While on a pastor’s Zoom call recently, I got quite a revelation from the Lord. The meeting had been with Canadian pastors who resisted government orders not to hold worship services and were persecuted and even thrown in jail over it. Over the past three years, the Body of Messiah has been thrown into turmoil in North America. For the first time, we are experiencing the kind of persecution we only heard about from other parts of the world. Suddenly one day, we woke up to our governments telling us we couldn’t meet for worship, had to cover our faces, weren’t allowed to sing and had to sit and even walk at least six feet apart. Strangely enough, people in Walmart and strip clubs had no such restrictions. It was two weeks to flatten the curve and then the lockdowns hit for months on end, which were followed by the mask mandates and then the vax passes where you weren’t allowed to go into certain places without proof of the shot. So much for my body, my choice.
I use the term “woke up” because that is literally what happened. Just like with the prophets in Israel, warnings have been issued for years about our apathy toward the things of God and impending judgment but, hey, things were good so why rock the boat? I remember the Lord telling me in August of 2019 that judgment had begun in His house, six months before the pandemic arrived in North America. The church has been asleep for a long time.
God told Jeremiah,
“I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen!’ This has been your practice from your youth, that you have not obeyed My voice.” (Jeremiah 22:21).
Israel had been prosperous so there was no reason to change, except that the judgment hit soon after and Israel was destroyed and taken into captivity. This is what I feel the last three years has been about; the church was prosperous and the good times kept rolling and so The Father had to remove our prosperity in order to get our attention.
The most egregious part of what has transpired has been the attitude of the pastors during this time. While some brave ones like Art Palowski, Tim Stephens, James Coates, Phil Hutchings and a few others did go to jail for defying the government dictates, the vast majority rolled over and shut down their churches and forced their congregations to do whatever the government told them to do. Some even set up vaccine clinics in their churches. The attitude of many was that the government can be trusted to manage this crisis which is the epitome of naiveté. Those of us in the know have been aware for many years that the governments we have now are our biggest adversary.
The justification for all of this is the passage in Romans 13:1-7 which says,
“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”
Like with a lot of passages in the Bible, at first glance it seems fairly straight forward. God has given us the government to keep us in check and therefore, we need to obey it – so when they told us to stop meeting together for worship, it was God’s will. However, if we look a little closer, there’s a key phrase that clarifies this notion. Paul says “But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing.” (Romans 13:4). What he’s saying is that the government is there to keep the peace and to punish evil. But what if the government itself does evil, like many across the world have done over the past several years?
Here in Canada under our current administration, we have expanded abortion, introduced euthanasia laws, and jailed pastors for preaching the gospel or protesting drag queen story hours by praying outside of libraries hosting these abominations. Prime Minister Trudeau has even called evangelical Christians society’s biggest threat. What happens when a government tells you to do something evil? Does Romans 13 command us to obey anyway? Absolutely not! “But if you do what is evil, be afraid!” It doesn’t matter whether the evil is thought of by ourselves or we are directed by someone else to do it. Evil is evil and God warns us to be afraid if we commit it.
Was what happened during the plandemic evil? For starters, people’s rights were taken away. Those are not given by government. They are God-given. It’s the government’s job to protect them, not violate them. Secondly, churches were shut down and people forbidden to gather together for fellowship and worship.
Hebrews 10:24-25 says:
“and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
We are not to stop gathering together to worship and inspire one another to good deeds. Praise of God is what brings righteousness to a land and defeats the devil so if he can stop us, he has free reign to continue to increase evil and build his power.
We were also told to not sing at churches. Psalm 100 says,
“Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations."
Scripture commands us to gather together to worship Him and to sing to Him. No government has the right to interfere with the business of the Body. So the principle is, when government orders are in opposition to God’s orders, heaven’s will prevails. We are to disobey the government when they command us to do evil. Many examples can be given from the Word of God. The midwives disobeyed Pharaoh’s command to murder the male Hebrew infants and “Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them.” (Exodus 1:21) The pastors who claim Romans 13 today would have condemned them. Sounds a lot like what happened in Germany when many claimed they were just following orders.
Rahab hid the spies and lied to the soldiers about it. Mordecai refused to bow to Haman which was the law. Hannaiah, Mishael and Azariah refused to bow to king Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. Daniel refused to stop praying to God when there was an edict to pray only to the king. Peter and John defied the Sanhedrin and wouldn’t stop proclaiming Messiah. Every one of these people came against wicked dictates from the ruling authorities of the day and were delivered and honoured by God because of it. Yet the vast majority of pastors over the past three years have ignored that. Many even encouraged their congregants to get the “vaccine” (which it’s not), which, by the way, are made with aborted fetal cells. Does God expect us to submit to that? No,. He expects us to resist and fight back. But with the church being so soft and apathetic over the past couple of generations because things were so good and easy, it has forgotten how to fight.
All throughout the Bible, evil people have always tried to get God’s people to disobey Him. Balaam wasn’t allowed to curse Israel because God said they were protected so his strategy was to get Balak, king of Moab, to invite the Israelites to their pagan festivals and participate in worship services. By doing that, they took themselves out from under God’s protection and actually invoked his judgment. When society is righteous, God gives them righteous leaders because that’s what they demand. That is part of His protection. When a nation turns away from God though, He gives them wicked rulers because through their rebellion, they have told God that’s what they want too. When we reject the Lord’s rule, He grants us the desires of our heart with another leader that gives the opposite of what He would have, which is misery and despair. That is the removal of His protection and the discipline that comes with that.
The revelation I got in this meeting was, the laws of the land are evil because the church has rejected God’s law, His Torah. What the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart about was that because Christians have forsaken God’s righteous instruction (the meaning of Torah) and done whatever they please in worship of Him (saying that we’re not under law but grace), God has given us over to wickedness and now we have to fight against a strong enemy. We’ve changed the day of weekly corporate worship, forsaken His festivals, adopted pagan ones instead and attempted to Christianize them, eaten things that God forbade because they’re unhealthy for us, and then we wonder why the enemy is running roughshod over us and we have no power and can’t exercise our authority. The solution to our problem is not protesting against the government although that’s part of it. It’s returning to righteousness.
God said to Israel through Jeremiah,
“Thus says the Lord, “stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16).
Those ancient paths are the ways of Torah. Tragically, Israel’s response was “we will not walk in it.” Then God tells them “And I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ ”, but again they said “we will not listen.” (Jeremiah 6:17).
The church has the same attitude today about God’s ways. When it comes to the Father’s ways, pastors say “we don’t have to do these things because we’re free from the law.”
The Bible never says we’re free from the Torah. It’s says we’re free from the curse of the law, which is death. The Torah tells us what sin is, which produces death. That definition has not changed because of the cross. Yeshua kept the law perfectly and as we are being conformed to His image, we are expected to try and do the same.
The Lord told Solomon, if
“My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sins and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Christians love to quote it but they don’t understand what YHWH is saying. The turning from our wicked ways is not just protesting against abortion or gay marriage. It’s not keeping pagan holidays that were originally dedicated to other gods in worship of Him and any other violation of the commands.
I cover all of this in detail in my new book The Red Mark On God’s Forehead (www.theredmarkongodsforehead.com), which you can find here on our ministry website.
The solution to a wicked government is repenting, crying out to God and demanding righteous leaders. When we ask God to be Lord over our nations again, He will put His “Davids” in leadership. When the people demand their own leaders, God gives us “Sauls”. It’s time for His people to humble themselves by putting their faces to the ground and telling Him we want His law of the land, not man’s law.
Darryl Weinberg
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