Grace Community Church in California is facing threats from county officials for reopening church despite lockdown orders that specifically prohibited churches to hold in-person services.
Nonetheless, Pastor John MacArthur is not complying to the order mandated by Gov. Gavin Newsom and announced to continue in-person services.
"We will obey God rather than men. We're going to be faithful to the Lord and we're going to leave the results to Him," Pastor John MacArthur confidently professed his unwavering faith.
MacArthur continued to make biblical references to further support his defiance and implied that Gov. Gavin Newsom is Caesar in a statement, "We will not bow to Caesar. The Lord Jesus Christ is our king."
"We will meet as the church of Jesus Christ because we're commanded to do that. We will sing, we will pray, we will fellowship, we will proclaim the Word of God far and wide and even around the world through this live stream opportunity that we have."
Several megachurches have announced to pause in-person services until 2021 January and MacArthur scrutinized these churches in a comment, "I don't have any way to understand that other than they don't know what a church is and they don't shepherd their people but that's sad."
The president of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Rev. Franklin Graham, encouraged people to attend in-person service on a Facebook post after sharing that Pastor John MacArthur got threatened with "repercussions such as fines and even possible arrest" from Los Angeles county government officials.
"I agree with Pastor MacArthur and appreciate his call for 'the church to be the church in this world.' If I were in Southern California this weekend, I would love to attend their service tomorrow--and if you live anywhere in southern California, I urge you to get up tomorrow morning and go!" Franklin Graham wrote.
Franklin Graham further pushed congregants to attend in-person services in a statement, "Not only will you hear a great message from the Bible, but this would be taking an important stand for our religious freedom."
