Ep 380 ｜ Pastor James Coates Imprisoned： Persecution or Ploy？ ｜ Guest： Erin Coates
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
170.63426
Summary
Erin Coates, the wife of Alberta Pastor James Coates talks about her husband's incarceration in a Canadian prison, why he is being held in solitary confinement, and what we can do to support him and his family.
Transcript
00:00:11.840
Today I am talking to Erin Coates, the wife of Alberta Pastor James Coates.
00:00:17.220
He is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Canada.
00:00:20.480
He is currently in jail in a form of solitary confinement because he refused to heed government
00:00:26.900
edicts and restricting the capacity of his church to 15%.
00:00:31.100
He simply believes that according to scripture, his responsibility is to Christ and not to
00:00:38.860
And that part of that responsibility is making sure that as many people as possible can hear
00:00:45.000
the gospel and to congregate with believers in person.
00:00:49.120
And so in order to properly and biblically shepherd his flock, he could not, in good conscience,
00:01:00.020
And so we are going to talk to his wife, Erin Coates.
00:01:02.920
She is going to fill in some of the details on this situation.
00:01:06.500
She's going to tell us how we can support them and how we can pray for them and give us some
00:01:14.140
You are going to be extremely encouraged by her faith, by her faithfulness, the faithfulness
00:01:21.640
Um, you're going to be uplifted by her testimony.
00:01:25.420
Now, if you're someone, a Christian who maybe has heard about the situation and you have kind
00:01:30.860
of looked the other direction and said, you know what, um, this isn't real persecution.
00:01:35.540
This is just, uh, someone trying to be a martyr or trying to get media attention or trying to,
00:01:41.900
you know, uh, fan the flames of conservative outrage about government lockdowns, or you have
00:01:48.520
clamored to try to clarify why he is not actually being persecuted for his faith, but he is actually
00:01:55.320
just, you know, serving the, the just punishment, uh, for violating the government's orders on COVID
00:02:02.800
restrictions. I encourage you to listen to this and to listen to her interview as openly and as
00:02:10.400
graciously as you possibly can. Something that's amazing to me is that in this time of listening
00:02:18.160
and learning that we are constantly told that we have to do, we have to heed people's lived
00:02:23.100
experiences and almost elevate them to absolute truth. When it comes to a brother in Christ, when it
00:02:28.540
comes to a pastor in Canada who is being jailed because he wanted to operate his church at full
00:02:33.600
capacity so he could be a responsible steward of the gospel that with which God has entrusted him
00:02:41.260
and make sure as many people as possible heard that gospel, uh, within the walls of his church that
00:02:47.260
so many professing Christians are slow to listen and are quick to speak to are quick to delegitimize,
00:02:54.420
to belittle, to invalidate, so quick to anger, quick to defensiveness. I actually saw a Christian
00:03:02.160
on social media say that she was embarrassed by this situation. This is a person that is a Christian.
00:03:08.240
I'm not questioning that person's salvation. I am questioning that person's discernment and that
00:03:13.300
questions or that, uh, that person's judgment in this particular situation. As I will talk about with
00:03:20.380
Aaron, we need to have a better understanding of what persecution actually looks like, especially
00:03:26.020
in our part of the world where we are so used to enjoying so many freedoms, uh, so much flexibility
00:03:33.120
in what we can say, what we can believe, what we can preach, where we can speak and, and all of these
00:03:39.680
things, uh, that might be shifting. And so we need to understand what hardship, what persecution
00:03:46.860
actually looks like. And we have to look to the example of someone like James Coates as a way to
00:03:54.500
stand firm in his responsibility that the Lord has given him, not as someone who is trying to, um,
00:04:02.160
just be a martyr for his own cause. I don't think that's the, the graciousness with which we should
00:04:07.940
regard fellow or the lack of graciousness, uh, that we need to use in regarding, uh, a fellow,
00:04:16.860
uh, Christian. I think that we need to be, uh, much quicker to give the benefit of the doubt and
00:04:23.940
you are going to be encouraged, uh, by Aaron's faith and you're going to be encouraged by the
00:04:29.560
faith of pastor James Coates as well. Um, after it, I'm going to talk about a few more things.
00:04:35.780
This is not going to be an episode about the news or an episode about politics, but we're just going
00:04:40.980
to give some encouragement and remind us of that, uh, which is true. And I know a lot of you guys are
00:04:46.760
kind of hungry for this right now because there's so much insanity and so much stupidity and craziness
00:04:52.100
and chaos going on in the world. A lot of you want to take a break from politics and I can totally
00:04:56.880
sympathize with that because me too. Uh, but this particular conversation is so important. It's so
00:05:02.960
important, uh, for believers to listen to and to be thinking about and praying about as well.
00:05:09.900
Aaron, thank you so much for joining me, for taking the time to talk to us. Can you first just give us
00:05:20.460
an update of what is going on with your husband, pastor Coates, um, and maybe fill in some details
00:05:28.540
that people might not know about this story? Wow. That that's a big question. Uh, so right now,
00:05:35.200
uh, James is in a maximum medium security prison, uh, for violating our health orders and holding
00:05:44.620
church gatherings, uh, without restrictions. Uh, we've done that really wisely. Um, and he is now,
00:05:53.140
he's still in quarantine. So he's been in quarantine for two weeks in, in the prison by himself. Uh, he's
00:05:59.480
allowed out of his cell for two 15 minute blocks a day. And he called me on those blocks if he can,
00:06:07.340
if he's not showering. Um, but he, he's in there, um, obviously because the, the restrictions upon the
00:06:15.580
gathering were something that violated his conscience, what he believes God has called him
00:06:21.600
to do as a steward of Christ's church and his sheep. Um, and so they, they put him in there.
00:06:29.840
Uh, they really didn't want to put him in there, but he was, he, they put him under arrest, um,
00:06:35.440
and then put restrictions on him to have to sign, uh, to leave the jail that he wouldn't, um,
00:06:43.120
have the gathering the way he had been doing it. And that, uh, if he agreed to these restrictions
00:06:49.600
that he could be out of jail and by his conscience, he just couldn't agree to them. He would be
00:06:55.400
abrogating his duties as a shepherd of Christ's sheep. And so he is still in there. And we have
00:07:01.920
today, uh, which is Thursday, March the 4th. Um, he has an appeal hearing today, a bail hearing,
00:07:07.880
and I put an appeal through for his conditions to be dropped before his trial, which is May 3rd to the
00:07:13.940
5th, which would allow him to essentially resume his pastoral duties until the trial without any
00:07:19.200
restrictions on them. Okay. That's where we're at now. Yes. So the kind of pushback that I've seen
00:07:26.460
on social media, both from Canadians and Americans, people who identify as Christians, they're saying,
00:07:33.440
you know, this is not persecution. He's not in jail because he preached the gospel. He's not in jail
00:07:38.940
for, you know, holding a, holding a church service. He's in jail because he violated COVID
00:07:44.640
restrictions. One of the COVID restrictions was that I think you can only operate at 15%
00:07:50.080
capacity at one time. Everyone has to socially distance and wear masks. Which of those restrictions,
00:07:57.000
um, did Pastor Coates say, okay, we're not going to do that. Or was it kind of something where he was
00:08:03.420
like, you know what, we're going to give people the choice no matter what?
00:08:05.740
Yeah. His job as a shepherd of the sheep is to open the doors and allow people to worship
00:08:12.620
according to their conscience, according to the word of God. And, um, we've done that really wisely.
00:08:18.000
We've put precautions in place. Obviously, if you're not feeling well, if you have COVID symptoms,
00:08:23.380
uh, we've, we've asked our, our church to live stream. We have a place in the church that has
00:08:29.100
plexiglass around it, where you can wear a mask and you can socially distance. If you want to come to
00:08:34.440
church that you feel like it's your conscience that you do that. But James and our elders just
00:08:39.440
felt like it was not their responsibility to mandate these restrictions, but allow people to
00:08:45.840
worship freely, according to their conscience. Um, their job is to shepherd the flock among them.
00:08:51.880
And so they, they left it to the people to make that decision. Um, I feel like there was another
00:08:58.100
question there. Oh, persecution. You know, I I'm just going to say what my husband said.
00:09:02.140
I don't really, I'll leave it up to the Lord, whether it's persecution or not. I think that
00:09:08.180
people's definition of persecution probably needs to be broadened a little bit. Um, second
00:09:14.700
Timothy says that all those who desire to live godly and righteously in Christ Jesus will be
00:09:18.860
persecuted. And I do want to make it clear that he's not in jail because he didn't obey the
00:09:23.940
restrictions. He he's in jail because he obeyed the Lord Jesus Christ and his headship over the church
00:09:29.360
and did not restrict the gathering to anybody. Um, so when it comes to persecution, you know,
00:09:35.060
like we do have our big box stores open and there are thousands of people going through our Costco and
00:09:41.580
Walmart every day, and there's no restrictions on them. And we have, uh, restaurants are allowed to
00:09:47.960
be open. Um, and so people, when they say, well, you know, restaurants have these restrictions and
00:09:53.680
these places have those restrictions. It's, it's really sad because, you know, Satan doesn't really
00:09:59.660
care about whether a restaurant is open or not. He does care about destroying the local church
00:10:04.140
and he does care about destroying the lives of the people that comprise the local church.
00:10:09.140
Right. So, um, you know, when you look at what the local church is, she is an expression of the
00:10:14.940
blood body of Christ. And when she gathers, she's testifying to the world of the greatness and glory
00:10:20.040
of God and his worth to be worshiped. And, uh, when we come together to, to be a gathering,
00:10:25.680
to testify to the world of that restaurants aren't doing that, the church is doing that. And so
00:10:32.040
the enemy really seeks to destroy that. So I would just say, um, it's probably just a lack of
00:10:37.920
familiarity of church history and how things have, have worked, um, and how the enemy works to destroy
00:10:46.360
the church. So, but I'll leave that in the Lord's hands. I don't, I don't have to wave the
00:10:52.360
persecution flag. He can deal with all of that. Right. I wonder if it surprised you, the reaction
00:10:58.520
that you have probably seen from some professing Christians who are so quick to shut down any talk
00:11:06.820
of, of persecution. I really like what you said that you're leaving that to the Lord. That's not
00:11:11.880
your goal in speaking out. You're just talking about what happened and you're talking about the
00:11:16.600
obedience of your, of your husband. But there have been a lot of Christians on social media that I have
00:11:22.420
seen so eagerly and earnestly try to bury any kind of conversation about persecution or unfairness
00:11:31.520
or how Satan might be using these restrictions and, and, and working in this way to try to keep people
00:11:38.320
out of the doors of the church. Is that, is that surprising to you to see that kind of negative
00:11:44.340
response from people who claim to be in the same body of Christ? Um, yes and no. Um, I mean,
00:11:54.000
largely we have a huge issue just in regards to ecclesiology. There isn't, um, like biblical men that are
00:12:03.800
truly preaching the word of God that are qualified to do that according to first Timothy three are not
00:12:09.820
men that are growing on trees nowadays. And, um, so I remember going to the G3 conference a couple
00:12:16.960
years ago and meeting so many people that were at this conference that this is the only fellowship
00:12:22.820
and solid teaching that they're getting. And they kind of conference hop, um, because they,
00:12:28.880
they can't just go to a church locally and have sound teaching. So for me, this is just really the
00:12:35.160
fruit of, of people not being under sound teaching. And, um, you know, it's, it, it's sad to see that
00:12:45.260
people are being so slow to hear, quick to speak, quick to anger, quick to judgment, um, and maybe not
00:12:53.160
thinking, oh, maybe I don't have all of the information. Um, so, but again, you know, you have
00:13:00.360
people with varying degrees of sanctification, you have new believers, um, younger believers in the
00:13:07.420
faith. And so I just have to be patient with them because if they're truly, um, saved by Christ,
00:13:15.100
he's going to sanctify them. And, and, you know, I did things in my life when I was young, um, and even
00:13:21.340
things now that, that I regret that the Lord has been so patient with me to deal with my heart. And
00:13:26.740
so, um, it doesn't surprise me. There's a spiritual war. Um, so yes. And, and no. Yeah. Yeah. You're
00:13:36.540
right. There have, there have been things in scenarios that all of us have misjudged, or we have jumped to
00:13:42.440
certain conclusions that just aren't based on reality, whether that assumption has come from
00:13:48.260
pride or it's come from ignorance or both, all of us have done that. And so I think that you're
00:13:54.100
setting a good example and being gracious and patient and not, you know, getting into these
00:13:59.160
kind of quibbles or battles online, because I imagine, I think my propensity would be to,
00:14:05.940
you know, be on the defense and argue with these people that are saying, oh, that guy deserves to be
00:14:11.420
in prison. He's just being a martyr. That would really hurt me personally as a wife that knows my
00:14:17.080
husband better. He knows the situation better, but you seem to be setting a, a, a very good in
00:14:22.720
Christ like example and taking a step back and saying, look, here's my role. Here's what I'm here
00:14:27.660
to do. I'm not here to argue or to convince anyone. Is that a correct assessment?
00:14:34.560
Yeah. And you know, Allie, I would say it's because I know my husband and his heart that, that those
00:14:40.380
things don't bother me because that's just not him. And, um, I take really seriously the passage
00:14:47.340
in James four, where we're, we're being careful to judge and being merciless, uh, in, in chapter two,
00:14:52.980
where it talks about being merciless, God will be merciless to those who have no mercy. Um, and so it's
00:14:58.820
not my job to convince people. It's just my job to speak the truth. And, and really my, even in all of
00:15:06.220
this is not to, um, defend myself or defend James. I will let the Lord deal with that. Um,
00:15:15.220
we're all going to stand before him on a day of judgment. It's just my job to make sure I'm taking
00:15:20.480
every opportunity to herald Jesus Christ and him crucified as the only way of salvation. And, uh,
00:15:26.600
you just have a lot of people in darkness who don't understand, um, because they, they don't know
00:15:32.580
Christ. Right. So I don't know if I'm dealing with believers or unbelievers. So I just have one
00:15:37.440
mission. And my one testimony is the death and resurrection of Christ and calling people to
00:15:41.600
repentance and to believe in him. And when you talk to your husband, how does he say he's doing? I
00:15:48.240
mean, he's basically in solitary confinement because of quote COVID restrictions. I imagine that that is
00:15:55.000
trying. Yeah, that's really difficult for a man who's life is challenging his brain, especially
00:16:04.000
theologically. And he's so used to being active, uh, in service to our church and just constantly
00:16:12.120
learning the word of God and theology. Um, so this has been challenging for him. Um, and, uh,
00:16:21.000
yeah, to say the least, it's, it's been a little bit challenging, but he's just so faithful. He's
00:16:27.220
trusting the Lord, even with his appeal today, he understands, um, that God's will will be done
00:16:33.700
and that nothing can thwart that. So wherever God needs to use him most greatly, that's where he's
00:16:40.400
going to put him. And, uh, he desperately misses me and our children and grace life. Um, so it's not
00:16:48.620
that it's not hard. He's definitely had some dark moments. You, you have the enemy just seeking to
00:16:53.920
devour you in a situation like that. Um, but, but he just says he's, he's been strengthened and
00:17:00.500
encouraged by, um, reading the word obviously and praying and, and the letters that he is receiving,
00:17:07.200
um, that just brings so much joy to my heart to know that people we don't even know, um, are, are
00:17:14.360
writing to encourage him and taking seriously, remembering those who are in prison.
00:17:18.620
So that, that's just so sweet to me. Yes, absolutely. And how are you doing? I mean,
00:17:25.320
obviously I know that you take solace in, in, in scripture and in the gospel, and it sounds
00:17:30.460
like you're resolute in that, but I imagine they're very dark and hard moments for you.
00:17:35.140
There's no doubt in my mind that Satan is also trying to hinder you as much as possible because
00:17:40.800
you're using this as an opportunity to share the gospel, which is exactly what he doesn't want to
00:17:45.220
happen. And so what, what is your mindset in just kind of your, uh, disposition like?
00:17:54.520
Um, I truly am trusting the Lord. I, I know him, but I want to know him more. And I know that
00:18:02.720
whatever he brings into my life has been foreordained before the foundation of the world so that I would
00:18:07.860
know him, love him, obey him, and therefore glorify him. Not to say that it's not hard. I've had moments
00:18:15.820
where I've, I've woken up in the middle of the night crying and, and can't breathe. Um, and, and really
00:18:22.440
the first couple of days, just when the firestorm was blazing, um, those were really difficult days
00:18:30.440
for me, but we, my elders have done a phenomenal job of, of caring for me. And, and one particular
00:18:38.340
gentleman in our church, that's just like a father figure to me, um, is making sure that they're,
00:18:44.280
they're checking on us, making sure we're okay. Our church has just overwhelmed us with kindness
00:18:50.280
and care. Um, that's been a little bit difficult for me. You know, we've been at Grace Life for
00:18:56.020
almost 11 years and, and are serving her. So now to be on the flip side of that, where
00:19:01.600
we're on the receiving end has been a little bit overwhelming, but it's just, they love the Lord.
00:19:07.640
And, and I see the shepherding hand of God in all of it. Um, but it's not that it's not hard. It is
00:19:14.720
hard. It's supposed to be hard. Um, because it's the hard and difficult things
00:19:20.080
that we see our weakness and the power of God on display in our life. So I, I, um,
00:19:28.820
just truly sense, I get so many messages online of people faithfully praying for us. And I just
00:19:37.020
sense the Lord strengthening me through those prayers. So I am so thankful for that. Um,
00:19:42.420
but this is something that both James and I need in our life. We're not perfected. We,
00:19:47.940
we have not reached the goal line yet. And, uh, and we need to be sanctified and, and submit,
00:19:54.100
um, with a gentle spirit to whatever the Lord brings into our life. But that's not to say it's
00:20:00.060
not hard. It is hard. Yeah. And, and your children, I don't know how old they are, but how are they
00:20:07.260
Um, I have an 18 year old and an 11 year old, um, our oldest has really, um, probably taken it
00:20:18.340
the hardest. I think he has a bigger picture of what's happening, um, to his dad. And so it's been
00:20:25.260
emotional for him, but he also recognizes that the, that the Lord is at work. There's a bigger picture
00:20:32.080
to this and that he also has things that he has to learn. Um, my youngest has, has had some moments.
00:20:39.540
He definitely misses his dad. He encountered a conversation yesterday, just with a child that
00:20:45.180
was, he just came in crying and, and very hurtful towards him. That was kind of, um, spewing the
00:20:53.040
rhetoric. And, uh, so that was really hurtful for him, but every opportunity is an opportunity for me
00:20:59.820
to show our children, you know what, love, when you don't want to treat other people this way. So
00:21:06.800
when somebody else is carrying a burden or is hurt, it's not your responsibility to, to stand back
00:21:13.360
and, and evaluate whether it's a burden worthy of carrying. Um, but that we have to put on a heart
00:21:19.260
of compassion, um, and that we have to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn, whether
00:21:24.220
they're not, they, they seemingly deserve it or not. So everything is a teaching opportunity for us.
00:21:30.940
We have to learn how to, how to love and how to love Christ more. So.
00:21:35.820
Definitely. And can you, can you tell people how they can support you, uh, what they can do,
00:21:42.860
other calls they can make? I know they can write a letter to James, but what else can they do? I know
00:21:48.560
there's a lot of people out there who just want to do something to help you guys.
00:21:53.660
Yeah. Um, I think especially if people are, are Canadian, be writing your local representatives,
00:22:00.080
um, be writing your, your premiers, um, and, and, and maybe even writing and calling our premier,
00:22:08.440
Jason Kenney, um, and just how this situation is just breaking people and is not necessary according
00:22:16.360
to the science. Um, but my biggest thing is, is I think, start sharing with your pastors who have
00:22:24.300
opted to close the church, just the damage that the lockdowns are doing to you. Um, and how I received
00:22:30.700
so many messages from people that are really struggling to thrive in Christ. And when you have
00:22:35.760
them isolated, they are just prime target for the enemy to pounce on. And so my biggest thing,
00:22:43.220
especially if you're in Canada is, is open your churches to the glory of God. Um, and if you're
00:22:49.600
not quite there yet, take an honest look at, at scripture, at church history, James has two,
00:22:56.440
two sermons. Um, the first one is the December 20th sermon. It's called a time to stand. And then he
00:23:03.860
has one that he preached on February 14th on, on the duty of government, the role of government. And so
00:23:09.940
both of those are on the grace life.ca, um, uh, YouTube page and also on our website. Uh, and yeah,
00:23:20.180
just praying for us is, is the biggest thing. Um, you know, we are on display as a church and our
00:23:28.420
earnest desire is to be faithful. And I think that grace life really needs to be protected right now.
00:23:34.920
There are going to be people who hop on to our cause and make it something that it's not. Um,
00:23:42.640
this is about Jesus Christ Lordship over his church and whether the government can mandate how we are
00:23:48.420
to worship him as individually as individual and corporately, um, that this isn't really a freedom
00:23:54.580
fight for us. So I recognize that the fruit of what we're doing. Um, so just really pray for the
00:24:01.120
protection of grace life, pray for James's protection, uh, and pray for us that we would
00:24:06.240
learn everything that the Lord would want us to learn out of this. But I always just keep saying,
00:24:11.140
just, just keep obeying the Lord, just keep loving him, faithfully serve your church, uh, know what
00:24:17.960
your, your rights are. Um, I think as a Canadian, this has really shown me I've been negligent in,
00:24:27.300
and just knowing politically what is going on. What are my rights as a Canadian? I don't ever
00:24:32.900
remember being taught this stuff in school. Um, so just know that no church history, um, have a robust
00:24:41.640
and, and sound ecclesiology. What is the doctrine of the church, the teaching of the church? Um, and,
00:24:48.040
and maybe just be gracious to pastors. So, so as, as you talk about comments that people make,
00:24:56.700
a large amount of the comments that are negative that come in are, are not from pastors who have
00:25:02.920
to stand before the Lord and give an account on judgment day for the souls that have been entrusted
00:25:07.060
to them, especially for grace life. Um, so just be, be gracious. Um, this is a, this is a brother in
00:25:14.740
Christ that you are unified with, uh, and we'll stand before the throne for all of eternity if
00:25:21.340
you're truly in Christ worshiping our Lord and savior. So, um, just, just pray for that and that
00:25:28.180
God would be glorified and that the gospel would keep going out. We have so many opportunities, uh,
00:25:33.740
right now to share Christ and we want to do that boldly and we want to do that lovingly and we want
00:25:38.480
to do that faithfully. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for being
00:25:44.300
faithful. I praise God for the testimony that he is creating and that is going out because
00:25:51.220
of this hardship and whether or not someone wants to categorize this as technical persecution, which
00:25:57.680
I agree with you. I think we need to expand our understanding of what that can look like,
00:26:03.000
especially here, um, in the West. The fact of the matter is, is that this is an opportunity that
00:26:08.640
the Lord is going to use because this is how he works to spread the gospel and to make himself
00:26:14.320
known. And it doesn't matter if it sounds like, or seems like the vast majority of people are
00:26:20.040
clamoring to discredit him or to discredit the situation and pretend like it just doesn't exist
00:26:26.560
or that he's just being a martyr. Even if it's one person who sees the faithfulness of James,
00:26:32.700
sees the faithfulness of the church, sees your faithfulness and that heart of stone is made by
00:26:38.740
the Holy Spirit into a heart of flesh, that could be the entire purpose in this whole thing. What
00:26:44.380
I've learned is that when God is doing one thing, he's doing a million things. Um, and so we can trust
00:26:49.560
in that. We can rejoice in that. I think the example that you're setting, um, of trusting in that and
00:26:55.920
hoping in the gospel is a beautiful one. And I do pray that this brings lots and lots of people to
00:27:03.020
the Lord. So thank you so much. Uh, I will be praying. I know the people listening and watching
00:27:08.700
will absolutely be praying. Um, and thank you for taking the time to come on. Thank you so much, Allie.
00:27:15.420
All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. I'm not going to lie. I almost
00:27:29.540
lost it. Like you guys couldn't see if you're watching it on YouTube because she was full
00:27:33.920
screen, but I was blinking back tears when she was talking about waking up in the middle of the
00:27:38.840
night and just crying for her husband. I just want us to think for one second what that would be like.
00:27:45.120
Knowing that the person that you love so much that you've spent more of your life with than anyone
00:27:51.260
else is in solitary confinement because they obeyed Christ in opening up their church completely in
00:27:59.380
obedience to what scripture calls pastors to do. I want you to think about what that must feel like
00:28:05.660
in those moments of just gut wrenching pain and heartache. And I praise the Lord that he meets her
00:28:11.140
in those moments that he is comforting her, but we need to take a good hard look at our theology
00:28:17.200
and at our worldview. And we need to take a good hard look at our faith. And we need to ask ourselves
00:28:22.680
if we would have the same resolve in that situation. I saw this, uh, I don't even remember who wrote it
00:28:28.960
because I saw it on Instagram and I thought it was interesting that, uh, very many Christians are,
00:28:33.840
are quick to kind of justify someone like Ravi Zacharias or, uh, when any leader makes a mistake
00:28:41.460
that amounts to a great moral failure or they're accused of a moral failure, Christians are so
00:28:47.260
quick to say, well, you know, he was just a fallen man and he was just sinful. We're all sinners.
00:28:52.260
We have to give them grace, which of course is true. But when it comes to someone like Pastor James
00:28:57.120
Coates, some of those same Christians are saying, oh no, no, no, no, no. He's just someone who just
00:29:02.720
wants attention. Uh, no, we need to kind of cast him off to the side and condemn him as someone who
00:29:07.920
is not really genuine. This is not about the gospel. This is not about persecution. It's just about
00:29:12.340
becoming some kind of martyred celebrity. And so we give the benefit of the doubt to these teachers
00:29:18.820
who have committed egregious moral failures, but we don't give the benefit of the doubt to teachers
00:29:24.720
who are being put in jail for their obedience to Christ. And that is what is going on with James
00:29:30.400
Coates. It is for his obedience and wanting to preach to as many people as possible in person
00:29:35.860
that he is in prison. And for some reason, there are Christians who are not willing to give the benefit
00:29:42.680
of the doubt to him. They're not willing to empathize. And the person who made this, who made this
00:29:48.240
observation, which I thought was very insightful, said it's probably because most of us see
00:29:53.200
ourselves more in the pastor who fell from grace or in the pastor who had this great moral failure
00:29:59.480
than we do in someone like James Coates. Uh, and that's probably true. And I think we all need to be
00:30:05.860
honest with ourselves and say, okay, like, would we in that situation, like, would we, if, if we were sent
00:30:12.900
to jail for preaching the gospel, um, as for example, Andrew Brunson was when he was in Turkey,
00:30:28.140
if we were faced with that kind of persecution, would we stand firm? Like, would our commitment to
00:30:35.460
be, be to the gospel? I think we need to make a really honest assessment of that. Now, uh, our
00:30:42.440
perseverance and our faithfulness and our steadfastness is, is not based on our own personal
00:30:49.260
resolve. It's not based on our own merit. It's not based on our own good works or our resume or
00:30:56.360
anything like that. It is entirely from the grace and the power and the faithfulness and the steadfastness
00:31:03.100
of God. But I think that we can look at our actions today as a pretty good indicator of how
00:31:09.220
we would react if serious persecution came. So if we are unwilling to stand up for what God says is
00:31:15.520
good and right and true when it comes to avoiding awkwardness or when it comes to not being inconvenienced
00:31:24.420
or maybe being called a bigot online or being canceled by people on social media, I don't think that we can
00:31:29.940
kid ourselves into thinking that when real authorities come that we are going to stand firm in our faith.
00:31:36.760
I think we just need to be pretty honest in our self-assessment there. I don't think that if we find
00:31:43.200
ourselves acquiescing to culture when it comes to Genesis 1 issues, uh, like the, the definition of
00:31:51.620
male and female or what God says marriage looks like, or if we are exchanging God's basic definitions
00:31:59.800
of what justice is for worldly definitions of justice, I'm not so sure we can kid ourselves into
00:32:05.340
thinking that we're going to stand firm, uh, when the, when our preaching of the gospel, when our
00:32:11.240
representation of the gospel is really pushed against in a very tangible, in a very tangible way,
00:32:17.400
because you understand that the gospel is far more offensive than these cultural issues. The gospel
00:32:22.920
itself is far more offensive to a non-believing world than you saying that God made them male and female.
00:32:28.460
So if we are not able to even say what should be biblically uncontroversial, what people see as
00:32:36.060
political and cultural statements, which really aren't like the definition of marriage and sexuality
00:32:40.860
and gender injustice and all of that. Um, if you're unwilling to stand for those things, I don't think
00:32:47.740
that we can kid ourselves into thinking that we are going to defend the most offensive part of the
00:32:52.780
entire gospel or of the entire Bible, which is the gospel. There is nothing more offensive
00:32:59.260
to the non-believing world that says you are then, then that, which says you are, you are dead in your
00:33:05.020
sin. You're dead in your sin apart from Christ and you cannot save yourself. And there's nothing that you
00:33:10.920
can do that is ever going to be good enough. You're never going to be able to earn your merit or earn your
00:33:17.140
righteousness or earn any kind of acceptance before God. You can't do it. You are dead in your sin apart
00:33:23.620
from Christ. And only he by grace through faith can save you. That is offensive. And if you think
00:33:30.280
that you can compromise on all of the other things that the culture finds offensive and that you'll
00:33:36.900
stand for that, I think that you're kidding yourself. And I think we're all kidding ourselves. I'm
00:33:40.980
including myself in that. And so rather than be so quick to delegitimize what's going on with James
00:33:47.220
Coates, maybe we need to look to him and see that is the kind of, that's the kind of faith that we
00:33:52.500
actually need to be emulating. And what's also interesting that I see in all of this hypocrisy
00:33:57.780
is that in a time that we're talking about criminal justice, that we are much quicker to give the benefit
00:34:03.380
of the doubt to people who actually have committed egregious crimes who are in prison. We're much quicker
00:34:09.440
to defer to give them deference or to give them the benefit of the doubt than we are to a pastor
00:34:16.620
who is in solitary confinement in Canada for preaching the gospel in his church. And so that's
00:34:24.040
also very strange to me that the same people who say that they care for criminal justice reform
00:34:29.560
and social justice, that we need kind of what they would call restorative justice rather than punitive
00:34:37.120
justice, that even people who committed real detrimental crimes that actually harmed people,
00:34:44.540
it harms people's lives, and in some cases took people's lives, that those people need to be taken
00:34:50.240
out of incarceration in the name of social and criminal justice. Those same people, some of them
00:34:56.780
are turning a blind eye to what's happening with James Coates in Alberta. That doesn't make any sense to me.
00:35:02.640
That doesn't make any sense to me. And that is why I think it's so wonderful and so refreshing for
00:35:10.160
Christians to remember that we have God's standard of justice, as we have talked about so many times
00:35:16.000
on this podcast, replete with references and biblical support, that God's justice is direct,
00:35:22.380
it is proportional, it is truthful, it is impartial. The world's definition of social justice,
00:35:28.780
this collectivist justice that's based on all of these different identifiers like socioeconomic
00:35:34.460
status or race or levels of oppression or lived experience or whatever it is, it's convoluted.
00:35:40.800
It's hypocritical. It's duplicitous. We don't have to be on that constant hamster wheel of chasing after
00:35:48.240
wokeness and never actually being able to achieve it. We have God's standard. We have God's standard
00:35:54.800
in his word. And we don't have to worry. We don't have to worry about trying to fit into worldly
00:36:01.960
definitions of what justice looks like, of what right and wrong looks like, of what obedience looks
00:36:06.460
like. And I think that's what James Coates is actually representing for us. And we should be
00:36:11.980
praising God for that and absolutely praying for him. I just kind of want to end with this.
00:36:17.540
I feel your weariness. A lot of you guys have messaged me saying that you just feel tired,
00:36:26.480
like you feel tired of politics, like you feel tired of what's going on in the news. Every day,
00:36:35.160
something new is canceled. Every day, it feels like a part of our culture is crumbling. Every day,
00:36:42.040
there is something that we thought was sacred or that we thought was irrefutable that is now being
00:36:47.160
refuted or now being violated in some way. I don't think five years ago, we could have guessed or
00:36:54.120
understood what would be happening with this gender madness. I don't think five years ago,
00:36:59.540
we could have guessed a lot of the things that are going on politically and culturally.
00:37:03.780
And a lot of you are just tired. And a lot of you have kind of unplugged from the news. And I think
00:37:09.000
that's perfectly understandable. And I don't fault you at all for that. There are times when I'm lying in
00:37:14.980
bed at night that I don't want to deal with this stuff. I don't want to deal with this stuff either.
00:37:19.460
I don't want to talk about politics anymore. I don't want to talk about these cultural issues.
00:37:23.240
I just kind of want to pretend like it's not happening. And I just want to focus on my tiny
00:37:28.880
piece of the world that God has given me. And I think that there is something good and true about
00:37:34.860
that. I think that it is good to remember that we're not omniscient, that we're not omnipotent.
00:37:40.100
We don't know everything. We're not all powerful. We're not omnipresent. So we're not everywhere.
00:37:45.700
And sometimes the constant inundation of media stories makes us think that we have to be all
00:37:52.740
of those things or that we are all of those things. It puts us a God-like burden on our shoulders that
00:37:58.560
we were never meant to carry. And so I do think it's important for us to bring our focus closer to
00:38:03.500
home, to what is right in front of us, to being a faithful spouse, being a faithful parent,
00:38:09.680
being a faithful neighbor, church member, citizen of our community. Absolutely. But at the same time,
00:38:16.980
I hear something like what Erin said, that she didn't know her rights. She didn't know the politics
00:38:24.160
of all of this. She didn't know the legality of it. She didn't understand the political system
00:38:33.140
before this. And now she is trying to learn. And as we see from this conversation, our Christian life
00:38:41.900
and politics are inextricably intertwined. They just are. That doesn't mean that in order to be a
00:38:49.760
Christian, you have to ascribe to every single policy proposal or every single policy of the platform of
00:38:58.200
one party. But it does mean that our faith is going to affect how we understand policies and how we
00:39:06.680
understand culture. And I see such starvation in the church for wisdom and for biblical understandings
00:39:18.160
of what's going on in the world. Sometimes I get pushback. Why are you even talking about what's going
00:39:23.480
on with The Bachelor? Why are you even talking about what's going on with the Kardashians? Or why do you
00:39:28.240
even care about critical race theory? Why do you care about Dr. Seuss? Why do you care about all of
00:39:33.100
these things? You're just, you're being, you're being divisive. As if I am not critiquing the actual
00:39:41.520
things that are dividing us. That's, that's what I'm doing. I am trying to remind us of what the Bible
00:39:48.700
says is good and right and true when it comes to this. And I just see so many Christians in the same
00:39:53.600
way with the whole James Coates situation. The same Christians who are clamoring to discredit him and
00:39:58.620
discredit that situation are always so quick to justify cultural changes that are going in a
00:40:04.800
direction that we as Christians shouldn't agree with, or that we should at least be curious about
00:40:11.500
before we hop on, hop on the cultural change train. I see so many Christians trying to justify
00:40:19.720
secular cultural and social changes by saying that these are actually good, that it's actually
00:40:27.580
better for us to redefine what justice looks like, or redefine what gender looks like, or redefine what
00:40:33.380
love, intolerance, and right and wrong looks like. It's actually fine for the government to take over
00:40:38.260
our lives in this way. Actually, the Equality Act is, is Christ-like. Actually, it's better for us
00:40:44.380
to follow along this kind of insanity that we're seeing from the culture. And I just, I just wonder
00:40:53.840
why, I wonder why so many Christians are so eager to look like the rest of the world when that's the
00:41:02.180
opposite of what we're called to do. And I'm certainly not saying I have it all figured out because I
00:41:06.300
don't. I'm not saying that all of my opinions are objective truth and that they're always right in
00:41:10.880
line with the Bible and that no one can refute that. That's not true at all. Everything I
00:41:14.840
subjectively say is fallible and debatable. That's absolutely true. But I want to be, one of the goals
00:41:20.760
on my podcast is to be as slow as possible and as thoughtful as possible when it comes to cultural
00:41:27.940
changes, because we have to weigh them against the Word of God. You're not going to see me clamoring
00:41:32.620
for the discrediting or invalidation of the obedience of a fellow believer who bucks culture.
00:41:39.200
Like, you're just not going to see me doing that. And in that way, I want to be as understanding and
00:41:45.200
gracious and open as possible. And I hope to see myself in someone like James Coates rather than
00:41:51.200
seeing myself in all of the people who are constantly bending to the pressures of the woke mob
00:41:56.880
and cancel culture and social justice secular activists. And I hope that that's true of most
00:42:05.760
of you as well. All right. That's all I have to say for today. I am praying for you guys. I am
00:42:13.300
praying for this country. I'm praying for the church constantly that we are all united under the banner of
00:42:18.960
truth. I don't want the church to be united under false pretenses. I want the church to be united under
00:42:24.720
the truth of the gospel. Even if we disagree on some peripheral things, I want us to be united there.
00:42:30.500
Thank you guys so much for all of your encouragement. I do. I hope this encourages you. I know I said I
00:42:35.800
was done, but I have a little bit more. I hope this encourages you that the vast majority of messages,
00:42:41.340
of emails, of comments that I get are positive, are agreeing with what I'm saying. Now, I understand
00:42:49.140
there are millions and millions of people who totally disagree with what I say. There are plenty of
00:42:52.980
people who hate me and hate my message, but I hope that's encouraging to you that you're not alone.
00:42:59.320
There are thousands, I mean, tens of thousands of people who listen to this podcast. There are thousands
00:43:04.720
of people who message me, who email me every week, who are right in line with what you believe and
00:43:10.560
with what you hold dear. You're not alone. You're not isolated. And you would also be encouraged
00:43:16.400
by the emails of the messages that I get saying, hey, I changed my mind on this, that I once thought
00:43:24.900
this, and then I changed my mind. That's possible. A lot of you say you don't think it's possible to
00:43:29.960
change culture. You don't think it's possible to change people's minds. I get emails every week from
00:43:33.940
people saying they changed their mind. There was one particular message that I thought was extremely
00:43:39.960
encouraging, and I thought it took a lot of character and honesty for this person. They messaged me
00:43:44.700
after I did the Dear Evangelicals for Biden monologue. And you guys know, if you haven't
00:43:50.980
listened to it, it's on my Instagram page, and it's from last week after we talked about the Equality
00:43:56.140
Act, I think last Thursday. Someone said, I started watching your video, and I was rolling my eyes. I'm
00:44:01.980
left-leaning. I voted for Joe Biden. I was rolling my eyes, and I was saying all kinds of things about
00:44:08.340
you, how you're stupid, and all this stuff. But then I kept listening. And I have to say,
00:44:13.320
you made me think. She said, now, I'm still not ashamed of my vote for Joe Biden, but I will say
00:44:19.820
that it occurred to me that you were actually talking out of a place of kindness and concern,
00:44:24.120
not a place of belittlement, and you made me think about some issues. I get messages like that a lot,
00:44:33.020
that I used to hate you. I used to hate your podcast and hate what you had to say. And then
00:44:39.420
something shifted. Something changed. My mind changed. My heart changed about something.
00:44:45.320
I get messages like that all of the time. And if God can use this podcast like that,
00:44:52.260
then God can use anyone and any podcast and any messenger in the exact same way. And I know and
00:44:59.640
trust and believe that He does. So I hope that that encourages you. I get my fair share of hate and
00:45:06.260
my fair share of pushback. Typically what happens is that you guys share one of my stories or you
00:45:12.620
share something that I post and then your woke friends message me and are like, I'm really
00:45:16.580
troubled that my friend is following you. And then proceeds to try to debunk something I said.
00:45:23.760
Sometimes they're nice. Sometimes they're rude. So yes, that certainly happens in people who just
00:45:30.360
don't think that Christians, I guess, should be commenting on culture at all. But the vast
00:45:35.320
majority of the messages and the reviews and all of that that I get are positive. And I just thank
00:45:40.860
you guys for that. I do not take for granted your encouragement and your prayers and your positivity
00:45:45.480
and your thoughtful critiques and your thoughtful pushback. I don't take those for granted.
00:45:51.900
And so thank you guys. Thank you guys so much. Please don't stop doing that. Please don't
00:45:57.180
stop leaving the positive reviews on this podcast because they do mean something and they do something
00:46:05.460
as well. So anyway, I just wanted to thank you guys for that and encourage you in that way.