When Government Must Be God

What if your shepherd ended up in prison? It's happening all over.

Historically, when government grows in power and takes new ground, it almost never gives it back. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Jan Markell. Radio for the Remnant, brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries. Today we talk about the growing persecution of believers in the West, and particularly pastors who are finding themselves in prison for the faith. What if the left's hatred for people of faith or for conservatives lands on your doorstep? How will you fight back and should you?

Here is today's programming. Despite a safer at home order, this live stream video of a Tampa, Florida church service has ignited outrage and that pastor now arrested. As parishioners sit in their vehicles listening to Pastor Charles Hamilton, Greenville police surround the church parking lot.

Central Pastor Tony Spell has been formally charged by central police for violating the governor's stay at home order. Baltimore was interrupted at the service yesterday by police. The pastor says they didn't break any laws, but police say they aren't following the governor's order to keep gatherings to a minimum.

Their goal is to put on such onerous requirements that they're impossible for us to meet. Police posted this notice of public nuisance on the front doors of this church. Church choirs silenced. Singing has been banned at all church services in California. I received a call making it very clear that we as a church were in danger if we met, that if we met again that the church was in danger, that I personally was in danger, and that we were being watched.

State and federal investigators have been called in to investigate a fire they believe was intentionally set at the First Pentecostal Church. I am told that there was a message left which said, bet you stay home now, you hypocrites. America, this is a serious moment. In just these few days, we're up to $52,000. Government, it must stop.

Welcome to the program and government, it must stop. And we're going to ask this hour if you are ready for some persecution. Now that may be a terrible way to start out a program, but what if the Lord wants to put his church through some trial? And notice I did not say through the tribulation as he promises to never beat up his bride, and that would be during the literal tribulation, but he will allow his church to go through some testings and God allows his church to come under man's wrath and Satan's wrath all the time.

It just never experiences the wrath of God. So the Western church has been very blessed for centuries until quite recently. And then governments became emboldened and particularly in places like Australia, Canada, and now we're beginning to see some of this pushback in America. Liberal administrations, almost drunk with power, are now pushing righteous people to the brink and they justify the behavior because of a virus, no less.

Along with the virus has come a ton of fear instilled by authorities, by the media, by political leaders, and more. I want you to listen to the tone of this voice that's coming from law enforcement towards a pastor. I believe there's nothing more important than faith during a time like this. And as a sheriff's office we would never impede someone's ability to lean on their religious beliefs as a means of comfort, but practicing those beliefs has to be done safely. Last night I made a decision to seek an arrest warrant for the pastor of a local church who intentionally and repeatedly chose to disregard the orders set in place by our president, our governor, the CDC, and the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group. His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger. So good people just wanting to honor God by assembling together, wanting to worship, wanting to sing, wanting to fellowship, have been under attack for pretty soon going on two years, starting early March of the new year. So pastors and churches have been fined and members harassed and arrested. And the question is where is this all headed? Are vaccine passports coming for believers?

Is that going to be needed just to enter an American church, Canadian church? As one expert keeps saying, that would be Naomi Wolf, the passports spell the end of liberty in the West and surely will spell the end of the freedom that the Western church has had for a couple of centuries. My guest for the hour is the author and broadcaster, David Fierrazzo. Let me just remind you that we do carry his book, Canceling Christianity, How the Left Silences Churches, Dismantles the Constitution, and Divides Our Culture. And he also hosts the popular podcast, Stand Up for the Truth, that would be on Q90 out of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Just a heads up, and I do read his blog, I'll tell you more about that a little bit later. I'm playing at least in the early stages here off a couple of articles, one being Christians Must Prepare for More Extreme Measures. And I think you kind of picked that up on some of those soundbites I played. David, welcome back to the program. Thank you so much for having me back.

Looking forward to it. Let me just go back to my introduction, and this may catch you a little bit off guard, but do you think vaccine passports are coming? And I mean specifically here in our discussion for the church. I mean, I think they're already here in certain very blue cities, and they might be used as a weapon against believers, as a weapon, say, of intimidation, and they might be effective in keeping people out of church. Give me your thoughts.

Absolutely, they will come. And this is not because of the government. This is because corporations have gone along with the big charade, the big game.

Unfortunately, it's a dangerous game. And of course, the education system, which is government as well. But corporations, that's the fascinating part. You've got private corporations, the airline industry, for example, they are going through a battle right now with a lot of employees that don't want to take the shot. The medical community, there are nurses and doctors and workers and first responders, so they're going through this battle. This is not necessarily government.

These are corporations and other industries that are either believing the fear-mongering media, I call it panic porn, either they're believing that and feeding on that all the time, because the media, of course, only puts up the numbers of COVID cases, and you know how they've treated it in the last year and a half. They've reached their own conclusions early on. And now they're implementing policy, which is dangerous for America as a whole. It's just frustrating to us as believers, because for some reason, authorities have no problem with people attending bars or marijuana shops or even porn shops. But God forbid people enter a church. And obviously, that's when we have to conclude this really is a spiritual warfare going on. The devil has entered the foray here.

Yes, it's demonically driven. You brought up the double standard. This is why a handful of remnant pastors last year pushed back, and they've won some lawsuits, by the way, with religious freedom on their side. One of the most dangerous things, I've said this so many times, that we're experiencing not the fact that people would do evil, but the fact that we would accept when they treat one group differently than another group, and that is the discrimination against those who hold the biblical Christian worldview, and those who are Christians and pastors, church leaders, when they can get away with discriminating against us and not holding others to the same standards.

Like you just said, they're abortion businesses. Right now, by the way, you can go to a college football game or a pro game, there's tens of thousands of men, I don't see any masks, and they're huddled together, they're shouting, of course, but they're in the stadium, and now Fauci, for example, comes out recently and says, well, he's not sure, he thinks it's a good idea for us to spend Christmas with our families, and I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, what happened last year, Jan, and have we learned anything, what they did during Thanksgiving and Christmas? These double standards are hypocritical, but we've got to call them out instead of just accepting and shrugging our shoulders and saying, ah, it's just the way it is.

And you're right, I'm quoting you here, and folks, David has a website, davidfiorazzo.com. You right here, the globalist left saw last year how much they can get away with as we generally waved our proverbial white flags and gave up our churches. Historically, when government grows in power and takes new ground, it almost never gives it back, and that's to be very concerning, folks. And then you say, moreover, the enemy has been emboldened by their insatiable lust for power, their recent progress, and the general lack of resistance. Now, David, and I agree with you, but let's just clarify, there certainly were some churches in the last year and a half, almost going on year and three-fourths now, that did push back. John MacArthur pushed back some Calvary Chapels, some Baptist churches, some independent churches pushed back. I think we're perhaps saying we wished we could have seen 90% push back in the last almost two years. That we did not see.

I would have been happy with 40%. Let me give you one example of one of the church leaders, Steve Smotherman, down in Legacy Church, New Mexico. He's in Albuquerque, one of the bluest states.

It's even bluer and more progressive in their abortion legislation and other things than California. He has a big church, but he's been one that has never backed down from a political, social, moral issue. So he got in a fight, not literal fight, with the governor there, Michelle Grisham, and he was sued, and I know he won one lawsuit, but here's what he did.

He saw the double standard almost a year and a half ago, Jan, when Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which is Marxist-driven, are out there having these protests. They were rioting, they were looting, and the governor of New Mexico, and a lot of other blue state governors, were saying, Christians, you cannot go to church yet, or some of them said, all right, you got to limit your capacity to 25%. We as a church, we're going to turn away people who need to be ministered to.

Give me the chapter and verse on that. So Steve Smotherman sued the governor, and he won, because he said, here's the double standard that we have unfortunately, as a church in America, allowed to happen, and that's why they thought they could get away with it last summer, and for the most part, they did. But he said, we are going to have our weekly protest. He called his church services a protest. He said, we're going to have a Sunday morning protest, we're going to have a Sunday evening, we're going to have a Wednesday night protest, like church services. He just started terming the services of the protest, but not enough pastors did that. I know MacArthur has changed his tune over the years on religious freedom and Romans 13 and others, but there were some pastors that did, God bless them. Our church did, probably where you're at, but it's sad that overall, I write in a chapter in my book, did the church pass the COVID test? Simple answer is no.

Sadly, we did not, and are we going to learn from that? I'm going to go there in just a minute. Here's the item that's a little bit different, probably, than when we last recorded. It's different than when I recorded a year ago, and that is, what we've got going on now as I speak, are pastors being arrested and literally thrown in jail, and you've talked to them, and I want to play one real quick clip here. It happens to be Tucker Carlson talking about jailed Pastor James Coates. Tucker is actually interviewing Pastor Coates' wife.

Let's listen to this, come back, and talk about it. Pastor James Coates was arrested and sent to prison a couple of weeks ago in Canada. What did he do?

He held a church service. Coates was denied bail. Apparently, he is set to be released soon. He is still facing at least one charge. His wife, Erin, said he had a very tough time in jail.

He was placed in a two-week quarantine, only allowed to leave the cell twice for 15 minutes each time. It's a shocking story. We spoke to Erin Coates earlier about her husband's case. Here's what she told us.

Ms. Coates, thanks very much for coming on. It's hard to believe, it's shocking really, that your husband is in jail. First, how's he doing? Well, he's in prison. He's facing all the regular things you would face there, trouble with food.

And I don't even really know what to say. How is he doing? He's a shepherd. He's a Bible teacher. He's a theologian. He's not able to shepherd the people that he loves. He's not able to challenge his mind. He's not able to serve in the way that he loves to serve people. So this is hard on him.

A grown man sitting in prison for preaching a sermon. This is such obvious tyranny that I've got to ask, have any authorities in Canada come to your help? I mean, this is the ruling of one judge, but you have a lot of politicians in Alberta, are any of them coming to the rescue? Sure. I think that there's actually MPs and some MLAs behind the scenes that are trying to help us.

But other than that, I think their hands are tied. Are you Canadian? I am Canadian, yes. So you grew up in the country. Do you recognize it now? No, I don't. This is definitely not the nation that I grew up in.

What do you think happened? Well, I think we're like a boiling frog for a while. I think our freedoms have just been slowly stripped from us and so slowly over time that we didn't even realize it. And so when something like a health order is put in place that takes away your freedoms, it's not shocking to people. And it really should be shocking to people that there is a pastor in jail right now who's given his life to sacrifice and love other people to worship God, that that's not shocking to a lot of people. And it really should be. We are on a dangerous road right now.

And I think because we've just been in the pot for so long, boiling that people aren't really realizing the danger that we're facing as a nation. Throughout the United States, we've seen Christian ministers harassed because they are Christian ministers and therefore disobedient. They serve a higher power. You haven't seen this happen to people who run abortion clinics or strip bars or marijuana dispensaries.

Do you believe that's in this country? Do you believe your husband was singled out because he's a Christian pastor? Well, I have to believe that the enemy is singling him out. We have a real enemy who really hates the Lord Jesus Christ and really hates the blood body that he purchased on the cross and has given new life to. Yes, we have an absolute real enemy and he uses people to target the ministers of God. We know that through scripture. We know that through church history.

So I really believe that they are being targeted in our country. I think a lot of people watching this who would have maybe dismissed what you just said a year ago are now maybe taking it a little bit more seriously. I appreciate your coming on.

Your husband is blessed to have a wife like you. Thank you. Thank you, Tucker. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Jan Markell.

I have on the line from Green Bay, Wisconsin, David Fierrazzo. He is author of the book Canceling Christianity, How the Left Silences Churches, Dismantles the Constitution, and Divides Our Culture. And I'm playing off an article on his website. He's got many, but I saw this one particularly piqued my interest. Christians must prepare for more extreme measures. So David, your thoughts on the little clip I played. I loved that interview. She spoke more clearly than a lot of church leaders in America do with more discernment and an understanding of what's happening outside of church walls. And I'm glad he asked the follow-up question, what do you think happened?

Frog in the boiling water. People saw it or they didn't recognize it. In my opinion, in America, I'd like to call it the United States of entertainment. We have been too busy, so we don't see it. It's not necessarily that we're ignoring what's happening.

A lot of people are because they can't handle it or they choose not to get involved, but a lot of people simply are too busy. I want to share some good news. One of the pastors up there, Arthur Pawlowski, had a court case and he is not going back to prison. Now, he's been arrested three times. He was arrested on the tarmac when he flew back from America. He was doing a tour in America. He was warning churches of what is coming.

He said, you've got to be like the American eagle and take wings and fly and you've got to fight. So I really appreciated his message, but he's not going back to jail for now. But when I interviewed Pastor Tim Stevens of Calgary, who was also arrested several times and owes money in fines, he indicated to me that he thought the Canadian government was going to use either him or Arthur Pawlowski or James Coates as examples of here's what you shouldn't do.

You should not resist government. We haven't seen that to the case that they're in jail and owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. But the Canadian government can easily do that. And the question I ask in that article and other places, we talk about this on our podcast. When is that coming to America?

Yeah, exactly. Because we've seen signs already. Oh, we're seeing signs.

The signs are screaming at us. I have an article in front of me from Front Page magazine, author William Kirkpatrick, and it's titled Government is God. Let me read two paragraphs and we can comment on it here. But he says, the push to get everyone vaccinated unintentionally exposes a glaring inconsistency in a liberal politician's approach to different issues. On the one hand, they can be pro-choice on the issue of abortion. On the other hand, they don't want to have a choice about taking the vaccine. And then the author goes on to cite Kathy Hochul, who's governor of New York.

Hochul, for example, wants to mandate the jab. But at the same time, she's staunch supporter of women's right to choose abortion. Indeed, she recently sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to censor pro-life messages on Facebook. Yet she berates people who choose not to be vaccinated for, quote, not listening to God, close quote.

And I'll close here. And she says, since Hochul claims to keep in close contact with the Almighty, it's a shame that someone in the audience didn't ask her about God's opinion on the politicians who promote abortion. Is God OK with pro-choice politicians? Still, progressives have not yet entirely excluded Jesus from the picture, as Governor Hochul has suggested. Jesus wants us to get the vaccine. Undoubtedly, Hochul has a long list of things that Jesus wants us to do. The thing to remember, though, is that in the minds of Hochul and other liberals, Jesus is not just our brother.

He can also be usefully employed as our big brother. Your thoughts, David? Big brother, government. There's something about these progressive Catholics that they're allowed a free pass. It's not just the issue of abortion. This one happens to be a religious freedom issue that apparently Jesus said the shot is divine. The vaccine is of God. We didn't get that message. It's amazing they get away with this hypocrisy, a double standard.

Even within the Catholic Church, they are divided on these issues. So she came right out and said, if you get the jab, you are one of the smart ones. Of course, the unvaccinated masses just aren't listening to what God wants. I love that quote. I highlighted a lot of that article. We are going to see more of this. Part of this comes back to the double standard. But let's get back to the foundation. We have to recognize, I'm not calling these people demons. However, we know the Antichrist spirit of the ages is well at work. We know there's a demonic agenda that's being driven through our government, through the major institutions, and the church is being impacted by this.

When these very influential power elites, I call them, they are Democrats, but yes, they are Catholic. It confuses a lot of people. I'm surprised she didn't get more pushback with what she said. In our circles, we were going, yeah, right, she hears from God.

Yeah, there's this hypocrisy going on. We've got to continue to expose the deeds of darkness and use the Bible to share what our side is, whether it be life or religious freedom, standing up for the truth, whether that be marriage, whether that be God and creation, because gender is one of those issues people are surprisingly confused about. We've got to stay true to the Word of God. This is you, David.

I want to just play, it's a very short, less than a minute clip. You're saying here that we should prepare for worse measures. And I think we need to talk about that simply because whether it be you or myself on this program or you want to stand up for the truth, say Christians prepare for tougher times. And by that, I mean, we're playing clips from pastors who are in jail.

I think we need to offer some counter to that and also some comfort and encouragement. Christians must prepare for more extreme measures. Pastor Archer Pawlowski was arrested again this week as he returned to Canada after a four-month visit to America. He'd been visiting churches and warning about the perils of a socialist country, about tyranny, and about increasing religious persecution. Now, in several cases across North America, not only pastors, but some congregants have been arrested and fined for being in church services.

In Australia, churches there were fined for not scanning people's phones as they entered. And some pastors fear the government will soon require proof of vaccination in order to get in to attend church. So should Christians submit to this? I think I need to see chapter and verse on that one. I agree with you, but let's try to answer your question. It may be rhetorical. Should Christians submit to this?

Should Christians be willing to show vaccine passport? Who knows how far they're going to take this? I think they're going to take it a long, long way. How do we push back? There's two things. You have to look at it from either the church leader's perspective and you have to look at it from the average layperson, the congregant, someone else who is just attending that church. But we have to go back to the scriptures in Hebrews in Acts 2 42. The Bible says believers in Christ are to come together regularly.

Why? To minister, to hear God's word, pray, equip the saints, make disciples, have communion, have fellowship with like-minded believers, and that's impossible to do at home sitting there watching a video. Understand this, that's our call. We are to be together, we are to encourage one another, strengthen each other, and then go out of church assembly and minister. Now here's the pastor's issue. We have not been fully equipped.

Here's what I think. A lot of pastors signed up for teaching, maybe being a shepherd, maybe administrating, but they didn't sign up for the spiritual warfare. They did not sign up for the opposition coming not only from the outside world but sometimes coming from right within your own flock. Jude, it said, contend for the faith. But they need to understand it's not going to change, it's only going to get worse, and your congregation is looking to you for guidance. Leaders lead.

We need strong, bold men of God equipped with the word themselves so they can equip others. Now when it comes to this issue of whether we should go along with showing your card, it's funny that I said that. Show your papers to get into church, whether that's on your iPhone, showing that you've been vaccinated, what are we allowing to happen?

This is how they do it. More and more people go along with it. Well, yeah, I do want to go to church, but I personally don't think that should be our attitude. I think we need to push back. We need to encourage our pastors in a loving, respectful way to confront these issues and push back, whether that be against power-hungry government or whether that be against evil coming at the church. We need to encourage our leaders to lead, to be examples to the congregation.

Right now I think we are at a shortage of those leaders, the watchmen, those who would stand up in this country, and we need to just encourage those we have. And if you don't, we don't have time, friends, to play church. Find another church where the teaching is solid, the whole counsel of God, and they are addressing these issues, informing and equipping their congregations, and then we'll deal with the government intrusion. Folks, a church is just not possible if, for whatever reason, there's not the church that someone really needs to have in their community.

I mean, a home fellowship would be better than no fellowship is all I'm saying. We need one another, particularly at this time in history. We're carrying David's book, Canceling Christianity, and How the Left Silences Churches, Dismantles the Constitution, and Divides Our Culture. David, when you wrote this, which had to be at least a year ago and maybe even more than that, did you have any idea how serious things were going to get a year, year and a half later? I didn't see the specifics, but because I've been writing about this for years, I'm not surprised by any of it, I just didn't know how they were going to do it. We have to go back and understand they let the cat out of the bag during the Obama administration, and by the way, when he was campaigning, he said, we're going to fundamentally transform the United States of America, and you've got Rahm Emanuel said, we will never let a serious crisis go to waste, and that is one of the things in their playbook.

They will never let a serious crisis. This goes for the UN, it goes for the great reset, it goes for what's happening in our own government and the left, so I knew they were going to use this. I didn't know how, but the restrictions, the lockdowns, the masks, all the mandates, I said, yeah, it's par for the course, but when the church responded the way it did, I was disappointed. We don't know what true persecution is in this country.

We've been the anomaly throughout world history, and that we've had the freedoms that we've enjoyed and sadly have taken for granted. I just came across this scripture today from Daniel chapter 11, when those who do wickedly against the covenant, he shall corrupt with flattery. I'm reading verse 32, but the people who know their God shall be strong. Those who knew their God made a stand for righteousness in the face of incredible persecution, but the truth is, they made that and they knew there was a cost. Antioch IV is said to have killed tens of thousands of Jews, taken 40,000 more as prisoners. He sold another 40,000 as slaves.

He plundered the temple, robbing it. This is what happened, but there were a remnant who said, we know what the Bible teaches, we know our God. Of course, back then it was the scriptures, we know our God and we will stand, and they knew they're facing incredible persecution. And here in America, we read it in the scriptures, we hear about it in the Middle East and in other countries, but we don't really recognize it as much, but I think we better prepare because we can't say, okay, that could never happen in America. Whether that be persecution, socialism, putting pastors in jail, we can no longer say that. So we've got to have a grasp on our understanding of persecution historically.

Here's where I want to go here in part two of my programming. I'm not leaving this particular topic yet, but I'm going down a little side path here, and that's the intolerance of you and me and other believers online. Censorship, freedom of speech almost gone online, which is seriously affecting ministries, seriously affecting churches for that matter, when some of the big tech outfits just won't let us talk about some things that are very important. I want to talk about that for a few minutes anyway on the other side of a very short time out, folks, so don't go away.

I'm coming right back. We hope you'll stay in touch with us online through OliveTreeViews.org. That's OliveTreeViews.org. You can call us central time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. Write us through the mail at Olive Tree Ministries and Jan Markell, Post Office Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

All gifts are tax deductible. In an age of fake news and false teaching, thank you for trusting Understanding the Times Radio. This ministry, as well as Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, California, and Pastor Jack Hibbs, presented a powerful Prophecy Conference back on Saturday, September 11th. Speakers included Pastor Jack Hibbs, Amir Sarfati, Jan Markell, Pastor Barry Stagner, and Michelle Bachman. We are now offering DVDs of this insightful day.

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Sign up at our website. Let's spread the good news that He is coming soon, and let's occupy until He comes. These are people who are globalists, power elites. These are people that do not have our freedoms or our best interests at heart. They are against the system in America, meaning capitalism, meaning our constitution, meaning our religious freedoms. These are people that are driven by the demonic agendas and the communist policy that we're seeing implemented, and the openness to say, yeah, we're going to build back better. The left has every intent on silencing the church and silencing you. They will stop at nothing with their efforts at wiping out Christianity in North America and other places used to freedom. How do we fight back?

Is it too late? Here's the conclusion of today's programming. Melbourne pastor Paul Furlong has been arrested three times and placed in solitary confinement for opening his church during the lockdowns. The reason I did was for what I believe was a greater law, and that was to obey the Word of God.

And so I had to choose God's law over man's law. This church in Sydney shown before the lockdown was raided and fined for holding what authorities called an illegal service and for not scanning people's phones before they entered. Some pastors are now concerned that the government could require a vaccine passport before entering a church. Prepare for some tough times ahead. Title was Christians must prepare for more extreme measures. Well, that's a little bit ominous sounding, but it's also realistic. I've already played a couple of clips about pastors being arrested.

I have one more if time allows. I'll play Pastor Pawlowski, who was in jail. Thankfully, I think he's out now. But what's going on in Canada is startling. What's going on in Australia, you know, I talked about that a couple of weekends ago is startling. What's beginning to happen in America for the last year and almost three-fourths now is mind-numbing almost, at least the early evidence of where some of the persecution, which began as soft persecution, it's getting harder and harder all the time. A lot of churches were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is perhaps a year ago. And then further antagonism came to pastors and leaders of various churches across all of North America. David, as I said to you during the break, I'm hearing from a lot of people by way of email, and they're telling me that they now attend the First Baptist Church of Woke in whatever you fill in the blank city all across North America. What happened was they left their church.

It shut down, actually, sometime in 2020 and even early part of 2021. And it was a sound Bible preaching church. They came back and in the pulpit suddenly was not, you must be born again. But hey folks in the pews out there, you're too white. This wokeness, it's one thing to hit corporate America, but when it hits the pulpit, it's devastating.

Yes, and we weren't ready for it. It goes back to the beginning of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. It's Marxist-driven and they're against every aspect of the biblical worldview when it comes to what we believe about salvation. There's no redemption in wokeness.

There's no salvation. They only point to either revenge or envy or coveting. It's just the survival of the fittest, but they have to take it out on someone. Someone has to be the oppressor. Someone has to be oppressed. We're in a dangerous time because a year ago when this all got going, a lot of Christians wanted to show their virtue, and I'm shaking my head when I say this, instead of going to the Bible and understanding that we are all one in Christ and the cross is the great equalizer, instead of going to what the Bible teaches about redemption, we have to feel good in our culture. We have to have the approval of man. So one of the debates in my own church at that time was about whether we should lock arms with these people and go out on the streets and protest, and that divided a lot of us.

Okay. Wokeness took off. Jen, I think it's disappointing to a lot of us who have been paying attention, and to a lot of your listeners, I'm sure they don't know how to respond to this. So you can just encourage them to try to take people back to the Bible. How did you come to this conclusion, ask them, this social justice activity or something you think is a virtue, is this good for the whole country? One example is, there was a poll done, I don't remember what outlet did it, but 60% of people under 45, they said all the things that were happening on the streets, cities were burning, it was Minneapolis. They said the violence, the stealing, thou shalt not steal, the protesting, they were justified because it was for a good cause. So this dangerous thing, when that mentality seeps into the church, how can you justify sin?

You can't. But here's where we are, so we need to know how to respond to these things. While I have the extra moment here, I think I'd like to play Pastor Pawlowski. Remember folks, this gentleman spent a fair amount of time in prison.

Let me just play this and he can tell his story. I'm playing these clips and you're hearing of some of the difficulties going on, particularly Australia, Canada, coming to America. When we hear the earnestness and the heartfelt pleas of these pastors or their wives, in the case of the Tucker Carlson clip, you hear the concern these shepherds have for their sheep, except they're stuck in jail. They can't do a whole lot there.

Is this coming to a suburb near you? I don't know. I have a feeling it probably is because we have an administration that is drunk on power. The entire left is drunk on power.

I don't care what nation they're in. They're completely out of control because they're in love with control. And the way that they exercise their control is to step on good people.

And right now, first in the crosshairs of their bows and arrows would be people like you and me. Pastor Archer, it is so unbelievable for Americans. And I would imagine for many, if not most Canadians, it's almost unimaginable that here we have a pastor who leads a flock of Christians at church. We have a pandemic that when we can get into a debate on another time and another show about whether or not this pandemic is real and what its survivability rate is and all of that nonsense, but you keep your church open and you say no to the tyranny. And you say yes to the living God. And you allow your doors to be open.

You allow your people to come in and worship, which for us in America is a fundamental right, the freedom and expression of religion. But you were arrested. You were arrested because you kept your church open. You were put in jail in solitary confinement. There's no one out there that hasn't heard of you.

And then you come to America and you try to warn us and you do warn us. And you're arrested again just this week. Now I understand that I hope you had just tremendous support this time and that the authorities have relented and they released you. I know that you still face charges.

Can you give us an update as to what your situation is right now and what you're facing? So people get to know me. I mean, I have been fighting the tyranny for the past 16 years, 2005, when I was told feeding the homeless, preaching the gospel, congregating, reading the Bible, it's illegal. 2006, I was arrested for publicly reading the Bible in a public park. That triggered my fight against the tyranny.

And I won in 2015. And then they left me beef a few years until a new method came, a method of medical tyranny. They have found out that they can push this craziness on all of us using invisible enemy.

I call this an invisible enemy because if the Russians would attack where to shoot, when the Chinese forces would come, you know where to shoot, but how you fight an invisible enemy. So I have to admit, they were very clever. They came and they arrested me after I kicked those Nazis out. I told them, get out from our church, come back with a warrant, which they did. They found a few crooked judges, one judge, David Gates, that gave them the power to come in into the church any time of the week, any time of the hour with whomever they want to come.

And they could arrest me using any force deemed necessary. So he has given them a card, bloodshed to do with me, whatever they want. They showed up with anti-terrorists. We kicked them out again. They showed up again. And then eventually I was arrested in the middle of the highway. They waited for the people to go home. And when I was driving back to my house, I was arrested with my brother, David, thrown in solitary confinement, later on taken to prison, stripped naked, chained to my legs.

I mean, shaft on the wall, craziness, a Nazi communist style. And then I was charged with my brother, David, for, listen to this, inciting people to come to church, officiating church service and participating in illegal gathering. I have been found guilty with my brother, David, potentially I am facing four years prison if the judge wants to throw a book at me. So I decided to come to the States. I shared my story. I did my best to warn you, to scare as many people as possible, whatever they're doing to me, they're going to do to you unless you rise up, stand up and you help me to get out of this. So I've met amazing people like you and others that promise me when that happens, when I'm in trouble again, they're going to come to the rescue.

So I decided to come back home after almost four months of being away from my family. And our lawyers contacted the authorities and they ask, is there any pending charges? Is there any warrants on Arthur Polosky?

They said, no, they lied. And they ambushed me Russian style. David, this is Canada. You're sitting what, two hours from Canada.

I'm four hours from Canada. How soon does this encroach across the border that we're very close to? Part of that depends on the reaction of the church to the next extreme measure, whether that be a lockdown or a mandate or whatever will affect churches worshiping together. I think it depends a lot on how we respond. There's too many of us, but not enough are pushing back. And I wanted to say one thing about how we can respond. We need to be able to ask questions when they come up with whether defending the shutdowns, Black Lives Matter, critical race theory. We need to ask someone what that means to them. Now, assuming that we're talking to a Christian, how do they reach that conclusion? Can you explain to me the worldview behind what's going on?

What are the foundations? The one thing we need to recognize, communist policy. One of the things we got here was the redefinition of tolerance.

They'd played that card for a couple of decades, but one thing they did was start shutting down our speech. There's a quote by Richard Feynman. He's a physicist. He said, I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

Very important in this public debate on whatever issue it is. Now, when you're talking about pastors being arrested for wanting to hold church services, that's pretty hostile toward the Christian worldview. No surprise. I think we just really have to understand who are we in North America to say that God couldn't bring persecution. We need to come to terms with that and not fear, because fear is not of God. We've not been given a spirit of fear, but we can stand against this like all the great men of God and women of God in the scriptures. And there will be persecution.

We're guaranteed. I mean, read 2 Timothy 3, which you refer to often in your programs. The times are here, difficult, perilous. We have to understand what's happening and how to respond. But when they shut down our speech, this is something that I think we're all coming to terms with, frustrated by.

And it's a sign of communist policy. It is. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Jan Markell. I have on the line from Green Bay, David Fierrazzo. You can learn more at DavidFierrazzo.com.

We carry his latest book, Canceling Christianity, How the Left Silences Churches, Dismantles the Constitution, and Divides Our Culture. You can find that in my online store, OliveTreeViews.org. OliveTreeViews.org. Call my office. Get on our newsletter list.

Print an E. And we'll get a copy out to you very, very quickly. And you're right, David. You referenced verse or two there. Obviously, 2 Timothy 3 says, Those last days are going to be very troubling, perilous, reckless. Men are going to be brutal. Their consciences will be seared.

Romans 1, they're going to be given a debased mind. So I know we see that in Washington. I think we see it in Hollywood. And now we're seeing it just about everywhere.

I wanted to head to a similar area, but a little bit different. And you do write about it. And that's this intolerance of us online, the blatant censorship.

I know many, many ministries, and so do you, who have had to drop off of traditional tech and present everything on their own websites until those websites get taken down as well. Because there's just no tolerance left for any kind of a Christian conservative message. And since you write about it, why don't you comment? Then I'm going to quote you here in an article or two you've written. Thank you to Harbingers Daily, who published that and many other articles that I've written. That one was called Censorship is Here in the Company for Christians. By the way, the chapter in my book is Beyond Bias, a One Party, and you know what party that is, not the Communist Party, but it's the Democrat Party, a One Party, big tech media conglomerate.

I mentioned to you in the article, people I've had on the podcast, Mike Lindell, Heidi St. John, the busy mom, who's now running for Congress in Washington, God bless her, Mike Gendron, John Haller, Kevin Sorbo, the list could go on. But a lot of these men and women of God have been censored in some way. Remember, when they only allow one view, if they will not allow an opposing view, that is communist policy when they put out their propaganda, and they only allow, for example, the Jen Psaki and the White House press. They're not even allowing questions. Sometimes Biden, I've seen him laugh and walk away.

Would they have allowed Trump to get away with that? So a lot of these friends, ministry leaders, men and women of God, now these happen to be influencers. They are Christians, they are trying to engage culture, make a difference, speak the truth, not back down. These are the ones that are getting either silenced, suppressed, shadow banned by these big tech media conglomerates, whatever they're doing to limit the voice of Christians. You write on the topic we're talking about, threats to our religious liberty were subtle a few decades ago, but then came the discrimination, the propaganda, the intolerance of the left and the politically correct mob, and now cancel culture. But more Christian Americans are fed up. Many of us have decided the more the culture tries to silence us, the more we will fight to speak the truth. And then you say, community guidelines, medical misinformation, hate speech, double standards, content no longer available, posts didn't follow our standards. I've heard enough.

So have a majority of Christians, pastors and ministry leaders. Censorship isn't coming for you sometime down the road if you dare speak the truth. It's here, friends. And I will speak up right now myself because I've experienced it numerous times, the ministry has anyway. You have a good word, David, for those who are listening who are absolutely agonizing here with us. Keep fighting.

Never back down. Would you be willing to allow your account to be deleted and then move on to the next platform, whether that be Rumble or Gab or so many others that have come on now, all platforms, and find other ways. Go back to email. Remember email? Go back to calling people on the phone.

Remember those days? We're also about this digital platform. But remember, they are going to continue to do this once we've given them ground. Chances are they're not going to back away or allow us to come back on these platforms if you continue to do what they don't want you to do. Remember, keep fighting. Don't back down.

Expect them to silence you. Understand a lot of people are aware of what's going on. And we just need to keep in the battle here. Let me just say one thing. We have to make a decision, Jan, what kind of Christian we're going to be. Meaning, are we going to apply the overused words of salt and light? What does that really mean to be in our culture and influence and change and let the aroma of Christ wherever we go?

I think of the Church of Laodicea. I wanted to mention this because these verses jumped out at me again recently when I was reading Revelation chapter three. Jesus reproves and disciplines those he loves.

I think we don't like discipline, but we need it. In Revelation 320, you're very familiar with these verses. He's pictured standing outside the church. And a lot of people use this as an evangelical verse to unbelievers. This is written to churches. Jesus is outside the church. He's calling the church to repentance.

It's got to start with the individual. Think about Jesus knocking. And by the way, earlier in that chapter, Revelation 3, 15 and 16, he says, I wish you were either hot or cold because you are lukewarm. I will spit you out of my mouth. Sounds pretty graphic.

What did he mean by that? I believe that Hierapolis had some cool springs there during that time, and over in Colossae that had hot springs. But Laodicea had this underground aqueduct system. Apparently, the water was kept lukewarm, and it really wasn't clean.

Visitors would come to Laodicea, they would drink the water, and their first reaction? They would spit it out. But when he said these words, they knew exactly what he was talking about. He said, Jesus will spit you out of his mouth.

That's pretty frightening if you're a believer to hear that. We would rather be passionate about the things of God, or else ignore him and be cold. But he says the lukewarm, he absolutely cannot stand. Please, friends, I know that we all know people that are lukewarm. We need to encourage them lovingly, challenge them.

It won't be popular. They will be defensive first, because no one likes to be reproved, rebuked, disciplined, or challenged to pursue God with greater passion, and that's being hot and not cold. And then you write, I'm staying in the genre we're talking about, the left can't win arguments and debates because their policies are awful and their worldview is warped. They rejected God, so they now have to silence those who disagree with him, who hold to a biblical worldview.

This is where you and I come in. Then you say, I've contacted over a dozen pastor friends and conservative leaders of Christian ministries or nonprofits for your particular article here. Almost every single one of them said similar things about why they were banned, censored, deleted, or warned by big tech or social media platforms. It comes down to intolerance of the biblical worldview. And here, David, you're talking about the Antichrist culture, and I think that's exactly what we're dealing with.

Now, no one would have predicted a few decades ago that a pastor could be put in prison for having a church service, or as the Canadian agency described the offense, quote, organizing an illegal in-person gathering, end quote. The more an Antichrist culture and its ruling elites try censoring and silencing believers in Christ, the more undaunted we must be in our loving, respectful resistance. Know the Word of God.

Use wisdom, common sense, and do what's best under God for your family, church, and community. Paul wrote to believers in one of the early churches in Galatians 1 verse 6 saying this, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. David, I'm going down a totally different path here, and we're down to about five minutes or so, and you're writing about this, and I'm talking about it all the time, because I just think it's such a factor in 21st century life as we're about to head towards a new year, and that's this World Economic Forum.

They're going to build back better. Again, that's communists. But who had a campaign slogan that was exactly the same but Mr. Joe Biden?

You write about that, and you talk about it in Canceling Christianity as well. What do you think is going on here? One thing I've noticed is they're not afraid to admit it anymore. They're not afraid to use communist slogans.

This is absolutely amazing. First of all, the obvious thing, to build back better. What does that mean? That means something has to be either deconstructed or dismantled or destroyed before you can build it back. Here's what Jen Psaki said recently in a press briefing. She said, the president wants to make fundamental change in our economy and fields coming out of the pandemic is exactly the time to do that. That's one area they're working on destroying, dismantling the World Economic Forum. These are people who are globalists, power elites. These are people that do not have our freedoms or our best interests at heart. They are against the system in America, meaning capitalism, meaning our constitution, meaning our religious freedoms. These are people that are driven by the demonic agendas and the communist policy that we're seeing implemented, and the openness to say, yeah, we're going to build back better. I hope more people are paying attention, Jen, and understanding. We've got to connect the dots. We can't just say, well, that's just a coincidence. Biden and his administration, his handlers, they don't know really the background of build back better. Yes, they do. And they do want to rebuild America in their own image.

They want to mold it and their liking. And it's certainly not a Christian or Judeo-Christian influenced America. Be sure to look up David's podcast, which is five days a week out of Green Bay, and that's StandUpForTheTruth.com. David, let's kind of wind this down.

Let me ask you a question, totally not within my notes, but in that you're doing daily podcasts, you're obviously hearing from lots of people by email or however they contact you. What is the number one or two burden right now as they see things crumbling? What are they writing you about?

If they could change in a heartbeat, what would it be? The first question we get is how can we respond when they're threatening to fire us for not taking the vaccine? We're getting so many, and we're referring them to Liberty Council and others, but that's coming. And religious freedom has probably been the number one concern or issue over the last year and a half for obvious reasons. The other thing, Jan, I think you can probably testify to this as well. A lot of people email us or call and say, where can we find a church who they have sound doctrine?

And the pastor is a good teacher, verse by verse, and believes in Bible prophecy, teaches the whole counsel of God, but also addresses political issues, cultural, social, who also addresses what's happening outside of church walls. That's one of the main questions I get from people. The part one that you were talking about there, the vaccine mandates, folks losing their jobs. This is obviously the crisis of 2021. I didn't think I'd ever see the day where tens of thousands and ultimately millions are being unemployed because they don't want a foreign body put into their body. This is a tragedy to watch this happen.

I'm sure you feel the same. Yeah, it's fascinating, Jan, and it's not like this massive plague that's impacted the whole world, this pandemic, and I'm not just comparing it to the flu. However, the flu seems to have been cured, at least in the last year. Numbers are way down for the flu, but this is not some great thing that's absolutely spreading through, wiping out millions and millions of Americans.

It's not. If that were the case, I would go, yeah, maybe it might not be so bad to take this vaccine, but that's not the case. People are doing their own research. They're going to certain doctors. They're finding information out there about either vaccines, what's in them, so many different things they're struggling with because these are just normal questions any citizen would ask years ago before all this came on the scene.

We would simply ask health decisions for your own family, but now it's not so simple anymore because we've got this pressure, like Arthur Polowski said, and many of us have said medical tyranny is here. David, thank you so much for all you do. My clock is telling me we are totally out of time. Let me just go out with a little saying I use now and then. When you need the wall to fall, the sea to part, the mountain to move, and by the way, millions of you need the mountain to move right now, the rain to start, the chains to break, the enemy to flee the storm to cease the victory. Our mighty, awesome, faithful God has got you covered. Say, I want to thank you for listening, folks, and we will talk to you again next week. We get our mail when you write to Olive Tree Ministries in Jan Markell, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

All gifts are tax deductible. It is a privilege and a challenge to be born for such a time as this. The pieces of the puzzle are lining up and everything is falling into place.