 A Canadian pastor was arrested. This is so wrong. What's up guys, my name is Isaac David and this is The Daily Disciple where I help you follow Jesus Daily. Today we are talking about Pastor James Coates. He's the pastor of Grace Life Church in Alberta and was recently arrested for not meeting the current health restrictions that have been placed on churches. He was preaching to a full congregation and they did not like that. For those of you who don't know, I live in Winnipeg. Winnipeg is in Manitoba and Manitoba is just a couple provinces over from Alberta where Pastor James Coates was arrested. So this hits close to home for me, part of the reason I wanna talk about this. I realize this story has been out for at least a week now but I wanted to be slow in making a response to make sure I had all the information and as I was doing research online and checking out what people were saying on social media and Twitter, I was noticing a very disturbing and disgusting trend. People have been painting this guy as an evil guy who's just trying to get attention or he's un-Christ-like and he has a victim complex and all these things, he's playing the victim. It's really disgusting seeing so many professing Christians really shout down on this guy, condemnation. They throw condemnation on him for not following the government's rules and it really goes to show, okay, who are you quicker to side with? Are you quick to side with the pastor or the government? It really shows where your allegiance is like and I realize, look, this is a complex topic when we talk about coronavirus in churches. That's part of the reason that I haven't spoken a lot on this topic and maybe I should have honestly. I'm realizing that now but it doesn't mean the fact that it's complex. It doesn't mean that there isn't a right answer. 15% of the church was allowed to gather for in James Cote's congregation. That was what the government had allowed. If you were saying, hey, 15% of the church can go to church, the government is also saying, 85% of the church cannot go to church, does not have the right to go to church and not only is this against the word of God and what it says about meeting together, it also goes against our charter of rights and freedoms. Let me put it really simply for you. Pastor James Cote's was arrested simply for not preventing people from coming to his church, for not boarding up his windows, for not slamming and locking the door. He was arrested because he stood up and he preached and he let whoever wanted to come to church, come to church. And apparently that was enough for him to get arrested. He did not force anyone to come to church. He didn't force anybody to listen to his sermon. He simply faithfully preached. This is not the story of an attention hungry man looking to have a publicity stunt. This was a faithful pastor who refused to obey the government's decree that he turn people away from his church. Let's hear from his wife on exactly what has been going on. When COVID hit, we did what everybody else did. We shut down. I think it was right for us to take a pause and think about what is this, how serious is it? And so when he was preaching to an empty congregation and preaching to a camera, he just felt so lost. He's not connecting with the people. He doesn't know if they're okay. And the people aren't responding in the same way to the sermons that they usually do either. So as that was all kind of unfolding and we're hearing just different opinions on COVID, we have a little bit of a better idea of who are the groups that COVID is most affecting and what is our responsibility as the local church to Christ's people. And so through this time, it just really helped our elders to define what is our responsibility before God when something like this happens. And so we opened fully back up in July at the end of June-ish, July. We have never had a COVID case contracted or spread within our Sunday gathering. We did have some cases that were contracted from people who were at work. And then we actually shut down for two weeks to make sure that those cases didn't actually spread within our congregation. And they didn't, thankfully. So around November, we had somebody who was, I guess, calling AHS on us. So we have our women's ministry happening during the week and people were seeing cars at the church during the week and they weren't happy with that. So they started to complain and AHS and the RCMP started to show up around the end of November, observing our gathering. And then there's probably about three months of interference of them coming in two and a half months. And then- Man, honestly, some people won't like this, but how big a loser do you need to be to call, to rat on a church, like to rat on a church meeting together, joining together, worshiping God? Like how much of a loser do you need to be to be like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna call the cops on them. Like, oh my goodness, do something with your life, please. Oh my goodness. On December 17th, AHS, who they've been given ultimate authority, they have been given the power to make laws and enforce them, which is very odd in our free democratic society. This is not how laws are passed. And so on December 17th, there was a public order hosted that we are not conducting ourselves according to the guidelines. And James was fined that day. And then on January 21st, AHS had filed to the courts to petition that they would start enforcing more aggressive means of us not following the guidelines. So they took that to court. The judge ruled in favor of AHS. And then that's when it was on the table that James could be arrested for holding a gathering, put a closure notice on our building. They didn't lock our doors, but they put up a closure notice that we are to be closed, which is so grievous that they would shut the doors of a church, the one place that has hope and life. But we just kept going and it was like as long as the building is open, I have to keep preaching and I have to keep sharpening that to people. So then on February 17th, he was placed under arrest and that was a catch and release. So they kind of did it on James's terms. They arrested him, they didn't put him in handcuffs or anything like that. And they released him on a undertaking. And the undertaking was that he not conducts the services how he had been doing. He would not sign that undertaking. And so the following Sunday, the 14th, we just, we went forward and that was the day that James preached that sermon and he knew likely he could be jailed for it. And so the RCMP called after the service and said, I think it was a long weekend. And they said, we want you to turn yourself in on Tuesday morning. So he did that and he went before the judge and he told me that they shackled him. They put him in cuffs, both wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs and from my understanding there's a chain on that. So he called me after that and that saying that they were detaining him and that he was free to go if he would just sign the release that he would not pass her in the way that he had been doing with having a full congregation. But if he didn't agree that he was not allowed on race life property, he's not allowed to conduct any worship services. So essentially he's not allowed to shepherd the church freely is what they put in place. And he just said, I can't sign that in good conscience before the ward. My duty as a shepherd of the sheep. And so he's still in there. It's extremely disheartening to see people professing Christians distance themselves from Pastor James. They would rather seem reasonable to the world than stand with a pastor who simply wanted to preach to his congregation on Sundays. You know what blows my mind? A number of times we've had people smash the windows of our cars in front of the house. My brother had it happen. My parents had it happen. And if we were to find one of those people that were to do it and turn them in, very little would happen. It's just the nature of our justice system. And yet they honed in on this pastor as some kind of, I don't know, like he's the big danger to our society and arrested him for wanting to preach. It just like that just never stops being wild to me in my mind. And to top that off, he's only going to be let go if he says and signs that he will not preach again. Some people are angry that we're calling this persecution. I don't care what you call it. This is wrong. Maybe your church has an open up. Maybe you've taken a different approach and your convictions are different from those of Pastor James' coats. But at the very least, you can respect the fact that he had the conviction that he was to continue to preach to whoever would come to his church. At least you can respect that, that he wanted to provide a place for people in this terrible, lonely, secluded, isolated time where people can hear the word of God and actually see people face to face. Like, is that not something good and great and praiseworthy? I think it is. It's heartbreaking. I think what this really has revealed is such a low view of ecclesiology. It's a low view of the gathering. It's a low view of the responsibility of a shepherd. It's a low view of the one another's. It's a low view of the ordinances which fundamentally have to alter if you only have portions of your church and some people are doing some things online. I think it's a low view of spiritual warfare and what you're putting your people in danger of when they're not in the gathering. And I think it's a low view of preaching and what's happening in the preaching moment when a man of God is mediating the presence of God through an accurate exposition of the word. And the book is open and the people are gathered as a testimony of the glory of God and how he has redeemed his bride. And she's expressing that to the world when she gathers. It has been hugely disappointing to see that but it's just such a huge eye opener. This generation is asleep, they are sleeping. And there was one story of a young girl who came into our church after 11 months of not gathering at her church and her friend was saying, you don't have to come to Grace Life. I'm worried about you. And she came in and she just wept through the whole service because she didn't realize how apathetic her heart had come over time as she wasn't with the body and being challenged by the one and others and being together. We have a church where the service happens and we're not leaving the building until 4 or 430. So we are really, we're in there in each other's lives and applying the sermon and what's your life gonna look like this week and praying for one another. So much during the sermon is revealed in your heart as the Holy Spirit just reveals to you through the passage preached to what you need to deal with in your heart. So it's very sad. Either people have forgotten the blessing of the gathering and the joy of fellowship or they've really never experienced it before and that's just really sad to me. Don't call condemnation down on a pastor who's simply trying to feed his flock. And honestly, if you've been following me for a while and you're surprised by my take here, I have to apologize because obviously I haven't been clear enough in standing on the truth and speaking up about these important topics. Perhaps I haven't spoken on these things in length because I was scared of the backlash, but not anymore. No apologies on this one. I hope you enjoyed this video and got something from it. Thank you to all my patrons on Patreon. Each one of you provides the opportunity for me to continue to make these kind of videos. If you wanna help support my Patreon and help us reach our goal of 40 by the end of the month, 40 patrons, head on over to the link in my description and sign up there. Thank you so much guys. I love you and I'll see you next time.