- Welcome back.

Tonight, a Californiachurch is fighting back

against a cease and desist order.

Harvest Rock Church inPasadena is requesting

a preliminary injunctionagainst California Governor

Gavin Newsom over his COVID-19 orders,

which church attorneyscall unconstitutional.

On Sunday, Harvest Rock Church joined

other California houses of worship,

violating Golden Staterestrictions on singing,

chanting, and indoor attendance.

Another church defying those state orders,

Grace Community Church near Los Angeles.

And joining us now, theReverend John MacArthur,

pastor of Grace Community Church

in Sun Valley near L.A.

Pastor MacArthur, welcometo "Faith Nation."

Pastor, first off, you called

the Sunday worship servicea peaceful protest.

Were you drawing acomparison to what appears

to be a loophole presumably

since outdoor peacefulprotests are allowed?

- Yeah, that's the obviousreality here in California,

as it is all the way across the country.

Nobody wants to shut down a protest.

It may start out peaceful, itcould easily turn into a riot.

In fact, last week here in L.A.,

there were protests five days in a row.

Nobody seemed to care whetheranybody kept social distance

or whether they wore masks.

The rules don't apply to them,but they apply to a church.

And so if we can callourselves a protest, we should.

We're the originalprotesters, we're Protestants.

We've been doing this for 500 years.

So that was a little bit of atongue-in-cheek way of saying

if they can meet without anyrepercussions, why can't we?

- And why do you think thatdistinction has been drawn?

Specifically for churches.- Well, I think because

the culture, the climateis to allow protest,

even to foment protest.

I think there are peoplein power in our country

who are behind the protests.

I think they don't even mind, obviously,

when those protests turninto riots, damage is done.

You see across our countrythat there's an unwillingness

to stop this in many of our cities.

So there's an agenda going on to allow

this kind of disruption,to tear down institutions

that people hate and detest.

And reality would tell usthis, that the world is hostile

against the Church of Jesus Christ,

particularly those that are faithful

and proclaiming his gospel.

Jesus said, "If they hatedme, they'll hate you."

That's just how it is.

And obviously we've hada couple hundred years

of a good relationshipwith the government,

but it's not surprisinggiven the climate today

that they're beginning to turneven on faithful churches.

- Pastor, I want to ask you, you know,

most Christians would agreethat churches are essential,

but they've also been characterized

as super-spreader venues.

Pastor, how much shouldchurches and church leaders

like yourself comply withthe government to play a part

in bringing California'srecent surge to heal?

- Well, I think theobvious way to answer that

is to say that when thefirst initial model came out

and we were told thatmillions were going to die,

we did what any commonsense people would do.

We shut down the church,and I preached livestream

to an empty auditorium.

I did that for weeks, and eventually,

the people started coming back.

We didn't invite them. Wedidn't tell them to do that.

They began to realize thatthe predictions were way off.

In fact, as of now, we'vehad about 10,000 deaths

in California out of 40 million people.

So you have a 99.98chance that you're gonna

survive this just fine.

The people get that.

They understand that, they'removing around in our culture.

The freeways are busy again.

People are moving aroundand they're connecting

with each other, they're just starting

to come back to normal life.

So far, we don't haveanybody in our church,

and we had 7,000 people here last Sunday,

that we know of who is sick.

I haven't seen or heard of anybody

in our church in the hospital.

So they just don't believe the narrative.

We are not going to dosomething that's dangerous

to our people or any others,but at the same time,

our folks and many, many other people

whose churches are closedare deciding to come

to Grace Church, and that's anadult decision that they make

weighing the realitiesthat they know are true.

- Pastor, we only haveabout a minute left.

If you can, I understand the city issued

a cease and desist orderand threatened the church

with a daily $1,000 fineand possible arrest.

Can you explain why youbelieve it's important

to take the stand, what's at stake here?

- Well, what's at stake, first of all,

is the reality that Christis the head of the Church.

Is this anything new?

Don't we as believersmake heroes out of people

who stood against tyrantsthroughout Church history?

This started in the Book ofActs when they told the apostles

not to preach, and the apostles said

you judge whether we obey God or men.

That should be obvious to you.

So this is nothing new for the Church.

It's new in our country.

Faithful churches, faithfulpastors have always realized

Jesus Christ is Lordand head of his Church.

We follow him.

Wonderfully, the Constitutionallows us that privilege

and demands that our leadersprotect that privilege.

- All right, Grace CommunityChurch's John MacArthur.

Pastor MacArthur, thank you somuch for being with us today.

- My pleasure.