Juno News - May 05, 2021


Pastor speaks out after Ontario government locks his church’s doors


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

186.2971

Word Count

2,236

Sentence Count

107

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:06.580 We've had over the last more than a year now,
00:00:09.640 what are we talking about here, 13, 14 months,
00:00:12.060 a number of churches that have been forced
00:00:14.360 along with other places of worship
00:00:16.300 into this yo-yoing of restrictions.
00:00:19.460 They can operate, then they have to shut down,
00:00:21.640 and it goes back and forth.
00:00:23.240 And all of this has been, many people argue,
00:00:25.820 a complete violation of religious freedom.
00:00:29.140 Now, governments, including in Ontario,
00:00:31.420 have been laying a number of charges against churches.
00:00:34.260 They have the ability to fight these in court,
00:00:36.380 but you can't fight in court necessarily as easily
00:00:40.020 when your building is locked.
00:00:42.420 This is what happened to Trinity Bible Chapel.
00:00:45.140 The Attorney General of Ontario went to court
00:00:47.320 and asked for an injunction to literally lock
00:00:49.780 the pastors and congregation out of the church.
00:00:52.720 A court granted that.
00:00:54.440 They are locked out right now until Saturday,
00:00:57.200 and this could potentially be renewed.
00:00:59.140 The pastor for the church in southwestern Ontario,
00:01:02.300 Pastor Jacob Rayom, joins me on the line now.
00:01:05.320 Pastor, good to talk to you.
00:01:06.400 Thanks for being with me today.
00:01:07.980 It's an honour to be with you.
00:01:08.960 Thank you, Andrew.
00:01:09.780 Now, you would normally be doing this interview
00:01:11.840 from inside your church,
00:01:13.320 but you can't even get there as a pastor right now
00:01:16.540 to do administrative work.
00:01:17.980 Am I correct?
00:01:19.100 Right.
00:01:19.420 The locks have been changed,
00:01:20.560 and there's signs on the door saying
00:01:23.200 that we've been ordered out of the building.
00:01:25.700 And this isn't just a ban on having a service.
00:01:29.700 This is a ban on you going in.
00:01:32.120 Were you given notice to go in
00:01:33.920 and get things that you had in there, at least?
00:01:36.860 Yeah, so the court order came on Friday,
00:01:39.220 late Friday afternoon,
00:01:40.200 and we were given until, I believe,
00:01:42.400 two o'clock on Saturday
00:01:43.520 to do what we had to do.
00:01:46.180 This is the second time we've been before the courts
00:01:48.320 about having our building locked,
00:01:49.740 so we were prepared to do this.
00:01:53.860 Yeah, we were prepared to pack things up.
00:01:55.900 And the timing of this is, of course,
00:01:58.020 not coincidental.
00:02:00.980 On Sunday, you would have been in there having church.
00:02:04.980 Right, so the Ministry of the Attorney General
00:02:06.880 had an emergency hearing on the Friday
00:02:09.760 because they wanted to make sure
00:02:11.660 that we didn't worship our Lord and Saviour on Sunday.
00:02:14.140 So what's the basis for this?
00:02:16.980 Is it that they're convinced
00:02:18.460 that the tickets they've been giving
00:02:20.000 are just not good enough?
00:02:21.820 I believe so.
00:02:22.840 So we've received so many tickets.
00:02:25.020 I think our church now, as an entity,
00:02:28.260 has upwards of over $40 million, perhaps,
00:02:31.760 in maximum fines.
00:02:33.820 Personally, I think I'm up to $700,000, $800,000
00:02:36.220 in maximum fines.
00:02:37.860 Every elder has been fined.
00:02:39.300 We had people, we had police cars
00:02:41.340 waiting outside of our church
00:02:42.720 the last time we held a service
00:02:44.120 and they would tick people off
00:02:45.380 as they left the facility
00:02:47.280 and ticket them on the side of the road.
00:02:49.420 And even last Saturday,
00:02:50.820 there were people praying in the church parking lot
00:02:53.060 as the doors were about ready to get locked.
00:02:54.600 And we must have had 20 authorities watching us.
00:02:58.560 And then as they left, they got ticketed.
00:03:00.520 And then people received visits
00:03:01.660 from the police last night
00:03:02.600 for being at a small little prayer meeting
00:03:03.980 in a parking lot.
00:03:05.360 You wrote something about this
00:03:07.220 on the church's website.
00:03:08.740 And I want to read the title
00:03:10.260 because I think this is very important.
00:03:12.000 And certainly for people
00:03:12.880 that are not within the church family,
00:03:15.140 they might not understand this.
00:03:16.580 You say, we lost the building
00:03:18.180 and kept the church.
00:03:19.820 We often refer to churches as buildings.
00:03:22.800 But in this particular case,
00:03:24.240 you've been forced to confront the reality
00:03:26.540 that the building is not, in fact, the church.
00:03:29.880 That's absolutely correct.
00:03:31.160 So my goal as a shepherd of our church
00:03:33.640 is to defend, one of my objectives,
00:03:36.720 I have to feed my sheep
00:03:37.600 and I have to defend my sheep.
00:03:39.420 And right now, since March of last year,
00:03:41.640 our sheep have been under assault
00:03:42.940 from the province of Ontario.
00:03:44.820 And the province of Ontario
00:03:45.920 has sought to dictate to us
00:03:47.660 how we should worship our savior.
00:03:50.480 And my assertion is that Doug Ford,
00:03:53.660 while he has not claimed this explicitly,
00:03:57.160 he has asserted himself
00:03:59.080 as the de facto head of the church in Ontario.
00:04:01.620 And we are resisting his headship over the church
00:04:04.040 because we believe that Jesus Christ
00:04:05.400 is head of the church.
00:04:06.600 If you say that the church is not the building,
00:04:09.420 I have to ask,
00:04:10.200 why does it matter that you worship inside the building?
00:04:13.100 Why have the concessions,
00:04:14.880 such as drive-in services, virtual services,
00:04:17.360 why have they not been, in your view, good enough?
00:04:20.720 Well, first of all, we own the land.
00:04:23.040 The Lord Jesus Christ has allowed us
00:04:25.320 to steward that land.
00:04:27.280 And so we want to use that land
00:04:28.680 for his glory.
00:04:30.140 And we have used that land for his glory
00:04:32.360 by inviting our community
00:04:33.480 to come worship with us
00:04:34.880 and to gather in the church physically
00:04:36.780 and to sing his praises
00:04:38.520 and exchange greetings
00:04:39.660 of warm Christian fellowship.
00:04:42.740 And so we wanted to assert
00:04:44.880 Christ's crown rights over the church.
00:04:47.280 We want to assert Christ's headship
00:04:48.840 over his own worship.
00:04:50.860 And Christ has commanded us to gather.
00:04:53.800 The very word church,
00:04:55.380 people don't understand this.
00:04:56.460 The New Testament was originally written in Greek
00:04:58.680 and the Greek word for church
00:05:00.420 is ekklesia.
00:05:01.780 And it means gathering.
00:05:04.500 Where you don't have a gathering,
00:05:05.640 you don't have a church.
00:05:07.160 And an online gathering is not,
00:05:09.220 gathering in pixelated images
00:05:10.620 is not a gathering.
00:05:12.480 You can't have a marriage on the internet
00:05:13.900 and you can't have a church on the internet.
00:05:16.180 You can't raise your children on the internet.
00:05:18.160 And in fact,
00:05:18.980 the Apostle John referred to his congregation
00:05:21.000 as his little children.
00:05:22.280 And so there was a season there
00:05:24.060 where I was doing sermons on the internet
00:05:25.620 and my heart would break
00:05:26.760 after every time I did it
00:05:27.820 because I thought,
00:05:28.820 I felt like I was interacting
00:05:30.060 with what John affectionately referred to
00:05:33.080 as his little children.
00:05:33.880 I'm having to raise my little children
00:05:35.400 through the internet.
00:05:37.680 And any parent would understand
00:05:39.060 that that would be absolutely gut-wrenching
00:05:40.920 if they can't understand
00:05:42.060 what the role of a minister is
00:05:43.440 towards his congregation.
00:05:44.940 And one point that I think you raised
00:05:46.860 that's very important there,
00:05:48.040 because a lot of the time,
00:05:49.000 critics of churches
00:05:50.640 that have been doing what you're doing
00:05:51.980 have said,
00:05:52.600 well, you know what,
00:05:53.280 all these other churches
00:05:54.140 are going online.
00:05:55.340 Why can't they?
00:05:56.280 But the reality is
00:05:57.180 even the government has conceded
00:05:59.060 that weddings and funerals
00:06:00.940 need to be done in person.
00:06:02.540 Now with reduced capacity,
00:06:03.780 but the government even concedes
00:06:05.360 that certain things
00:06:07.600 have to be in person to be real.
00:06:10.260 And I think you're very right
00:06:11.180 to point out that if that's the case,
00:06:12.940 you can't be married on the internet,
00:06:14.520 you can't have a funeral on the internet,
00:06:16.760 then why should you be expected
00:06:18.160 to have a service on the internet?
00:06:20.740 Well, that's absolutely right.
00:06:22.440 But what it's coming down to
00:06:23.480 is I've been told by people in government
00:06:25.580 and people in the media,
00:06:26.520 well, why can't you just go online
00:06:27.900 and do what the government says?
00:06:29.820 At the end of the day,
00:06:30.920 it boils down to one issue.
00:06:32.680 Who has supremacy over the church?
00:06:35.820 So a pastor friend of mine
00:06:36.860 recently noted that
00:06:38.060 something to the effect of
00:06:40.640 we live in a day and age
00:06:42.200 where the government seems to think
00:06:44.260 they have the right
00:06:45.000 to dictate our terms of worship.
00:06:46.680 But if the church or ministers
00:06:48.860 speak into government policy
00:06:50.620 and government actions,
00:06:51.840 we're yelled at and shouted down
00:06:53.700 for violating separation
00:06:55.340 of church and state.
00:06:56.300 Well, that's a complete misunderstanding
00:06:57.760 of separation of church and state
00:06:59.400 because the separation of church and state
00:07:01.040 means that the government
00:07:02.140 has no control
00:07:03.280 over our terms of worship,
00:07:04.900 over our polity,
00:07:06.300 and over our governance as a church.
00:07:08.340 And there have been wars
00:07:09.080 that have been fought over this.
00:07:10.320 People have shed their blood over this.
00:07:12.320 And I'm not about to hand
00:07:14.040 the bride of Christ
00:07:15.000 over to the province of Ontario
00:07:16.740 because it's my job as a shepherd
00:07:18.240 to stand up and defend
00:07:19.820 what God has entrusted to me.
00:07:21.140 And when I stand before Christ
00:07:22.180 on Judgment Day,
00:07:23.080 I want to be able to say
00:07:24.300 I did whatever I could
00:07:25.240 to protect his bride.
00:07:27.480 One thing that I think
00:07:29.140 the government has not acknowledged,
00:07:31.860 and perhaps they're not aware
00:07:33.120 or perhaps they're just being
00:07:34.400 willfully ignorant
00:07:35.520 with a lot of these restrictions,
00:07:36.900 is that the 2,000 years
00:07:39.620 of Christianity that has developed
00:07:42.200 has included gathering.
00:07:44.700 And this is very biblical.
00:07:46.200 It's very clearly defined.
00:07:47.700 And the idea that man
00:07:49.080 could change that overnight
00:07:50.820 is a fundamental inversion
00:07:53.100 of what the Christian faith
00:07:54.340 or what any religion
00:07:55.300 is actually about.
00:07:57.040 Right, and the true Christians
00:07:58.240 will gather.
00:07:59.460 I mean, there has been governments
00:08:00.440 in the past
00:08:01.160 who have attempted
00:08:01.640 to do similar things.
00:08:02.560 I don't know if it's ever been done
00:08:03.440 in the name of public health,
00:08:04.620 but it's certainly been
00:08:05.500 in the name of submitting
00:08:08.020 to some sort of state dogma,
00:08:09.940 whether it's a state religion
00:08:11.980 or something else.
00:08:13.080 But churches managed to gather.
00:08:15.720 The early Christians
00:08:16.460 didn't have buildings.
00:08:17.420 They gathered under the city of Rome
00:08:19.540 in the catacombs.
00:08:21.100 During the Reformation,
00:08:22.180 the covenanters in Scotland
00:08:23.440 had to gather in fields.
00:08:25.800 And the punishment,
00:08:26.720 if they were found out,
00:08:27.640 the covenanters were found out,
00:08:29.340 they could be killed.
00:08:30.260 And some of them were.
00:08:31.480 John Bunyan was a Baptist minister
00:08:32.860 in the 17th century.
00:08:33.960 He spent many years in jail
00:08:35.860 because he believed
00:08:37.220 that God had called him
00:08:38.200 to preach the gospel
00:08:38.860 and he would gather
00:08:39.480 his congregation in forests.
00:08:41.100 So the reality is
00:08:42.520 that true faithful ministers
00:08:44.360 have always gathered
00:08:45.800 their congregations.
00:08:47.500 You are locked out
00:08:48.380 until Saturday.
00:08:49.980 What's happening
00:08:50.760 between now and then?
00:08:52.660 So we're in court
00:08:53.320 Thursday morning
00:08:53.940 at 10 o'clock
00:08:54.580 to talk about this again.
00:08:56.260 And the government
00:08:57.360 is seeking to extend this?
00:08:59.300 Is that their goal,
00:09:00.080 to keep you locked out indefinitely?
00:09:02.220 My understanding
00:09:02.840 is the Ministry
00:09:03.400 of the Attorney General
00:09:04.140 would like to see us
00:09:04.980 locked out of our church
00:09:05.940 until COVID's over,
00:09:07.020 whenever that is.
00:09:08.940 Wow.
00:09:09.520 Interesting thing is
00:09:10.260 it happened in court last week
00:09:11.600 and the judge
00:09:13.040 commented on something
00:09:14.640 that was going on
00:09:15.120 because you know
00:09:15.420 that all the courts
00:09:16.060 I think in Ontario
00:09:16.760 are doing it on Zoom, right?
00:09:17.980 Mm-hmm.
00:09:18.760 And so the judge
00:09:20.120 made a comment
00:09:20.740 about some interaction
00:09:21.740 in the Zoom call
00:09:22.800 and he said
00:09:23.760 something to the effect
00:09:24.720 of I'm sorry
00:09:25.220 this is very unnatural
00:09:26.140 to do this on Zoom.
00:09:27.560 You should enter that
00:09:30.400 as evidence on Thursday
00:09:31.620 that if court proceedings
00:09:34.080 aren't natural
00:09:34.720 then how can church services be?
00:09:36.420 Well, exactly, exactly.
00:09:37.960 And again,
00:09:38.420 the churches have been meeting
00:09:39.760 for, I mean,
00:09:41.120 if you want to go
00:09:41.980 into the Old Testament
00:09:42.680 we've been meeting
00:09:43.100 since creation
00:09:43.880 at least once a week
00:09:45.320 and gathering together.
00:09:46.020 Look, if I thought
00:09:48.520 that this was as big
00:09:49.500 of a threat
00:09:50.080 as the media
00:09:51.520 was drumming it up to be
00:09:52.760 and as the government
00:09:54.120 was drumming it up to be
00:09:55.280 I might be more sympathetic
00:09:57.460 in limiting the capacity
00:09:58.800 of our church.
00:10:00.460 Okay, but my observation
00:10:01.700 on the ground
00:10:02.640 and as I have
00:10:03.400 as I have looked
00:10:04.580 at the numbers
00:10:05.520 the government's own numbers
00:10:07.240 I'm not seeing
00:10:08.400 an overwhelming
00:10:09.100 amount of deaths
00:10:11.460 if you compare 2020
00:10:12.840 with 2019
00:10:14.600 or if you compare deaths
00:10:16.240 year for year.
00:10:17.000 I mean, if we really had
00:10:18.360 a massive outbreak
00:10:21.000 of some serious contagion
00:10:23.300 we would all know
00:10:24.820 multiple people
00:10:25.760 would be
00:10:26.820 who would be dead
00:10:28.120 and not only that
00:10:29.240 the whole stay home
00:10:30.260 stay safe thing
00:10:31.180 would be a misnomer
00:10:31.980 because they'd be begging us
00:10:33.300 to go help them
00:10:33.940 bury the bodies
00:10:34.800 and minister to the dead people
00:10:37.080 as their
00:10:37.560 or the dying people
00:10:38.800 on their deathbeds
00:10:39.800 but that's just
00:10:40.720 that's not going on
00:10:42.480 it's not going on
00:10:43.940 and I've
00:10:44.820 I mean, I've lived
00:10:45.480 in this country
00:10:46.020 all but five years
00:10:47.160 I lived in the states
00:10:47.900 where I did my training
00:10:48.680 but all but five years
00:10:49.760 I lived in this country
00:10:50.560 my whole life
00:10:51.260 in my whole life
00:10:52.640 I've heard about
00:10:53.420 hospitals at capacity
00:10:55.580 and hospitals
00:10:56.440 having massive wait times
00:10:58.800 and ICUs being flooded
00:11:01.180 and all of a sudden
00:11:03.140 this year
00:11:04.380 it's different
00:11:05.340 we need to shut down
00:11:06.260 all of society
00:11:07.060 because the ICUs
00:11:08.240 are being flooded
00:11:08.900 that's not
00:11:09.680 that's not my primary
00:11:10.580 area of interest
00:11:11.460 my primary area of interest
00:11:12.740 is the supremacy of Christ
00:11:14.080 over his church
00:11:14.980 I'm a minister
00:11:16.180 John 10 tells us
00:11:17.480 that if there is a threat
00:11:18.920 to the church of God
00:11:19.840 and if the ministers run
00:11:20.960 they're not true shepherds
00:11:22.020 they're hirelings
00:11:22.700 and so I don't want to be found
00:11:24.200 as a hireling
00:11:24.800 on the day of judgment
00:11:25.580 Amen to that
00:11:27.360 Trinity Bible Chapel
00:11:29.020 Pastor Jacob Rayom
00:11:30.440 joining me now
00:11:31.660 from not the church
00:11:33.140 where he belongs
00:11:34.280 Pastor, thank you so much
00:11:35.540 for coming
00:11:35.920 Yeah, thanks Andrew
00:11:37.700 for having me
00:11:38.420 Thanks for listening
00:11:39.680 to the Andrew Lawton Show
00:11:40.860 Support the program
00:11:41.920 by donating to True North
00:11:43.160 at www.tnc.news
00:11:46.340 You
00:11:48.860 Thanks for listening
00:11:51.200 You
00:11:51.500 You
00:11:51.740 You
00:11:52.420 And
00:11:52.440 You
00:11:55.140 You
00:11:56.900 You
00:11:58.860 You
00:11:59.400 You