Get Locked Up For GOD!

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. So pastor, have you ever gone to jail for preaching the gospel? Has your pastor ever been sued or had an injunction against him simply because he said, we're going to have church, we're going to open up, we're going to invite everyone to come, and we're going to preach?

What do you do when you've got, well, you've got the coronavirus, you've got the politicians trying to shut you down? Well, Pastor Rob McCoy did something a little bit differently, and I like his spirit. He's not condemning other pastors, but Pastor Rob, tell everyone a little bit about what's happened in California and give us an update because we did interview you a few months ago.

Well thanks, Stu. I, as you know, I was a sitting city council member, and I resigned from my position because on April 4th, we hosted communion at our church, which is, it was Palm Sunday. It's our holy week, and communion is a sacrament, and we practiced the first Sunday of the month, and the governor said that the church wasn't essential, although he said cannabis distributors, liquor stores, abortion clinics were all essential. Even if we followed the CDC standards, he said we couldn't open. So we held communion.

As a result, I knew the council would have to censure me, so I stepped down. And then when we started to realize, back then we didn't know the severity of the virus, but now we do. We've done 180 live stream episodes with no less than 10 doctors, two psychologists.

We've looked at the data. In our county, the death rate is one one hundredth of one percent, and that's with people who've died with COVID. Only two people have died from COVID in the whole county. So we opened the church, wide open, no social distancing, no masks on May 31st, and we've been doing it ever since.

We do ionization machines, UV lights, and hand sanitizer, but you can't worship muzzled, and there's no community when you're six feet apart. And since May 31st, we haven't had one case of COVID, not one. How many deaths? Well, no cases of COVID, no deaths. You've had maybe deaths from other causes, and you know, no one ever talks about, by the way, no one ever talks about strep throat and the common flu and colds or bronchitis. No one talks about that stuff anymore. It's all about this one thing here, right, I guess.

Yeah, the tragedy, especially in California, is for our young people, there's been more deaths from suicide than there's been from COVID. And so we were wide open, and the county put an emergency restraining order on us, telling us we had to shut, and we violated that. They named me and a thousand does, which would be visitors or congregants to the church. And the day that we were in violation of that restraining order, no less than four churches showed up to surround our church to take those citations so that we could worship in peace. It was a great picture of the body of Christ. Other churches, they're not even on your membership roll.

Exactly. And our church went from 350 on a Sunday to now over 2,000. And people, you know, liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. Second Corinthians three says, where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. And we're watching a tyrannical government with draconian measures, destroy our economy, keep our kids out of school, cause those who are being abused to be quarantined with their abusers, family members to die alone without anyone by their bedside for a virus that we know now is not as severe as they said it would be. And they're, they're shutting churches and churches are silent.

But we are the ones that declare liberty and we need to stand. And so we're standing on behalf of our citizens, 65% of the restaurants in our county will never reopen. The folks that run those restaurants have lost their life savings and have been destroyed. Like North Carolina, like the governor of North Carolina, who's, who's, who's crazy out of control activities have shut down.

Governor Cooper's activities shut down all kinds of restaurants and businesses. The governor of California, governor of New York, Michigan, they just, it's like, they don't care. It's like, you're not smart enough to take precautions.

And so draconian is quite an interesting word. But what about Pastor Rob McCoy, a California pastor who stayed open during this crazy time? What about people that accuse you of being reckless? How dare you?

This corona, man, it's scary. How dare you stay open? What do you say to those accusations, which I know are many? Yeah, we've had those accusations. Even the first judge who was political and predictable said on a scale of one to 10, he counts us at 10 as far as danger to the community.

Even though since May 31st, and here we are in October, we haven't had one case of COVID, not one. So I don't know how reckless that is. But I would also say, some Christian brothers and sisters accuse us of violating Romans 13 and threatening the community and not adhering to the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor. Well, first of all, Romans 13, submit to all authority it's given by God.

And that's true. But what they don't understand that I do understand having held public office and swearing to defend the Constitution when I took that office, is that the authority in America in Romans 13 is we the people, and they govern by our consent. And when they violate that constitution, we as the authority, it's our right and our duty to push back when they usurp those inalienable rights. So I am in obedience to Romans 13.

So it's convenient when the government, how they interpret for the people, by the people, of the people. They don't like that when they try to destroy the people, and they try to usurp immoral and godly authority. And so they tell the church, and John MacArthur, by the way, he's been in a lot of heat for the same thing. He's a fellow Southern California pastor, and he's taken a lot of the same grief, huh?

He is. Pastor John, interestingly enough, early on, he always, he didn't look at our founders, and there's some stuff that he's put out there. He didn't always look at our founders as amazing men, and now he's quoting them. And, you know, in his mid-80s, here's a man that is standing firm, and I don't understand why the rest of the churches aren't open.

It's grieving me. Well, let me applaud you for your courage. Look, I've got pastors, we've got a broad spectrum of folks that listen to this podcast, broadcast, truth talk all over the country, all over the world.

I'm going to applaud you. I think we can all agree, wherever you come out, and you're not shaming pastors that are just meeting virtually and whatnot, but we can all agree that you have demonstrated the C-word, courage, and we are grateful for that. What is biblical courage? We're not talking about being reckless, being foolish, being capricious, showing up at church if you're sick and throwing up all everybody. I mean, we're talking about biblical courage, standing up even when times are tough, standing with the convictions that God's put on your heart.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Many of the pastors in my community, we have a great relationship, and they aren't open, and they support me quietly. But in California, we have some who stand to declare that what I'm doing is wrong, and I'm not jumping on them, but they're jumping on me.

And I would just say to all the shepherds out there, liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And this is a tyrannical governor that is hurting the citizenry of our community. And if you love your neighbor, you're going to love the ones who the abused have been sequestered with their abusers. You know, the two mandated reporting agencies, schools and churches, have been closed. These folks are abused. They have nowhere to go.

People are dying alone without their family members around them. We know the data. Early on, we didn't.

Now we do. And silence in the face of tyranny is complicit with tyranny. At this point, we're going to have to declare, when did we know what we know, and why didn't we do what we were called to do? So I would encourage pastors to start to stand. One final very light question, pastor. Are you willing to go to jail for your beliefs to keep your church open and continue to preach the word?

Yeah, my wife and I counted early on. We're going to lose our house, probably get IRS audited. I've had death threats. You go out to your car, you see a little slip of paper in your windshield wiper, says good luck starting your car this morning.

That's not fun. But there's nothing that I won't give up for the great for the great privilege and joy and gift of liberty for my kids and my grandkids. And if there's a bobble or a trinket you're holding on to, whether it's your building, your budgets, or your baptisms, it's time you realize that the next generation needs liberty or nobody's going to be preaching the gospel. And let's finish on this note, the advance of the gospel, mobilizing people to go to all the world. We're talking about governors that need the gospel. We're talking about 2.5 billion people on our planet, pastor, who have never heard the good news of the gospel. Take me into the missiological agenda that you have of reaching the lost, of discipling as Jesus, Jesus' final words, go into all the world, the ends of the earth.

Yeah. You know, if the most important thing is preaching the gospel, which it is, and I do it every Sunday, then the second most important thing would be protecting the government that protects the preaching of that gospel. If you bind the strong man, you can raid his house. And the last strong man is America.

86 cents of every dollar in evangelism comes from the United States of America. And I would say this, when Jesus said to his disciples, who do men say that I am? And then Peter says, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. He says, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood hasn't revealed that to you but my father in heaven.

He says, upon this rock, I'll build mine. Everyone says church. That's not the word. Tyndale was burned at the stake for translating it properly. The word is ecclesia. It means public square.

It means going out and not just making converts, making disciples that change your community. When you look at putting up a black tile and you think you've done your virtue signaling by standing with BLM Inc, realizing they're fascist and communist in nature, and that Planned Parenthood supports them, and a 4% of the female black population of childbearing years is responsible for 40% of the abortions, and Planned Parenthood supports BLM Inc. That's a Holocaust on the black community. That is an absolute farce. And you'll put your black tile up.

But here we have Amy Coney Barrett, and we can see Roe v. Wade changed. Where are your voices now? Don't do it for convenience. Don't do it for popularity. Drive the culture. Save the community. Contend in the public square. Do not be a twig on the banks of a mighty river going with the flow. Stand. That's what God's called you to do.

Amen. Pastor Rob McCoy, Southern California. Quickly, the name of your church for everyone to look you up, and also the website for folks to hear you're preaching, and also to know how they can pray for you. Oh, thank you. It's godspeak.com. How to pray for me.

Real simple. Wisdom. Please give me wisdom, God, and pray for me for that. Thank you. Pastor Rob McCoy, our prayers are with you.

Thanks for being on. Thanks for your courage. Let's continue to be courageous and stand up for Christ, even when the days are tough and dark. And let's spread the good news of Christ, because he's the only one that can bring light into our darkness. This is the Truth Network.