Video from Grace to You
"I have obviously tried to address, through the last year and a half almost, the issues that confront us in the country that we live in, in the world that we live in, in the times that we live in. But I thought there is one final message that I would like to lay upon you, and that’s what’s come together this morning. It has many components and many parts, and it may test your attention span a little bit.
When we first decided to meet as a church—it’s been a year now—and to do that without regard to what the government was telling us to do, there was a lot of criticism. That criticism came from evangelical leaders, pastors, bloggers, writers, friends, foes—just about everywhere. But we were not dissuaded in any sense from doing what we did. And the Lord has demonstrated to us that we were lied to. And I think whatever the issues are in the world, the church is the only hope of the world.
Now I want to see if I can’t, from the Word of God, pull together some things that will help you to understand why this is our position. And I want this because I think in the future, for those who are younger than I am—maybe I’ll live to see some of it—this resolve to be the church when the government wants to shut you down is going to be tested again, and it’s going to be tested at a much more aggressive level. There were many churches that failed this test, and there will be many who will fail the next one. But the true church follows Christ, not the government. Our President’s said in the last month that the greatest threat to America—he said on one occasion—is systemic racism, which doesn’t exist; he said white supremacy, which doesn’t exist with any power; and then he said global warming, which doesn’t exist either, and if it does, God’s in charge of it.." from the transcript.