrew midwives who refused a lawful order (Exodus 1:15-21)? What about Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom? What about those folks that sat at the lunch counter so black people (like me) didn’t have to live under Jim Crow laws? Why can’t John MacArthur walk in the steps of Paul and appeal to a higher authority?”
Lorrie B. added this: “There are many instances of civil disobedience in scripture such as Moses’ parents hiding him and others not bowing down to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. There is a time and place to disobey the government!”
What about the argument that Christians look bad to culture when we disobey the government’s mandate to not go to church? We don’t care what the culture thinks about the Church when it is obeying God rather than man. The culture needs the Gospel. If the Church goes along with evil mandates from the government, we are showing the culture that we fear the government more than we fear God.
How about the safety/healthy factor? We do what people are doing in supermarkets, restaurants, and everywhere else which we’ve been told ad nauseum, so I won’t repeat them. If we can fly in airplanes with how close the people are seated, we can go to church and worship our Savior.
Many states have people in leadership positions who hate God. Some would love nothing more than to close all churches down since they hate the light being shown on their darkness and exposing their evil deeds. We don’t bow down to those who put evil mandates upon God’s people.
I am thankful for pastors such as John MacArthur. During the lockdown, we listened to him each Sunday. He wasn’t afraid to call out the wicked ways of the Black Lives Matter movement. He’s not afraid of any of God’s Word and His truths even though they are highly unpopular these days. He wasn’t afraid to call out Beth Moore, a popular female preacher, and tell her to “go home.” (God tells women to “go home!”) Many were in an uproar about this, but then have said nothing about the government commanding God’s people to “go home” instead of attending worship on Sunday.
God isn’t looking for a lukewarm Church (Revelation 3:16) that follows the whim of evil governments and societies. He wants a Church that is willing to obey Him and do what He commands. A Church that is willing to take a stand against the wickedness in the culture and be salt and light instead.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Hebrews 10:25
23 thoughts on “God’s Word Trumps Government Mandates”
It will be interesting to see the responses or lack of responses to this post.
In my area, most of the preachers have sold out to Satan and the government. They use the standard excuse of obeying the government.
In my area, the most zealous defenders of the government are women. Most of the local women are all for the government to close most businesses, churches, etc. The women’s attitude is “how dare anyone defy the government orders!”
The local women are very zealous being “mask police” and being “social distancing police”. Women employees were following customers around in stores to make sure government suggestions were being followed. I personally know of several cases that the women were following customers out to the parking lot to get license plate numbers because in their opinion the customers had bought too much food. These customers have big families but that doesn’t matter to the women who set themselves up as “police” for the government.
All of this over a “virus” that has a survival rate of 99.98%
Christian churches were closed but other religions churches were not. Casinos were open, homosexual gathering places in one State were open.
Satan is making his move for this country and world. And Christians are not only willfully ignoring it but a lot are helping him. Many of them women. It would be like a man locking the house doors and windows to prevent a thief from coming in, but the woman sees the thief trying to get in the window and she unlocks the window for him.
We are looking at a “vaccine” that will be available shortly after being developed in a few short months. A vaccine that the president says that he will use the military to distribute. A vaccine that will be mandatory to have. A vaccine that comes with a mark on your hand to prove you got it. Without the mark as proof you are “safe” you will not be able to go to work, you will not be able to enter a store to buy things, other people will be forbidden to be near you, etc….
I suggest that you do some research first about what is being plainly and publicly said by government officials before saying I am wrong.
So it looks like soon the tares and the wheat are going to be very plain to see.
Paul wrote 5 (?) books of the new testament and he spend a good bit of time in prison when he wrote them. And that is not a prison like we see nowadays. Prisons back then weren’t 5 star hotels pampering the inmates. Back then the government didn’t feed and clothe the inmates.
The bible plainly says that it is better to obey God than man.
American Christians are weak and pampered.
We haven’t faced persecution here like in other countries where Christians have to meet in secret, are fired from their job, have their possessions taken, are outcast from family, are beaten, raped, imprisoned, or killed because of following Jesus Christ.
People, the best thing I can say is Do you really know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? Have you repented of your sins and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ? Or are you just pretending, or counting on belonging to a church to save you, or you were born a Christian because your parents were Christians?
There is only one way to heaven. The bible says all other ways are like a thief trying to enter your home
What a righteous man! I pray it starts a Movement and inspires many!
Our church has been meeting since the last weekend of May, abiding by all mandates. We have a large congregation and we have not had one single case of the virus. Meanwhile, local bars and beaches disregard any mandates. Local news loves to focus on rural churches around our state, showing pictures of socially distanced people sitting in the pews, but they didn’t see anything wrong with the protesters, side by side without masks, shouting (which is a form of super-spreading), disregarding and even destroying private property. No; those protesters were heroes, whereas praying Christians in a little country chapel were portrayed as villains. If that doesn’t show “implicit bias” I don’t know what does!
Amen, amen, AMEN. I am so proud of John MacArthur! He has just earned his “Daniel” medal. I only wish that other Christian pastors had done the same thing, and I hope and pray that they will. (Instead of coming up with excuses for why they can avoid it.)
Thanks for posting this!
Diana
P.S. Here is another link:
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/our-galvanizing-grandfather.html
Doug has some great quotes in his article!
Blair. You are spot on. As a woman, I see Satan using women everyday to do his evil work. He is working hard in these last days.
My husband and I already figure we’re going to be social outcasts at the very least. No mandated vaccine for us or any of our kids.
Blair, you are absolutely correct. The lies about this “virus” are incredible. If it was half as deadly as they say, we would all know people impacted but I don’t know anyone who has died from it. I will not let the government prevent me from worshipping nor will I permit Bill Gates and whoever else to use vaccination as a guise to track and control us.
I thank God for John MacArthur. I have grown and been blessed by His gospel preaching and books for 25 years now. I learned the doctrine of grace by him. I am so thankful for the prayfull and scriptural response to all that is going on. I called this receptionist to say exactly that. She said they are getting a lot of support. I am praying that the true church everywhere will follow John MacArthur’s bold and biblical lead in these very chaotic times.
So it’s okay to gather in large crowds to protest, loot and burn but it’s not okay to gather in worship? That makes no sense!
My father an elder has felt this way from the beginning. But he was outvoted by the other elders. My family’s congregation (we don’t live near my parents) met on Zoom because the place where we held our services was closed to us. We have met at an elder’s home a few times altogether since then. Now we are going to rent our own space just so we can worship when we want. We’re all very excited!!!
This is why women should never be in leadership. WAY too many “Karen’s” among us!
Blair, I hate to say it, but you’re right. It’s primarily hysterical women who are acting as mask police, turning in citizens, insisting on church closures, etc. Yet another reason why leadership should be from men.
And yes, the vaccine stuff scares me silly. It’s definitely not going to be a boring winter.
Haven’t you heard? Those protests were “mostly peaceful”, per the mainstream media!
Our church has also been meeting since May (we are very small congregation) and we abide by the mandates handed down from our Bishop and government. My PA Governor (Democrat – surprise, surprise!) has order all bars/restaurants in our state to close UNLESS they serve food with alcohol, according to him and his “experts”, it’s safe to consume an alcoholic drink with a meal but not without one. Does that make sense?!? I’m not glamorizing drinking by no means but does this make any sense? The county I live in had a few dozen false positive tests, sky rocketing our numbers over the weekend, they were changed to reflect true numbers; however, some news organizations didn’t report the change so we continue to have a high inaccurate number of COVID 19 cases. I am just so tired of everything; I wish my daughter’s tree house was still up, I’d hide out in it for a while.
Good for you M! A friend’s church has services outdoors when weather permits, in a grove of trees. She said it’s so spiritually relaxing.
Our church has not met since March because we don’t have a building. We met in a local public school. With all the new mandates we can no longer meet there and are currently searching for a new place. Our Pastor puts video sermons on YouTube for us.
This, above all else, proves what a political fraud the whole plandemic/scamdemic is. That the glaring, unmistakable evidence in front of our eyes hasn’t demonstrated this to the majority is symptomatic of either psychopathic levels of denial, zoological stupidity, or both.
We will not take the mark either, but than my question what does that look like. Staying home, but not working for someone, how do you pay property tax. We could grow our own food! Just wondering here.
Thank you.Amen and amen.Bless you,Dawn.
Here in New Zealand EVERYTHING shut down for 4 weeks of very strict lockdown. And by everything, I really do mean everything. Gatherings were banned, shops were shut, schools were closed, only essential workers were allowed to go to work, we weren’t allowed to leave our homes without good reason. We weren’t allowed funerals or tangi’s. All places of worship were shut. No visiting elderly parents in nursing homes or family/friends in hospital. We all stayed home. During that time, our church still had fellowship via Viber chat.
However, once lockdown was over and things slowly started opening up again, our church was meeting again, but we did do things a bit differently initially to observe social distancing requirements etc. Now, things are pretty much back to normal here, with the exception of hand sanitizer everywhere, and us all keeping track of our movements in case of the need to contact trace.
Once we moved back to level 3, churches of all denominations were calling on the government to ease the social distancing requirements so they could continue normal services (Level 3 limited gatherings to 10 people even for things like funerals).
It doesn’t make any sense to me to allow shops etc. to be open but not to allow church gatherings.
We, too, have been listening to JMArthur for a few years, but solidly since we have not been able to attend church (first half of the year, it was closed, and now they are requiring masks and we do not want our children to worry about masks, etc.).
I was so proud of him when I read his blog post regarding refusing to bow down. So happy someone finally stood up against this madness. I pray Christians will support him in this, as no doubt he will face trials over this.
Praise the Lord – may we all be so bold with our faith and stand up against the ways that are not God’s ways!
Even worse is at my church when we were all mandated lockdown the church leaders went out and supported the protesters. Who destroyed our entire downtown broke every window. So they had the machismo to tell the police to f off and most of the congregation but not the govt to open their own church. Now they are mandating masks and im probably not going anymore.
Most of the men i know were angry about this and the church has deleted my comments on their facebook. The class of people who run the churches are extremely soft. They enjoy the easy pay check lack of solid work standards or criticism. There is no way the church is not at least cutting in half. I am not joining another so i can see the collapse and use it as a learning experience.