Apostoic

Here we go again…

Have you ever been mucking out the barn and thought to yourself, “I’ve shoveled this shi–stuff before”? I hope you’ve had that thought, because that’s where I find myself today as I’m writing this, and it might be hard for you to understand and empathize otherwise. I know I’m a month or so late to the Hanta party, and I’m not really sorry about that. Most of my countrymen have microwave attention spans. While they’re moving in minutes, I’m meditating on millennia (or at least trying to). 

This is almost exactly the sixth anniversary of the last time I slung this shovel. In May and June of 2020, Michigan was knee-deep in executive orders and COVID lockdowns and whatevers. I did then, and do now, protest! I “celebrated” Covid by writing letters to local pastors pleading with them to reopen their churches and resume public worship. My pleas fell, without exception, upon… maybe not deaf ears, but fell upon hearts which feared men too much and the Lord not enough.

COVID was a test. World governments tested their citizens to see who and how many would obey arbitrary rules that defied reason; I think most of you passed… More importantly, the Living God tested whether this thing which calls itself His church would do as He said (or even knew what He said); I think most of you failed.

This will be equal parts lament over past sins and admonition toward today’s obedience. While the Bible never says God is the God of second chances, it does say He’s the God of redemption, and redemption is better than second chances. So, Hanta virus, here we go again… second verse, same as the first.

From which well are you drinking?

As various Michigan pastors replied to me or wrote their church newsletters 6 years ago, their responses were replete with warnings, with rushed findings from poorly framed studies, with exaggerated death tolls from hospitals federally subsidized per-mortem, with germs, with rules, with fear, with “obey”! What I did not read, what they did not say: “Thus says the LORD…”  None of these preachers bothered to turn to any passage of Scripture to exposit how we should all “trust the science”, “mask up”, and “this is the new normal”.

My boss at the time was an avowed and self-professing heathen. Even he said,  “[these pastors] didn’t mention anything about ‘what does God say we should do?”  They need to figure out how much time they spent last week on news and social media listening to people talk about COVID, and they need to spend that much time next week studying what the Bible says about whether or not the church should be open.”  His was one of the better sermons I heard during the COVID season.

One such church newsletter opened with the following line: “The criteria we are using to make the decision about what to do next, includes the following four questions: Is what we are deciding legal, ethical, practical, and missional?”  

The missing question is what broke my heart: Does the Scripture command God’s people to gather in times of disease? If they had faced that question and come to a different conclusion than mine, then we’d have had a conversation about “what does God say?”  That’s the right conversation to have, even if we’re on opposite sides of it. Six years ago, no one could be bothered to ask what God says…

If we conclude that Scripture sets a precedent to suspend public worship, only then may we consider and schedule our reopening according to secondary factors. However, if we evaluate the Biblical data on this subject and conclude we are under command from Almighty God to assemble for worship, then every other question is irrelevant. Legality, practicality, and public opinion are all cast to the wind in the face of God’s decree, even as that very same decree defines the ethical and missional questions for us.

I longed then to see churches gathering, calling upon the LORD to heal the land and give wisdom to our rulers… Not to step forward from some petty sense of political defiance or Thoreau-ean sense of civil disobedience; rather, we must step above, resting upon and proclaiming God’s power over the pestilence, His summons to His children, His forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of Christ Jesus. Six years ago, many churches ceased worship under the poor excuse of being caught unawares; we can’t play that pitiful card again. If the executive orders and the mandates roll out for HANTA, we must man up and obey God.

As we start examining some specific texts, please remember: 

1. God had blessed the Jews with substantial knowledge of pathology and transmission in the form of the Levitical law. We can’t excuse their exposure on the grounds of ignorance. They knew they could catch and carry the diseases in question.
2. We can’t exempt ourselves from obedience, “because COVID is so much worse.”  COVID-19 is like a runny nose compared to some of the ravaging decimators that Scripture records.
3. If we find a command to worship in the midst of disease, we cannot dismiss this as the ignorance of an ancient author, because God gave the command to worship. He who made man, and germ, and all the rules of contagion, gives the command. 

Is public worship legal?

“So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

I am ashamed of this question. The leadership of every major American denomination publicly volunteered to stop meeting before they ever received any government orders to stop. It would be bad enough to stop when we’re told to, but before…? I can’t count how many times I’ve wept over this. I’m weeping as I write… To come into the house of the LORD, to meet Him, to call upon His great Name, to sing His glory, to eat His flesh and drink His blood, to delight in the company of others redeemed by His loving kindness… These are our birthright; privileges far surpassing the invitations of any mortal ruler. 

The question is not: “Is it legal for the church to meet?” Instead, the question is: “Are we worms or sons of the living God?” “Was it legal before the throne of God for any mortal, upstart, bossy-pants to contradict the summons of the ever-living God?”  “Does the US Constitution, which gives US officials their power– does it give them the power to close churches?”

Forgive my frustration, but I have a higher law, a higher legality, and obedience to that burns in my soul; everything else can go hang. I hear the call of my Master to meet, and if I knew then a local preacher who dared to defy government shutdowns and the wisdom to rightly present the gospel, I would go there. Someone, somewhere should have been open through COVID. There should have been good options for people like my family and me… Church leadership failed us and millions like us the world over.

But setting that aside– Yes public worship is legal, was legal as of Trump’s declaration, and it was legal at every point along the way because reading the actual text of Whitmer’s executive orders [not just gossip, hearsay, and text messages] “a place of worship, when used for the purpose of worship shall be exempt from the rules and punishments of this order.”  Gathering to worship was legal from the start; it’s just that no one had a spine.

We gave up… one of the most precious privileges in all creation, bought with the very blood of Christ. We gave up before anyone asked us to, and we continued to forego after our rulers, our masters, gave us “permission”; there’s a four-letter word for you. The American church did not see public worship as precious enough to risk either disease or the displeasure of some misguided policeman. I don’t want to worship because the king of Michigan says it’s ok or because the king of the United States says it’s ok. I want to worship because the King of Kings wrote my name on His heart and set a place for me at His table.

What of the stories of Sergie Kordukov and Richard Wurmbrand, who worshiped when it wasn’t legal? What of my dear friends who buy and smuggle Bibles into China, where it’s not legal? What of my friends who get arrested for distributing gospel tracts on public sidewalks outside abortion clinics in Michigan? What of the Ten Boom family and Brother Andrew, who took the gospel where it wasn’t legal? What of every single apostle who took the gospel to places where it wasn’t legal? What of untold millions of Christians who would never bow the knee to whatever mortal tyrant momentarily sat the local throne, and they rejoiced in the confiscation of their property and even their very lives to worship Christ when it wasn’t legal? What of Christ, Who named Himself King of the Jews in a time and place when doing so was an act of treason, punishable by death? Is it legal? To hell with that question- back where it belongs.

Will God even hear our worship if we only come “when it’s legal”? “ So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,  but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”  

God have mercy upon us that ever we asked if it’s legal. Christ, acknowledge us before Your Father in heaven; strengthen our timid hearts. Darken the day that Your Church asked if worship was legal, and do not count it among the days of the year.

Is public worship ethical?

Do you feel as profane reading that question as I do writing it? They determined public worship was then an unethical decision because of the possibility of transmitting disease, especially to the older members, and especially in a confined space. That’s a hypothetical pragmatist ethic. Something’s wrong, not because of the revealed word of God, but because of what might happen. I admire the desire to be considerate of those with the weakest immune system, and making concessions for the weakest brothers is a Christian act. However, such things are concessions; they do not predicate right and wrong. God tells us right and wrong, and we obey Him.

Furthermore, if churches had reopened, no preachers and no elders were compelling anyone to attend church. The preacher is not responsible for the decisions of other adults. What kind of cop-out is it to claim they believe God will judge them for reopening the church, and someone got sick? As though this is the preacher’s fault?

If any man is fearful of catching sickness because of their own weak immune system, or because of the close confines, or for any other reason, then he can continue to watch from home and be welcomed later with open arms. If someone comes and gets sick, that is not the preacher’s fault simply because he obeyed God and held services. Each man needs to take responsibility for his own decisions in life. And yes, walking through the church door has its risks, arguably COVID/hanta would be low on that list… What if we truly encountered the Living God Whose tenderest presence terrified many devout men in Scripture? There is risk; He is good, but not safe. 

The question of ethicality is neither a pragmatic one nor does it require the preacher to bear the blame for every bad thing that happens in his flock. Ethicality is a question of the revealed will of God. God doesn’t expect you to know all ends, and He doesn’t weigh your actions as though you had His omniscience. He will judge you by the goodness of Christ Jesus, and He will consider if you made decisions according to His word. Preachers, don’t make our decisions for us! Keep open the doors, and let each one make his own decision before God.

Is public worship safe?

Dennis Prager has an exceptional YouTube video called Until it’s safe means never. He reminds us there’s no such thing as safe. If you wait for safety, you’ll never live. I’ve explained what I believe is the clear and overwhelming testimony of Scripture about public worship. Nevertheless, I want to make this plain: God does not promise we won’t get sick…, or beaten, or torn by wild beasts, or robbed, or publicly maligned, or imprisoned for crimes we didn’t commit as a pretext for taking Christians out of circulation. In fact, it would be easier to say He promised the other way around. 

If we’d reopened the church, and someone got sick… then what? What if a gunman comes in and shoots people during the service? What if the US becomes a truly communist state, worship could be completely illegal, and your underground meetings get raided, and then Christian men get thrown in jail for worshiping God, where the inmates sodomize them… then what? This world is a terrible place; I will not let what-ifs keep me from doing what I see God has called me to do. I am getting a new body after I die; I intend to drive this one till the wheels fall off. God forbid that my tombstone read “He was safe.”  

The kind of concerns expressed in these replies and newsletters, and the far worse ones I’ve enumerated here, are only concerns for people who are afraid of death. “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”  The fear of death is the power of the devil, and a symptom of belonging to his jurisdiction. How can we who have already died with Christ and risen with Him to newness of life still fear death? Jesus Christ has conquered death; why are you afraid of a conquered thing?

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