The stunning full interview by Pastor John MacArthur. #JohnMacArthur #GraceCommunityChurch

a number of mega-churches in california and other states are openly defined state and local mandates and holding crowded indoor services despite the threat of the coronavirus for the past couple sundays pastor john mcarthur has welcomed congregants to grace community church in los angeles county that's even though california's governor has ordered indoor operations at places of worship closed to the public in the state's most populous counties and that includes los angeles county as virus cases and deaths continue to climb there grace community church could face a thousand dollar fine a day and its leadership reportedly has retained one of president trump's personal lawyers as part of a litigation team in case the city or pardon me the county responds with legal action on the final sunday of july pastor macarthur told his congregants that there is a time to obey law but that obedience cannot override one's duty to god we must obey god rather than men does this mean we have no responsibility to our leaders not at all god has ordained human government for the peace and well-being of temporal society when orders come however to us that contradict the orders of our king we have to obey god rather than men pastor john mcarthur is joining us now pastor thank you so much for being with us well it's my pleasure brianna glad to be here and i i know that you have been concerned that spiritual health is being sacrificed to physical health can you tell us about your concern well it uh just one way to illustrate that brianna is the fact that every sunday in the life of this church for decades we have had four and a half hours every sunday of training of children three hours in the morning an hour and a half in the evening for six months we've had no classes for children we teach them the bible it's very very critical for their young lives the parents miss that the children miss that maybe they're the most precious reality in this church this is not a this is this church is not sort of a ted talk kind of church it's it's not really just a gathering of adults it's a fully generational multi-generational experience all through the week and culminates on the lord's day so all of that has been shut down when it first happened we thought well we heard millions are going to die so obviously we did live stream and nobody was here but as the weeks went on people started slowly coming back and they just kept coming and coming until last week there were six or seven thousand that's two weeks in a row it isn't that we mandated it isn't that we told them to come back they started coming back and what caused them to come back was they realized that the death rate in california is point zero two percent ninety nine point nine eight percent chance you're not going to die from covet they didn't buy the deadly narrative and they just started showing up and and we began to receive them and they were told they couldn't sing they were told they had to wear masks we were told that if anybody gets within some other person you can meet outdoors but if anybody gets within another person within six feet for more than 15 minutes they have to be quarantined for two weeks well how do you navigate that with 6 000 people so the if you get within someone who is tested positive you mean no no if you get within someone other than a family member if you get within six feet for more than 15 minutes the health department said you have to be quarantined for two weeks and they said it applies to children i i think i think that means if you're near someone who has tested positive that's been kind that's been a somewhat standard approach to people who test positive for coronavirus but i do want to highlight something that you recently said during a sermon you were talking about some of the statistics that you actually just mentioned if we can listen to that but there's another statistic half of those people who died are over 80. so if you're under 80 you have a 99.99 chance that you're going to live through this whole thing that just does not equate to the response this society has had but if you just look at friday's statistics in your county in los angeles county there were 48 deaths just in one day on friday and there were a little less than a third who were folks above 80 but a little less than third were people 65 to 79 and more than a third were people aged 30 to 64. does that raise your level of concern knowing that actually it is not just the elderly at risk as you're as you're telling your congregants yeah to be honest with you brianna i i just don't know when the truth is being correctly represented um i i know either if i may that's that's from the public health department in los angeles you doubt the numbers they're putting out yeah i actually do i i think they're having trouble in the state of california the governor just declared that he was firing the state health director because the system the computer system had miscounted all kinds of things so the whole state is in an uproar and then he came out and said we obviously can't ease up because we don't even know what the numbers are so it's so chaotic but the bottom line is in people's own life experience they're not seeing these kinds of things in any abnormal sense and they came back on their own volition because this is the most essential thing in their life they wanted to be here they came with joy and not with fear no no doubt look i mean we've heard a lot of people who are they need that that spiritual attachment and going to church is so important i one of my questions for you is is this really an either or choice between spiritual and physical health i mean is it possible for instance i know i think your overflow area is outside can you not get creative we've heard of other churches there very close to you who are doing outside services they have cooling systems they're checking temperatures they're social distancing they have masks which to be clear when we look inside of your church it is indoors as you said there's thousands of people there is absolutely no social distancing there is no masks why not why not get creative so that you can obey as you put it god's law but also obey public health regulations yeah it's a fair question so we have been creative we we brought in a tent put it in the parking lot and first sunday we had that it just filled up and overflowed so then we created a screen out in the middle of a large patio that overflowed and filled up and people just kept coming and coming and pouring into the the worship center um we don't orchestrate this this is a church we don't ask people to make a reservation to come to church we don't know who's coming uh it was that's why i said less well yeah because we aren't going to have the people standing outside in a mob all pushed up against each other we opened the doors because that's what we are we're a church and we're going to trust those people to make adult decisions about the reality of their physical and spiritual health and how that balance works for each one of them nobody's forcing anything they're here because they want to be here and i hear you on that but you know they look to you they trust you you are their pastor you are a religious leader for so many thousands of people do you worry that if people are coming into your church and they are not practicing what are considered just safe uh precautions mask wearing social distancing that some of them could die or get sick well in the first place i can't i can't express to them a worry there's enough fear going on in this world and in this climate there is some reason for normal avoidance of illness that would be true in any time in any year but i'm not going to add to the fear because i'm not convinced that what is being propagated is actually reality neither are they that's why they're here and i don't know of anybody in our church and that's a large church who's sick at this time i don't know of anybody we haven't had anybody in our church in the hospital with this through all these months so of course we care about that we we i i know people in the hospital i can't even go to the hospital to minister them when they're dying and i have to talk with people who are on their deathbed in a phone call because i can't get into the hospital to minister to them so our people know life is being restricted in a way that is not constitutional that is burdensome that is targeting a church and that makes no sense in light of the actual numbers of deaths that they're seeing i i would just implore you sir that some people can be asymptomatic and also to look at those numbers i mean the understanding is that they're under reported i think that is something you can take to the bank as you make decisions for thousands of that affect thousands of people well the bottom line brianne is i don't make that decision that's their decision to make and they they make that decision because that's the decision they want to make in their hearts and and i'm i'm good with that that's for them to decide all right pastor uh we wish you luck we wish you health and safety thank you so much pastor my pleasure thank you

Channel: Bass Singing Preacher

Views: 12,202

Rating: 4.784431 out of 5

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Id: uOBcqR5q8e0

Length: 10min 27sec (627 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020