John MacArthur's church violates state restrictions: Three principles to balance in serving Caesar and Christ
The Daily Article
The Denison Forum
4.9 • 576 Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2020
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
THE DAILY ARTICLE FOR AUGUST 05, 2020
John MacArthur and Greg Laurie have been in the news regarding California's worship restrictions. Today's podcast discusses their churches' responses, three biblical principles on church and state relations, and a mandate from Jesus that points the way forward.
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The Daily Article is a daily biblical commentary on the news of the day by Dr. Jim Denison.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Daily Article podcast, published by the Denison Forum for Culture-Changing Christians. |
| 0:07.8 | To receive the Daily article directly to your email inbox each weekday morning, visit |
| 0:12.4 | thedailyarticle.com. Now here's today's news, discerned differently. |
| 0:19.6 | Pastor John MacArthur led his congregation in worship inside Grace Community Church's 3,500-seat |
| 0:26.6 | sanctuary in Sun Valley, California last Sunday. |
| 0:30.5 | They met in violation of state restrictions stating, |
| 0:33.6 | Places of worship must therefore discontinue indoor singing and chanting activities and limit indoor |
| 0:39.9 | attendance to 25% of building capacity, or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower, their emphasis. |
| 0:48.2 | Videos and pictures of the service showed the sanctuary filled to capacity, with worshippers |
| 0:53.4 | sitting shoulder to shoulder. I did not see |
| 0:55.9 | anyone wearing a mask. MacArthur said in a video statement, we will obey God rather than men. |
| 1:02.4 | We are going to be faithful to the Lord, and we're going to leave the results to him. He added, |
| 1:08.1 | We will not bow to Caesar. The Lord Jesus Christ is our king. According to Franklin Graham, |
| 1:15.1 | officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health have threatened MacArthur |
| 1:19.4 | with repercussions such as fines and even possible rest. Nonetheless, MacArthur states, |
| 1:26.0 | We will meet as the Church of Jesus Christ because we're commanded |
| 1:29.7 | to do that. We will sing, we will pray, we will fellowship, we will proclaim the word of God |
| 1:35.9 | far and wide. Commenting on churches that have chosen to defer in-person worship until January, |
| 1:42.5 | MacArthur said, I don't have any way to understand that, |
| 1:45.9 | other than they don't know what a church is, and they don't shepherd their people. But that's sad. |
| 1:51.7 | And you have a lot of people in Christianity, who seem to be significant leaders, who aren't giving |
| 1:56.7 | any strength and courage to the church. They're not standing up and rising up and calling on Christians |
... |
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