Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve - Pastor Raymond Woodward

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] one year ago the citizens of new brunswick should have been concluding two weeks of near shutdown requested by our government to flatten the curve of covid19 infections in compliance with their rules and regulations and recommendations our church building was closed to all but the office staff and a tiny tech team non-essential businesses were shut down grocery shopping became a nightmare our families were confined to their homes and zoom meetings or face time calls suddenly became the only way we could connect face to face like you i have some bizarre recollections of 2020 it's a year i will never forget i remember standing in the snow waving at my grandchildren through their living room windows i remember trying to figure out the two household bubble with our family when there's grandkids in two families i remember canceling travel arrangements months and months of church events i remember calling all of our guest speakers from out of country telling them we wouldn't be able to have them here i remember one of our missionaries staying here for a month having to stand outside in the bitter cold of last winter waving to her elderly parents every day through a nursing home window and as a pastor i remember the many families and friends who were robbed of the opportunity to say farewell to their dying loved ones in hospitals unable to even hold a proper funeral service it went on for many months and to citizens used to living in a democratic country it was unimaginable harsh and cruel even barbaric when our congregation cooperated with the government's request for two weeks to flatten the curve i don't think any of us imagine that we wouldn't be allowed back in our building for 14 long weeks or that we would have to meet outside in our parking lot at one point unable to even leave our vehicles parked religiously six feet apart as if that made any difference i don't think any of us imagine that our pastors would end up preaching to video cameras in empty auditoriums for months on end or that our eventually eventual return inside would involve a harsh new reality of constant sanitization social distancing face coverings and severe restrictions on seeding capacity i don't think any of us imagine that our airports would be closed or that our provincial borders would be closed indefinitely placing us among the most restrictive regions in one of the most restricted nations in the world but even that wasn't the end of it last march no one could have foreseen that the government's two weeks would ultimately result in more than a year of rigid control and constantly changing rules creating a whole new complexity for christians who simply wanted to worship god together as the bible commands no one could have imagined that the tide of public opinion would actually turn against people of faith who only wanted to attend church no one foresaw that the media would attempt to blacklist anyone who dared to question the official narrative of the covet 19 pandemic and no one believed that churches would be fined or that pastors would be arrested for holding services after all we were a democratic country and to us that was unimaginable harsh and cruel even barbaric i brought a couple of documents with me tonight they're important to those of us that call canada our home one of them is about 60 years old one of them is about 40 years old this is the canadian bill of rights signed into law by prime minister john diefenbaker in 1960 and it was superseded later and expanded upon when in the year 1981 40 years ago this year prime minister pierre-eliot trudeau signed into law the canadian charter of rights and freedoms i promise you that this probably will never happen again it certainly has never happened before that a pastor would take a text from the canadian charter of rights and freedoms but since it's the law of the land in fact the canadian government website describes this as the highest law of the land and so i quote whereas canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of god and the rule of law paragraph two everyone has the following fundamental freedoms freedom of conscience and religion freedom of thought belief opinion and expression including freedom of the press and other media of communication freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association paragraph six clause one every citizen of canada has the right to enter remain in and leave canada and all the snow birds said amen paragraph 9 everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned paragraph 15 clause 1 every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and in particular without discrimination based on race national or ethnic origin color religion sex age or mental or physical disability now that's enough sadly 2020 showed us that all of those freedoms could be arbitrarily set aside by the government whenever they deem authoritarian measures are necessary for our protection and for the greater good of society it's a decidedly undemocratic notion but that hasn't seemed to phase most of the politicians the press or even the general public at least for the last 12 months and we went along with it all of us did because after all they were only asking us for two weeks to flatten the curve that two weeks became a month then three months then six then nine and finally those accumulated weeks and months grew into a whole year of drastically curtailed freedoms all of which is to say i've waited to preach this sermon for many months and already i've made some of you very nervous where is pastor headed in this sermon is he going to bash the premier or the prime minister is he going to declare war on the media is he going to demand that our congregation march on city hall or the provincial legislature is he going to mount a protest on parliament hill well the answer to that is no because they've got us forcibly confined to our province you can't get there from here is pastor going to appear on the evening news is his picture going to be on the front page of the daily gleaner is he going to embarrass our church is he going to jail is he one of those radical preachers is he an anti-massacre is he an anti-vaxxer is he going to ask us to touch each other did he sanitize his hands before service do you think pastor is one of those crazy conspiracy theorists well the answer to all of those questions is no but that doesn't stop me as a pastor from being very very concerned about where our nation is headed and how quickly some of these trends have accelerated over the last year my primary responsibility as a pastor is to you so please allow me to say this very carefully but very clearly tonight the only thing i want to declare war on is the devil the only thing i want to march on is the gates of hell which cannot will not and shall not prevail against the church the only thing i want to protest is sin the only thing i want to get radical about is worship and the only one i need to touch is jesus so just so we're clear over the last 12 months without breaking any rules i've been reported to the department of public health and the department of public safety multiple times i think maybe by some of you i'm not sure i've been contacted by the media i've talked with the chief medical officer i've been criticized by people who think we're keeping too many rules and criticized equally by people who think we're not keeping enough rules and during the last 12 months i've also received can i just tell you a lot of crazy emails some have demanded that we flaunt the restrictions ignore the government and open our doors regardless of the penalty i've had to remind some of them actually several of them that they didn't make any effort to show up at church for weeks on end when the doors were fully open others have insisted that we should be preaching every conspiracy theory that is floating around on facebook oh i'm tempted i'm so tempted it's a terrible thing some have even sent us prophecies of doom and gloom when we didn't preach every conspiracy theory that was floating around on facebook here are a few messages just from one particular self-proclaimed prophet who stopped by last summer and sent us these messages hundreds of millions of people are going to start dying this fall that's fall 2020 when they declare a new pandemic i'm not sure that happened three million people have died around the world but not hundreds of millions many of your church will die i took a little offense to that one this fall all churches will close and will never open again until the day of the lord's return that didn't happen china and russia are going to invade america in november and famine will be global by january trump's assassination will be staged around the elections and there will be all-out civil war i remember a little disturbance i don't remember all the civil war i missed the assassination and i've definitely missed the global famine the world economy will be completely decimated by the spring that was last weekend so we're decimated i guess and that's the kind of stuff pastors have dealt with for 12 long months i i'm i'm not trying to attack anybody i want you to have your personal convictions about these things and that's fine but there's no i don't believe that there's a vaccine floating around that can rewrite your dna and turn you into a cyborg you probably need to stop watching movies long enough to read a book i don't believe that the 5g cell towers are tracking your every movement or that you need to go burn some of them down you need to stop watching movies brought to you in high speed by 5g cell towers and go read a book [Applause] i want you to have your own convictions here would you like to protest against restrictions on gatherings well great then you protest by being yourself in church every single time the doors are open that's your best kind of protest you want church services to be essential to be declared an essential service that's good just show us how essential they are in your life by showing up and being engaged spiritually the government's not going to believe it's too essential if you come twice a month they're not going to believe it's too essential if you show up at easter end christmas our issue has never been with restrictions that are proven absolutely necessary for public safety that's not our issue our issue has always been with the inequality of many of the restrictions we've seen over the past year if liquor stores cannabis providers and pet food merchants are allowed to be open for business then it is my strong conviction and unshakable opinion that churches should be open for worship if thank you if walmart and home depot are permitted to base customer capacity on their square footage then churches should be able to base worshipper capacity on the same criteria and quite frankly and this is just a pet peeve you don't have to agree but if i can talk to a clerk about what kind of paint to buy on aisle seven through a mask i can sing to jesus through the same mask and worship him to me that just makes sense so i will tell you that my concerns as a pastor have not changed in the least not since one year and two weeks ago i'm still disturbed by the pandemic paranoia that has taken hold of so many pentecostal people making them fearful to obey god's word and gather with other believers i'm still troubled by so-called apostolics who have found the couch all too comfortable and the webcast all too convenient and we have not seen them in months i'm still grieved and distressed over our precious new believers not yet grounded in their faith who have slipped back into the world because for them in the infancy of their christian walk online church just wasn't enough and i am grieved and maybe even angered by saints who have become satisfied with a tidy little service that is movement restricted volume throttled time compressed singing suppressed sermon shortened worship inhibited prayer impeded altar obstructed and seat tethered that is starting to drive me around the bend and you could really help me if somehow some way you just kind of explode in worship to jesus for a moment because i don't think we should compress and restrict and inhibit worship just because we're wearing a mask or we're obeying a restriction i think jesus is worthy no matter what we may be doing i think jesus deserves your praise yes yes thank you jesus i worship you god i worship you jesus i've said this multiple times this year you probably haven't noticed but i just keep cut copy and pasting it from one message to the other just like playing checkers quote there is a spiritual virus that is far worse than covet covid19 after months of watching church online and even after more months of doing socially distanced services it is so easy to slip into the new normal that all the talking heads keep talking about i'll say it just one more time the new normal is not normal the new normal is subnormal the new normal is abnormal so i'm not saying mount a protest or rebel i'm just saying don't ever get used to it don't ever accept it don't ever conform to it just wait like a pullback bow and arrow just wait like a loaded spring just wait like a trampoline just ready for the first second you get a little bit of extra liberty to take advantage of it for the worship of the lord jesus i am not a conspiracy theorist but i am a bible reader i emphatically believe that we have entered into the last days of the church age it is entirely probable that many if not most of you will be alive to see the rapture of the church and the return of jesus christ but it is a treacherous thing to live in the end times when the awareness is so low and the stakes are so high we live in the era of casual uncommitted christianity we live in the season of astonishing breathtaking signs of the end times and nobody even notices them anymore our elders would have been in all night all week all month prayer meetings it's just the news to us so my question for you precious brothers and sisters that i love what if jesus comes back while you're in park waiting for covet 19 to be over so you can get back to your former spiritual life the government only asked us for two weeks to flatten the curve but that two weeks became a month then three months then six then nine finally those accumulated weeks and months grew into a whole year of drastically curtailed freedoms you might have put your spiritual life on hold but the devil has not put his agenda on hold maybe you haven't noticed because you've been distracted and frustrated with restrictions and you've been just waiting till you can get a vaccination or a permission to travel or go see family maybe you've been distracted by all that maybe you haven't noticed but it's getting worse for christians and churches in our beloved nation of canada just this week trinity bible chapel in waterloo ontario posted a video called open your church and i want to show you an abbreviated copy in just a second trinity bible chapel has already been ordered to pay 83 thousand dollars for holding services with more than ten people present and they could potentially face fines in the millions of dollars for having church yes in canada take a look the government receives its authority from god god sets the limits on that authority and will hold them accountable and they're in no way permitted to dictate to the church how to worship period paragraph and the story the bride of christ essentially right now is in captivity and her bridegroom who purchased her with his own blood cannot be pleased with this you cannot be pleased with the way the government is treating his bride and it is upon the ministers the under shepherds to stand up and defender trinity trinity trinity trinity trinity trinity bible chapel more charges will be laid against trinity bible chapel pastors have received fines churches have received fines our church has received threats of vandalism and violence people are afraid to go to church because they don't want to be harassed by police or bylaw officers or public health workers on their way to church and now we have a pastor in jail so yeah the canadian church is being persecuted right now yeah so i'm supposed to appear in court april 1st the men who are being persecuted and the churches that are being persecuted are asserting the supremacy of jesus christ over the church in a way that offends the government that wants to be supreme to the church so no amount of fine no amount of jail time is going to discourage people as they come together to worship christ christ is king and so we're here to worship him and he is above every other authority and our canadian charter begins with the preamble declaring that we are founded on the principles which recognize what the supremacy of god not the supremacy of the state not the supremacy of any political actor not the supremacy of bureaucrats and medical professionals but the supremacy of god a lot of people are saying that well we can still do some things we can still gather in smaller groups if they let us do it um problem of course is that all these decisions are being made not by jesus christ who is the head and king of the church but by magistrate that doesn't know the difference between a man and a woman we are not afraid we are not alarmed by our opponents there is no fear in us not in the least and if they take one there will be another that will stand in his place and when he's gone another will stand in his place and we'll continue again and again and again why because christ is worthy like the church of god worship in song in scripture reading and the preaching of the word to wash away our sin and our despair church be reinstated call your people back to public worship amen anybody got an amen for that now i realize that right now in new brunswick we're feeling pretty good churches are less restricted than they are in some other provinces but as martin luther king jr said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly i hope that the apostolic pentecostal church is at least as agitated about this crackdown on canadian churches as all of these men are and all of these churches are i hope the apostolics are at least as agitated as they are martin neimauler lutheran pastor in germany he was opposed to nazi control of the churches and he was imprisoned in their concentration camps for seven years as a result only narrowly escaping execution he is best known for the widely quoted poem first they came you've heard it first they came for the communists and i did not speak out because i was not a communist then they came for the socialists and i did not speak out because i was not a socialist then they came for the trade unionists i did not speak out because i was not a trade unionist then they came for the jews and i did not speak out because i was not a jew then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me church please hear me just because persecution hasn't happened here just because it hasn't happened yet to you just because it hasn't happened yet in fredericton or in new brunswick does not mean that persecution of christians isn't coming while you've been distracted by the fear-mongering of the media and the restrictions of the politicians and all those conspiracy theories posted at every fringe of facebook the devil has not stopped advancing his agenda maybe you haven't noticed it but it is getting worse for christians and churches in canada and this is exactly what the bible prophesied paul said all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution peter said beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you and john the beloved wrote marvel not my brethren if the world hate you where did the big three of the new testament paul peter and john where in the world did they get the idea that christians would suffer persecution or be hated for what they believe they got it from jesus himself who said if the world hate you you know that it hated me before it hated you if you were of the world the world would love his own but because you are not of the world but i have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you we already know from our daughter church in china and from our missionaries in the muslim world that christians can be harassed persecuted arrested and imprisoned just for preaching the bible or gathering together to worship we expect that to happen in russia and north korea in iran and iraq afghanistan and pakistan somalia and libya sudan and yemen we expect it we just never thought we'd see it in canada this is a toronto street preacher named david lynn who was arrested in toronto a year and a half ago june 2019 he's been arrested since he was arrested just last week again not for using hate speech not for inciting violence in fact the court conceded that he didn't do those things he was arrested for offending people when he said this quote jesus died for the entire world so the world could be saved and that includes people in the lgbtq community end of quote and because he said that he was arrested it was this and similar comments about sin and forgiveness just hours after the toronto mayor and city council unfurled the gay pride flag and declared gay pride month open it was just a few hours after that that he made that statement about the love of god and it provoked some in the crowd and then supposedly justified his arrest the crown finally dropped the charges but the arrest itself should be of concern to people of faith in a democracy last week when a basketball team from oral roberts university in tulsa oklahoma won a long shot game and toppled a powerhouse team from ohio state and they made the sweet 16 and ncaa march madness i have no idea what i just said the strident voices of cancel culture instantaneously reached a fever pitch demanding that that team from a christian university be kicked out of the competition altogether all because oral roberts university still maintains a biblical view of marriage sexuality and homosexuality the dictionary defines tolerance as a fair objective and permissive attitude toward opinions beliefs and practices that differ from one's own let me tell you emphatically we believe in tolerance we don't attack people we don't bash people we don't shun people we don't shame people we don't reject people no we do what our lord and master taught us we love people we embrace people we forgive people we help people that's what we do we believe in tolerance but the new politically correct dogma that has infected our world now declares that tolerance must mean absolute agreement so it can then brand anyone who dares to disagree as intolerant harmful dangerous and worthy of censure or even prosecution these groups are no longer satisfied that we respect opposing views on things like homosexuality now we demand that we affirm homosexuality as acceptable in our own faith to them there can no longer be any disagreement only total compliance many of you will remember you're old enough you'll remember when same-sex marriage became legal in the usa in 2015 and 10 years earlier in canada in 2005. what you may not remember is the arguments we heard from the lgbt advocates at the time and i realized that i'm saying it wrong because it keeps changing lgbt is now lgbtq or lgbtq or lgbtqi or lgbt plus or lgbti or lgbtq2 and i could go on there's one that's lgbtiq 2sa several other acronyms as multiple genders continue to be added by advocates multiple preferences continue to be added by advocates it's a dangerous time to say that the bible is god's truth you will remember when this happened and this became the law of the land what you won't remember probably is the arguments we heard from all those advocates at the time quote all we want is the right to marry how will my gay marriage affect you and anybody who raised any concerns whatsoever about the slippery slope we were embarking on in canada they were viciously mocked in the media it's obvious now that their concerns were more than justified because now it's not all we want is the right to marry now it's this all we want is your college accreditation your athletic participation your youtube monetization your charity registration your children's education media manipulation political disinformation christian stigmatization church condemnation community polarization public confrontation culture domination and perhaps your incarceration that's what it is now two weeks ago it was a street preacher from surrey bc named michael ojinma he was arrested by the vancouver police on charges of mischief in other words he preached the gospel on a sidewalk that wasn't china that was canada around the same time an emotionally disturbed young man named robert long killed eight people at three atlanta massage parlors he blamed it on being distraught over his sexual addiction because six of the women killed were asian the first news reports blamed racism that was soon proven untrue and then the media moved on to blame christianity because the killer grew up in a baptist church that wasn't surprising at all the media does that all the time but what was shocking is when ex-baptist speakers rachel den hollander and beth moore when they took to social media to blame biblical teaching on sexual morality and modesty for those killings here's the quote from den hollander quote the man who murdered women in a massage parlor yesterday says he was eliminating temptation because he had a sex addiction he was a baptized member of a southern baptist church brothers pastors seminary heads how you teach sexuality matters it can be life and death how you teach gender roles how you talk about women how you sexualize them as temptations or dangers matters it can be life and death the way you indirectly blame women for abuse lust assault and temptation can be life and death this is happening in your pulpits in your seminaries in your counseling programs it is in your marriage books your books on womanhood and manhood it is in your counseling sessions it is in your purity books and discussions it is in your social media that rant was from rachel den hollander and beth moore chimed in on twitter to say a thousand amens i refuse to believe that the bible with its commands to protect us from the ungodliness and the filth of the world that it is responsible when a twisted mind who just happened to be connected in his past to some church i do not believe the bible is responsible for that i do not believe people of morality and holiness are responsible for that and so i'll move on because i know i'm making some of you uncomfortable i can only imagine the comments on facebook tonight seeing as that i'm so faithful to facebook i don't even have time tonight to deal with all the children's books and toys and movies all the authors and reporters and talk show hosts all the historical figures and symbols and monuments all the celebrities and politicians and business leaders who have felt the collective wrath of the woke mob and cancel culture if you think that churches and christians will never be the target of all of this nonsense you are living in an alternate reality if you think that could never happen in canada then you my friend are not reading the news i'm very grateful that edmonton pastor james coates from grace life church you saw him in the video a moment ago i'm so thankful that this good man was finally released from prison on monday after serving 35 days in jail for holding church services yes in canada the government was trying to make an example out of him because he refused to restrict worship gatherings to 15 percent of their buildings capacity since no other buildings of similar size in edmondson had anything similar to that for restriction this good man is not pentecostal or apostolic as far as i know but i am proud of him for taking a stand against unfair restrictions on canadian churches and that man is also a brave man because he pleaded guilty intentionally to one charge to force a trial in may that will essentially put the alberta government on trial for violating the canadian charter of rights and freedoms and i say go for it and i'm praying about it any christians who desire to worship god publicly in canada you should be paying close attention to what's happening because the precedent this trial sets may very well affect our religious freedoms for years to come in the future while you've been distracted by the last one year and two weeks the devil has been busy i apologize to you on the web and to you in the other building because you won't be able to see this next picture i won't say this man's name and we won't show his face on our webcast because in countries like china russia north korea and canada the courts can impose a publication ban that imposes heavy fines or jail time on anyone who breaks that ban but thankfully there are still democracies with free media in the world and there's the internet so that's how we know his story we're only allowed to refer to him as cd that's not his initials or his name he's a father from surrey british columbia he has a 14 year old daughter three years ago she became convinced that she was a boy and without his permission the school and the court system rushed her into sex change counseling and then into hormone treatments this distraught dad was deeply concerned about his daughter's state of mind and he tried desperately to get someone to listen to him before the doctors injected her body with testosterone rendering her sterile before she can even drive a car all in the mistaken belief that she can actually change her god-given gender this father is now in custody in our country awaiting trial because he refuses to refer to his biological daughter with the male name she has chosen and the male pronouns she has selected he is in jail because he continues to call his precious daughter by her birth name and by female pronouns he is in jail because he is trying to persuade her to abandon these harmful hormone treatments that will render her sterile he is in jail because he has talked about this nightmare of any parent and identified some of the doctors who did this to his daughter that man is now under a gag order so that his story cannot be told in canadian media he will face criminal court proceedings next week i believe and they are going to charge him with family violence for misgendering his child brothers and sisters that's happening in our country when gender identity and gender orientation were added to the canadian human rights act in 2016. university of toronto professor jordan peterson warned us he emphatically stated his concern these laws could someday require people under the threat of legal punishment to speak a certain way he said then that freedom of speech itself was under attack in canada and professor peterson was publicly mocked at the time even by some of his own colleagues at the university of toronto and yet just five years later here we are i'll conclude thought we were only giving up our freedoms for two weeks but it went on and on and we've given up a whole year plus and we thought that the government the politicians they were only enacting equality when all the time they've been enabling persecution maybe you haven't noticed it but it is getting worse for churches and christians in our beautiful country of canada this is exactly what the bible prophesied and here is my concern as a pastor the words of the prophet jeremiah if thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee then how canst thou contend with horses and if in the land of peace wherein thou trusted they wearied thee then how wilt thou do in the swelling of jordan jeremiah was speaking to the people of israel he said if you got discouraged with little tiny battles if if a little battle from an enemy if that wore you out made you give up if that made you turn tail or run if if you ran with the foot men and they played you out how in the world are you going to contend when an army filled with horses and chariots comes to attack you and if you had a peaceful land and you trusted it and and a little enemy a little problem crept up and it wearied you how in the world are you going to survive when the jordan overflows its banks and the land is flooded and there's tragedy and travesty everywhere and i have the same question for us tonight and i know this isn't a typical sunday night message it's not a typical message at all for our church but my spirit has been stirred agitated disturbed perturbed this year i have watched freedoms being eroded in canada i'm not talking about that that really doesn't bother me all that much i'm an introvert i like not having to talk to a whole lot of people all the time i'm not talking about that i'm not talking about our seating restrictions i'm not talking about that i'm talking about why we've been distracted by all of this and we're grateful just thank god we finally got to come back to church services while we've been distracted by all of that for over a year the enemy has been making incursions into our country because the church has been so focused on we got to have service we got to have a good webcast we got to do this we got to sanitize we've been so distracted the enemy has been having a field day in the nation of canada but the lord still said if my people which are called by my name will just humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways god said then i will hear from heaven and i will forgive their sin and i will heal their land canada has always needed a revival but if there was ever a church in a generation that should push for it and pray for it and hope for it and believe for it it's us it's nobody else but us [Applause] if social distancing and a few restrictions cause you to backslide and stay home from church and stop attending what are you going to do when they outlaw worshiping publicly and when they say your pastor can no longer read whole pages and chapters from the bible or they're going to throw them in jail what are you going to do then and so i'm here tonight i've been so burdened and overwhelmed with this i'm here to sound a warning i'm here to kind of rattle your cage i'm here to point you in the direction of prayer and god because it's going to end up in this nation god's the only hope we're going to have oh this is canada yes this is canada have you been listening for the last 30 minutes this is canada we have a beautiful nation there are wonderful people here and you hear me clearly and you hear me distinctly we love every one of them if you don't love people that don't share your morality you don't have much morality if you don't love people who don't share your particular faith your faith is under question not those people i know there are a lot of broken scarred hurting people in canada i know there are people in canada their sense of humanity and sexuality is so warped and twisted but you are called to love them because jesus created them and he loves them and you are his hands and his feet and his voice to reach them don't ever let me hear you go off on somebody like that i have actually walked to precious broken people that happened by our church and i saw some pentecostal tackle them almost pinned them to the wall and shamed them for how they were living and what they were doing in their lifestyle and pastor who's taught on holiness all over the world i waited till they were done and i walked back to that person and i said i'm so sorry you had to hear that people are made in the image of god and just because sin broke them in a different place than it broke you don't you get all high and mighty and think jesus doesn't love him or he could never save him because such were some of you but thank god you're washed and you're cleansed and you're justified and you're sanctified that could have been any one of us but for the grace of god my problem is not that i hate people my problem is that some of those people hate us they hate jesus they hate churches they hate the word of god but thankfully come on back music if you would thankfully the bible has some words of encouragement for christians who encounter persecution whether it happens in china or iran or iraq or north korea or in canada and i want to leave you with these words of encouragement tonight because it's not all doom and gloom when you've got jesus in your life it's not all doom and gloom when the worst thing they could do is kill you and you go instantly to heaven what are you going to do threaten us with heaven blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and they shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake do you know what you should do in that day mount a protest write some signs march on parliament that's what he's no that's not what you should do jesus said rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets if somebody gives you grief for being a christian you look at them with love in your eyes you speak to them with kindness in your voice and you thank god for the privilege of being called by the name of jesus even the old testament gets into the act yea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil i speak against the fear that binds a bunch of pentecostals in the year 2021 it's ridiculous to be apostolic and filled with fear that is absolutely ridiculous the god who created heaven and earth is in you and he's for you though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for thou art with me thy rod and my staff they comfort me thou preparest the table before me in the presence of mine enemies thou anointest my head with oil my cup runneth over and i got two bodyguards surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and i will dwell in the house of the lord forever i'm so proud of you dear people [Music] you have been so anxious so excited so thrilled to get back to the house of god this year you've watched us lead you've listened to us preach we have not counseled rebellion or hatred or anything against the government we've done our very best to cooperate but that doesn't stop the agitation in my spirit because when this began we thought we were given up two weeks and it went on and on and sometimes if you read the media too much if you listen to too many talking heads and too many opinion shows you would think that it was the christians who were bigoted you would think that it was the bible that was hate literature you would think that it was the churches who were creating all the problems none of that's true look at this a collection of redeemed people such were some of you we've got x everything in this room glory be to the name of jesus we've got ex alcoholics we've got ex drug addicts we got x everything in this room all glory to jesus the church isn't your enemy the church is the greatest friend to any democracy in fact democracy grew out of the christian faith i'm almost done i'm so sorry for the length tonight but i needed to get this out of my spirit because other than that i was going to blow up romans chapter 8 who shall separate us from the love of christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written for thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter oh not in canada just in china not in canada just in russia not in canada just in north korea unfortunately we're quickly moving in that direction but if and when that happens remember these words in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us for i am persuaded paul says a man that spent probably half of his ministry in jail a man that was beheaded for the gospel for i am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature even has a chance to separate me from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord and i conclude us tonight where the bible concludes us in the very last book of the new testament and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and they love not their lives unto the death the blood of jesus covers you the blood of jesus isn't to keep you in a comfortable life the blood of jesus is to keep you cleansed the blood of jesus isn't to say you'll never have problems or stresses sadness or sickness the blood of jesus is to say that god can take you through every single thing that life throws at you we pray for them we love them we admire them we cheer them on our brothers and sisters and pastors and missionaries in countries where persecution is so intense we're so proud of them we never thought that there would even be a possibility that a democracy like canada would start edging toward a place where churches could be looked down on and christians could be stigmatized but jesus knows and if it is to be the god who has seen us through it thus far he will give us the strength every day to get through the rest of it until he comes jesus said when you see these things begin to come to pass [Music] oh my we're good for a sec right let your voice out let your prayer out let your worship out the anointing of jesus is in this place the power of the holy ghost is moving in this room right now god wants to fortify and strengthen somebody who has been almost literally paralyzed by fear you have read these reports you are concerned you have been fearful god wants to speak to you peace be still you're going to be okay your family's gonna be okay and his church is going to be okay i need some spirit-filled apostolic people to pray in the spirit for a moment i don't know exactly i don't i didn't know what jesus was going to do at the end of this message but i feel like god wants us to pray over our nation right now i feel god wants us to pray over our province right now would you stop praying for convenience i hope the restrictions go away would you pray for spiritual warfare there are so many thousands of souls that need to be saved in our own city and our province and our nation that's what we need to spend our prayer energy on oh thank you church pray pray pray when you push things change in the spirit realm when you intercede things change in the spirit realm i'm not praying for a comfortable life our brothers and sisters in guangzhou don't have it very comfortable i'm praying that jesus would use us for the salvation of souls that's what i'm praying for

Channel: Capital Community Church

Views: 11,499

Rating: 4.9024391 out of 5

Keywords: two, weeks, to, flatten, the, curve, two weeks to flatten the curve, raymond, woodward, preaching, sermon, ccc, capital, community, church, capital community church, fredericton, nb, new, brunswick, canada, upc, upci, raymond woodward

Id: DSAwZ5f3IY4

Length: 60min 12sec (3612 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021