This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on Sept. 7, 2021. To listen to the program, please click HERE.
Dave Kistler: Well, ladies and gentlemen, you may or may not know this, but on July 4, 1776, we not only declared our independence from England but the Continental Congress also appointed Ben Franklin and future presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to form a committee to design what they call the Great Seal for America. On the front side of that seal is the well-recognized eagle clutching in talon 13 arrows representing the 13 colonies, and in the other talon an olive branch symbolizing our desire for peace.
On the back or what is sometimes called the reverse side of the Great Seal is the pyramid with the well-known words Annuit Coeptis, which means he, referring to God, he has favored our undertakings. What you may not know is that the reverse or the backside of the Great Seal originally proposed by Ben Franklin was something quite different. In fact, he submitted the image of Israel crossing the Red Sea being pursued by pharaoh’s army.
A pillar of fire can be seen in the background of Franklin’s original design. And the image included the waters of the Red Sea converging on the Egyptians and drowning them. And around the outside edge of the circle of the seal were the words “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Well, with all of that, I want to welcome you to Stand in the Gap today. I’m Dave Kistler and I’m delighted to be your host today. And I’m joined by longtime and dear friend, Dr. Gary Dull, and a very special guest whom I’m going to introduce momentarily.
But before I do so, I want to explain this. In the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson, these words are found. And I’m quoting, “…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them…”, and if I might just insert this, the ‘them’ is the people, “…under absolute despotism, it is their right, that is the people’s right, it is their duty to throw off such government…”, end quote.
Well, that phrase in the declaration has been called for attributing the following statement to Thomas Jefferson. That statement is this. “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”. Well, friends, from the statements I’ve read to you from these founders, it should be abundantly clear that they view tyranny as purely evil, in resistance to that tyranny as an obligation. So that’s going to form the basis for our program today. And our topic is going to be this, resisting tyranny, when and how.
And here to help us with our discussion is Chris Hughes. He’s founder and president of Citizens for America Foundation. He is an author, he is a speaker, he has traveled the length and breadth of the United States and literally around the globe. And he is also the host of his own podcast called the Christian Perspective. And this past Thursday, it was my honor and delight to be on that program with him. And so, Chris, I’m going to delay formally welcome you to the program because I want to go to Gary for just a second before I go to you. And Gary, I want you to do something. I want you to define the word tyranny so we understand what we’re talking about when we talk about resisting tyranny.
Gary Dull: Well, Dave, when I think of the word tyranny, I think of what James Otis said back in 1761. And that is taxation without representation is tyranny. He also said in 1764, that tyranny of all kinds is to be abhorred, whether it’d be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many. And, of course, with that, as a background, the word tyranny basically means cruel and oppressive government or rule. It could refer to a nation under cruel and oppressive government. But I would define it simply as cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.
And I think that that’s what tyranny is. And it’s interesting, brother Dave, I know that you are familiar with Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. And he wrote this in one of his sermons. He says, “A spirit of domination is always to be guarded against.” And then he goes on to say, “Civil tyranny is usually small in the beginning, like a drop in a bucket, till at length like a mighty torrent or a raging wave of the sea, it bears down all before it, and deluges whole countries and empires. From small beginnings, it exalts itself above all, which is called God, and that is worshiped.” I think that’s a pretty good description of tyranny by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew as well.
Dave Kistler: Gary, outstanding definition and, wow, bringing in the Mayhew quote, very, very powerful. Well, Chris, I want to welcome you to Stand in the Gap today. It’s a delight to have you, my friend. I know you’re a student of history. You’re a student of the constitution and the Bible. You understand freedom, but you also understand tyranny.
So I want to pose this question to you. Are we witnessing right now in the United States tyranny being committed by our leaders? “Are we witnessing as an example of the abandonment of citizens in Afghanistan, the state department, their resistance to getting citizens out and the egregiously overarching mandates of the government with respect to masking and vaccination COVID protocols? Is all of that a form of tyranny that we’re witnessing currently?
Chris Hughes: Well, Dave, first, thank you for letting me be a guest today on Stand in the Gap. And thank you for your ministry that reaches all across the nation of the world. I sure appreciate it. So Dave, we’re definitely living in trying times. Today, the government is continuing arbitrary closures of our churches, our schools, and even a lot of businesses. When you look at Congress, there’s zero bipartisanship in Congress right now, which means they’re creating legislation without any committee work, which means we’re not really truly being represented with what’s coming out of Congress.
There have been a flood of executive orders. And I got to tell you, I’m not a big fan of executive orders. And I think it’s funny that this is coming from President Joe Biden, who when he was a senator, and even when he was candidate running for president, he called executive orders the work of a dictator. When you look at the Democrat Party, they’re mimicking King George. You mentioned the revolutionary times, remember King George and the Tories, were mimicking that time by favoring a remote government. In other words, it’s in Washington, DC, they’re pushing for an all powerful central government that dictates people’s lives.
And Dave, you know this. This is not how our founding fathers set up our government. It was intended to be a local government, not some distance government in Washington, DC that’s dictating and that’s how our government is running today. Just like our founding fathers saw in the 1770s, today we have an elite ruling class. And what really bothers me is the unaccountable bureaucracy or what President Trump called the swamp is wielding the true power. And those who support the founders’ constitutional principles of individual rights and limited government are being canceled across our nation today.
Dave, you asked if we’re witnessing tyranny, let me list some of the things that could be considered tyrannical in our government today. We’re beginning to see the push for a national police force. And I really think that’s what the Black Lives Matter mess across the country was last year. They’re making a push to do away with local police forces. And I think they in the back of their minds would like to have a national police force. There are those who want to abolish our freedoms under the Bill of Rights. And yet the Second Amendment is one of their favorite targets to go after. You mentioned COVID. They’ve used COVID to create what they call an emergency state. And with the declaration of emergency state, they’ve justified all types of per curiam paragraphs. They’ve used this to circumvent the constitution system of checks and balances.
Dave Kistler: Chris, I’m going to hold you right there, my friend. And you are so on target. It’s unbelievable. But we’ve got to go into a hard break. Ladies and gentlemen, when we come back, you’re going to hear about a major victory against tyranny as well as a discussion on how we resist that which is tyrannical coming from our government that Chris has just so powerfully described. Join us after the break. You’re listening to Stand in the Gap.
Dave Kistler: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Stand in the Gap today. This is Dave Kistler joined today by Dr. Gary Dull and special guest Dr. Chris Hughes. We’re going to be coming to both Gary and Chris momentarily, but our topic today is one of the most important ones we’ve ever addressed on this program. And it is this, resisting tyranny when and how. And in segment one, we had Gary defined and, boy, he did a phenomenal job defining what tyranny is. The founders of our country in the Declaration of Independence stated what they called tyranny and they addressed it as trying to be reduced under absolute despotism.
And Gary’s definition of tyranny went right along with that of the founders of this country. Well, what I want to do at this point, ladies and gentlemen, because we are facing tyrannical leadership, both on the federal level, sometimes on the state level and certainly on the local level, what I want to do is give you an illustration of how there can be victory over tyrannical leaders. One of the most courageous and biblical pastors in America has been and continues to be Dr. John MacArthur. He’s the pastor of Grace Community Church in California.
And last year, the state of California, the city where his church resides and the health officials of the state ordered Grace Community Church to shut its doors during the pandemic. Well, Dr. MacArthur refused to do so, stating that he and the church had both biblical and constitutional basis for resisting such an order. Well, about a week ago, Grace Community Church won a settlement to the tune of $800,000 against the state of California. And this past Sunday, Dr. MacArthur addressed the victory over the tyrannical state of California and even some of the local egregious mandates. And I want you just to listen to a few minutes of his statement to his congregation, because it’s cause for rejoicing but it’s also very, very educational. Tim, let’s listen to the clip.
John MacArthur: Well, good morning to everyone. We welcome you to this beautiful Lord’s day morning, excuse me, to Grace Community Church. And normally, we would begin singing right away. But this is a bit of a special day and I want you to be able to enjoy the celebration as a congregation. So I want to give you a little bit of information. You may have heard that this past week, the state of California, the county, the city, the health department, entered into a settlement with our attorneys. And that case is completely settled as of now.
You can read about it in Grace Today, but I thought I’d give you a little bit of a rundown on some of the milestones over the last year or so. It was last July 23rd, 2020 when we wrote an article called Christ, not Caesar, Is Head of the Church. That was our declaration that we would follow Jesus Christ and where the government told us to do something he told us not to do or the government told us not to do something he commanded us to do, we would follow Christ. And that’s the document, Christ, not Caesar, Is Head of the Church.
So, August 12th of 2020, Grace Community Church filed a lawsuit against the Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti and the others who we felt were involved in this, the county and the health department as well. What we alleged in that lawsuit was that health orders and actions violated the California constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion as well as the United States Constitution that it disallowed us to have liberties that the constitution gave us to have liberty, substantive due process, freedom of speech, equal protection under the law and separation of powers.
We didn’t do that to be rebellious. We did it to be obedient. And I’ve said this a few times. Our obedience is to Christ. We understand the sphere of government and in government sphere, we submit gladly and happily as part of our duty to God. But when government steps in and tries to tell the church what to do, it has overstepped its bounds. And that’s why we took the stand that we took.
Gary Dull: Ladies and gentlemen, that took a little while to listen to. But I wanted you to hear not only the essence of this great victory, but I wanted you to hear the reasoning behind why Dr. MacArthur and Grace Community Church did what they did. This is courageous leadership. It is pushing back against a tyrannical state government and a governor who was operating outside the bounds of his prescribed area of authority. Now, Chris, again, I want to thank you for being on the program today.
This decision by Dr. MacArthur and Grace Community Church is significant in the victory they won equally as significant, because it illustrates not only the truth that our constitution provides for us a thing called liberty, particularly religious liberty, some of the founders called it our first liberty. But there is also indeed a time when we are not obliged to obey human governmental authority. What I would like you to do, we’re going to have just a few minutes to do this. So if you can be as brief as you can, but could you cite maybe one or two biblical examples where obedience to God meant disobedience to tyrannical men?
Chris Hughes: Sure, Dave. The Bible’s full of examples of godly men and women disobeying tyrannical rulers who refused to obey God’s law. First we see in Exodus 15, when pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill the baby boys of Israel and they didn’t do it. You remember when Esther becomes queen, a law calls for the people to kill the Jews, and Mordecai asked Esther to go to the king which was against the law but she did it. And there are many more in the Old Testament. I’m going to jump to the New Testament right now and tell you the first act of civil obedience, the New Testament, when the wise men who are going to worship Jesus did not return to the kingdom when he commanded them.
In Acts 4, Peter and John are commanded to stop preaching the gospel, and they don’t do it. The very first public act of Jesus and his disciples was to break the law by picking up grain on the Sabbath. Dave, our ultimate moral guide is not the law of the land, but God’s clear command to love him and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Saint Augustine said an unjust law is no law at all. And we’re in a nation with many unjust laws right now.
Dave Kistler: Well, Chris, powerful. Gary, let me go to you. I know you remember this as do I. In fact, I remember it like it was yesterday. We did a program with Jeremy Lin early on in the COVID pandemic of the year 2020. And I remember asking Jeremy Lin, who is among the lead council with First Liberty out of Texas, I asked him about the government’s expectation that we “temporarily limit our indoor religious services.” And my question to him was this, “Jeremy, define temporary?” To which he with tongue in cheek said, “Well, temporary means not permanent.” And if you will recall, I jokingly said back to him, “Well, boy, that’s a politician’s answer to be sure.” And then I asked this, I said, “At what point would these limitations that they’re placing on us cease to be temporary and would move into the arena of the unconstitutional and even the unbiblical?”
And his reply, Gary, was this. If we are three months or let’s say six months down the road, and these restrictions are still present, then it’s no longer temporary. Well, Gary, here we are now approaching two years of these “mandates,” these restrictions, these protocols. So I’m going to ask you directly, because now we’re dealing with not just the Delta variant but the Lambda variant and now the Mu variant, and Delta, Lambda, Mu, those are letters of the Greek alphabet that they’re using to describe the various variants that are supposedly emerging. With all of this coming year, it looks like we’re facing more mandates, more restrictions, and more, “protocols.” So, I want to ask you this. Do you believe these things that we have entered into now are in the realm of the tyrannical, and do you plan on shutting your church down at all again?
Gary Dull: Again? I never did-
Dave Kistler: … to begin with, Gary.
Gary Dull: I mean, yes, I think that these things are tyrannical. There’s no doubt about it. And as far as shutting our church down or whatever the case, no, we didn’t do it in the first place. Now, we’ve restricted some of our ministry activities last year, and I guess it was the month of March or April of 2020. But no, we did not shut the church down. In fact, I can recall, Dave, that when this thing really began to develop last year, one of our deacons came to me and he said, “The government is going to make us shut down the church.”
I responded to him by saying, “No, the government won’t make us do anything. If we want to shut down the church, we will make that decision ourselves. But we’re not going to follow any of the government mandates because it is tyrannical.” And like John MacArthur said, there in his message, “Christ, not Caesar, is the head of the church.” And as pastors and leaders of the church, we must recognize that and follow biblical mandates, not governmental mandates that are anti-biblical.
Dave Kistler: Okay, Gary, let me do this, because I want to follow up on what you just said. Do you believe we are right now or maybe we’re approaching the place where we’re being pushed by tyrannical leaders right now to the point that we as not just believers in Christ but those that are citizens and understand liberty are going to have to resist much like they resisted King George’s tyrannical actions? In other words, are we at the point that the founders were at when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence after I quote long train of abuses, he has sought to reduce us under absolute despotism, referring to King George. Are we there at the point where if injustice becomes law, then resistance becomes our duty?
Gary Dull: Oh, absolutely. I think that if we’re not there, we are very close to being there. And I think I’d go so far as to say that in some areas we are there. I in the last segment referred to Reverend Jonathan Mayhew and in one of his statements, he says this, “All commands running counter to the revealed will of God are null or void. And disobedience to them is not a crime but a duty.” And I think that we need to take that into consideration in light of where we are today, brother Dave.
Dave Kistler: Well, Gary, I could not agree more. Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in perilous days. By the way, the Scripture says, “In the last days, perilous, troublesome times shall come.” So we shouldn’t be surprised by this. But the question is what are we going to do in response to it? And I believe we’re at the point like Gary, like Chris, that we do have to push back against tyrannical leaders. We’re going to take a brief timeout for some very important announcements. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the how of how we resist to tyrannical government issues.
Dave Kistler: Well, again, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Stand in the Gap today. This is Dave Kistler joined today by Dr. Gary Dull and Dr. Chris Hughes. And we’re talking about this topic, resisting tyranny, when and how. And in the last two segments, we basically talked about this, are we at a place in the United States of America where tyrannical leaders are ignoring the constitution, they’re stepping outside the bounds of their constitutionally prescribed realm of authority, and they’re requiring of us things that we really are not by the constitution obligated to give them.
And on top of that, for those of us that are Christians and believe we have our first liberty, as the founders called it religious liberty, we’re being asked to surrender things there that really the Bible does not require of us to comply with. Are we at that place? And I think you came away. If you listened to the first two segments understanding we are there where we’re at a spot where we’re going to have to push back against tyrannical actions on the part of governmental leaders, well, the question is, how do we do that?
We’re going to talk about that in this segment. But before we go there, I want to just share with you something that is vital for your understanding with respect to this topic, and that is the concept of natural law. The phrase natural law is found certainly in British common law and it was a part of the understanding of the founders of our nation and the framers of the constitution. Well, the question is what is natural law? Well, let me give you a definition. Natural law is a fundamental understanding of right and wrong.
It is the unwritten body of universal and moral principles that serve as the foundation for ethical and legal norms that govern people. Now I know that’s kind of a little bit of a technical definition. I believe it’s actually what is found in Romans chapter 2 verses 14 and 15, where the Apostle Paul says there is a law of God written in our hearts. That is how we know certain things innately. We know that certain things are right and wrong without anyone really having to tell us, much less pass a law telling us that.
We know that murder is wrong. Innately we know that. We know that adultery is wrong. We know that taking something that someone else owns that is not ours, we know innately that is wrong, because there’s something inside of us telling us that. Well, that is really what many times the founders referred to as natural law. Our founders understood that natural law teaches that the default position of men and women is freedom.
Listen to what they said in the first part of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” of course, which originally said, the pursuit of property. If that is the case, that liberty and freedom is the default position of every human being, then that which seeks to inhibit that freedom, confiscate that freedom, seize that freedom is by its very definition tyrannical.
So the founders declared independence based on this understanding, and the framers drafted the constitution based on the same understanding that liberty is our default position. And in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, we have five precious freedoms ensconced in that first amendment and they are the freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and the freedom to petition our government when our government has done us wrong. It’s called petitioning for a redress of grievances.
Anything or anyone who tries to seize, take, confiscate those liberties is a tyrant or is acting in a tyrannical manner. So the question is this. And Chris, I want to go to you. We’ve been witnessing tyrannical actions on the state, local, and federal level. My question to you is very practically, how do we push back and resist appropriately those tyrannical actions? And I’m going to suggest myself before you answer two ways we can push back. And that is we can say an unequivocal no to these vaccine mandates that are being pushed on us. And we can also say no as many parents are doing and many others are doing across the country going into the school year, we can push back and say absolutely not to these mask mandates as well. Chris, in addition to those, how can we also resist?
Chris Hughes: Well, Dave, Christian resistance ought to be recognizably Christian in nature. So, yes, we should say no to these vaccine and mass mandates, but we can do it in a godly manner. That means not being bloodthirsty or vicious. And the Bible is clear that as long as we obey a law without denying Christ or compromising our faith, we always need to try to at least cooperate with ruling powers one can. But there’s specific things that I think we can do to resist right now. Like you said, we don’t need to wear the mask or take the vaccine unless you feel comfortable with that.
But we need to educate ourselves. That is a huge problem with the church today. We’re not educated about what’s going on society today. Dave, you know this, there are tens of millions of people that profess to be Christians that are not registered to vote. We need to register our Christians and we need to have voter registration drives in our church so we can elect godly men and women to public office who we need to and then we need to hold them accountable and we elect them. We need to get to know our elected officials.
This is sponsored by the American Pastors Network. Preachers, how many of you can name your county commissioners, your school board members? How many of you have ever been to a county commissioner meeting or school board meeting? And better yet, can your school board members, county commissioners, city council members, state representative, your congressman, do they know who you are? Because they should. That way we’re not having to do some knee jerk reaction or go do something crazy, which is coming, because we’re going to have to resist forcedly may be at some point.
But we can start by making a difference with those that we elect. We need to attend school boards. Dave, and I could do a whole show on this, to me, there’s no more important elected position than our school board. Right now, critical race theory has entered our school boards. It is school boards that are mandating that children have vaccines to go to school, it’s school boards that are mandating that children wear masks, and it’s school boards that are allowing a disgusting sexualization of our children by the filth that they are teaching in our schools right now. That’s one of the easiest positions to control the election. It’s one of the easiest places to get elected. And most Christians never stepped foot in a school board meeting. So we resist… Go ahead. I’m sorry. Dave, go ahead.
Dave Kistler: No, Chris, listen. I’m loving what you’re saying because to answer your first question, I know who all my county commissioners are, and they know who I am. I know they know who you are as well and you know them. We are having all kinds of things going on in our particular county with respect to our school board and you are 100% correct. It is easy to influence the school board if we would just have more Christians run to serve on those school boards and get involved. Excellent advice. Gary, I want to go to you. Chris has covered a lot of the bases. But what additional ways can we exercise our resistance to tyrannical leadership or tyrannical governmental entities?
Gary Dull: Well, brother Dave, I have a few thoughts to share as it relates to our attitude and actions as it relates to turning against tyranny. Chris was really waxing eloquently there. I’d like to ask you, Chris, to continue what you were saying before I make my comments. So if you don’t mind, just go ahead. You were preaching. I don’t want to stop you from doing that, brother.
Chris Hughes: Well, thanks, Gary. Dave asked, when do we resist? A church and meet period God commanded us to meet. We resist when man’s laws disobey what God has called us to do. You had John MacArthur. My good friend Rob McCoy, Rob McCoy who was in California also, they threaten to arrest him. Here’s how other Christians helped him. When they decided to meet, the government said we’re going to fine everybody that comes to your church $1,000 on Sunday. People drove from three or four hours away. And over 1,000 people, Christians surrounded his church and held hands and said, “You guys go in and meet and we will take the fines. We need to support other churches.”
There’s going to come a time when this isn’t really necessarily a Christian issue. There’s a time where they’re going to try to make us give up our guns. The Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms. And in every case in history, when people have been slaughtered has come after they disarmed the people that live in that country. Another way we can resist is social media. Social media can be a great tool to educate others, and letters to the editor. And I’ll say this last one, Gary, and then I’ll stop it for you and Dave. Pastors, you need to grow a spine. Pastors listening, you need to start preaching the whole word of God, you need to inform and train your congregation, because tyranny is at our doors. If we don’t take a stand, we will lose the right to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the United States.
Gary Dull: Well, that’s basically where I was going to go, brother Chris, as it relates to pastors as well as the individual Christian right there in the pew. We need to certainly be the people with courage. Back in 2 Samuel chapter 10 and verse 12, it says, “Be of good courage and let us play the man.” And, of course, what that means is to stand up with a courageous backbone and stand for truth. Now, we do that humbly. I don’t think we should do it with the intent of flaunting ourselves. But it’s certainly important that we stand up with courage and have a teaching attitude.
What I mean by that is that, number one, I think it’s our responsibility to teach those who are in positions of authority, WDTBS. That is what does the Bible say? It’s important that we build relationships with those who are in elected office. I know, Chris, you’ve done that, Dave, you’ve done that, I’ve done that. And that’s very important. And when we go to these folks and say, well, this is what my good government is proposing but this is what the Bible says, sometimes we can see them change their attitude.
In fact, I’ve seen that happen down through the years. So with courage, we end with a humble attitude. We have that teaching attitude of teaching our leaders, biblical and constitutional truth. I think also, we need to teach our congregation the same thing. Back in the Book of Acts, chapter 5 and verse 29, it says, “Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men.” That is when they were basically told not to preach in the name of the Lord Jesus. Peter said, “We have a mandate to keep and we are going to keep it.” And so anytime the government would come down upon us, particularly as it relates to the church, we’d love to be ready to stand up, speak up for the truth, and resist when it’s necessary. That’s the only way to get out there, fellows.
Dave Kistler: Gary, Chris, one of the greatest examples of this year in the COVID year was Pastor Brian. I’m sorry I can’t remember his last name. You guys may know who I’m referring to. But he was one that led the charge with 1,000 churches in California to reopen on May 17th of 2020. And when he went to his local sheriff and said, “Sheriff, you know I’m not a rebel. But I’m also not asking your permission to do this. But we’re reopening our church.” The sheriff said, “Pastor, What took you so long? We’ve been waiting on you to lead and we would have followed your leadership.”
Listen, friends, the world is waiting on us and watching us that know Christ as Savior expecting us to lead in this situation we’re in in America. We better step up and do it. When we come back, we’re going to talk about more of how we resist.
Dave Kistler: Well, again, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Stand in the Gap today. This is Dave Kistler joined today by Dr. Gary Dull and Dr. Chris Hughes. And we’re talking about this vitally important topic, resisting tyranny, when and how?
And in segments one and two, we talked about the when portion. Have we reached the place where we’re going to have to push back against tyrannical, both federal, state and sometimes local leaders? And I think all three of us on the program today are in complete agreement. Yes, we have reached that time. But the all-important question of how do we resist is what we addressed in the last segment. And I appreciate so much the comments of both Dr. Gary Dull and Dr. Chris Hughes.
As they’ve said, when the time comes that we resist, we do it in a way that does not dishonor Christ that is in no way disobedient to the scriptures. And yet they cited both of them in earlier segments times when leaders in the early church said, “I’m sorry, we ought to obey God rather than men.” And if that applied to them, it certainly applies to us today. Before we go into this final segment in detail, I want to recommend two items to you as a listener.
One is a book and the other is a very powerful message. Let me start with a message. The message is entitled Let the Church Arise by Eric Metaxas. That message is available on YouTube. Eric Metaxas, who is a friend, has been traveling across the United States preaching in churches delivering this message. All you have to do to hear it or to watch it is simply Google the title Let the Church Arise by Eric Metaxas. And his last name is spelled M-E-T-A-X-A-S. I encourage you to watch it. It’s 43 minutes that you will spend 43 the best minutes that you will spend this year.
And then the book is entitled How Do You Kill 11 Million People by New York Times best-selling author Andy Andrews. And in Andy Andrews’ book, he poses the convicting question, how did Hitler kill six million Jews and over five million non-Jews without someone stopping him? In one chapter Andrews includes a letter from a German Christian who said this. And I’m quoting, “We discovered what Hitler was doing with the Jews, carrying them to the death camps. Our church was located near a set of railroad tracks. On Sunday mornings, we’d hear the train whistle in the distance knowing we’d soon hear the clatter of the wheels against the track. Then we’d hear the screams and cries of the women and children on their way to their deaths. So what did we do? We simply sang our hymns more loudly to drown out the cries.”
And then that German Christian concludes with this statement, “I can still hear those cries in my sleep.” Well, Chris, I want to go to you first in this segment. I don’t want to duplicate the cowardly in action of those in the German church of 1942. In fact, I will not do so. So what can and I will say even must be done by those listening to us today to preserve freedom and resist tyranny? What I’m asking you to do, Chris, is speak to the common citizen. What can the person listening to us today who’s not a pastor, not a ministry leader, they’re a citizen, what can and must they do to resist tyranny?
Chris Hughes: Well, Dave, we’ve got to engage the culture with the body of Jesus Christ. Look at what the preamble of the constitution says. It says we the people. That means it’s our fight, our job to hold off tyranny. If we have tyranny, we’re to blame because we’re America. So what do we do? We need to pray for our nations and its leaders. Look, I’m not crazy about President Biden but I pray for his salvation on a consistent basis. We need to pray for our leaders. We need to educate the next generation. We need to place Christian teachers in schools, universities, and yes, even seminaries that were filled with liberals who do not teach the word of God.
We need to get out the vote. You can’t resist and complain if you won’t even register and vote. And listen, folks, it’s going to ruffle some feathers. If your pastor won’t take a stand, if your pastor won’t preach the whole word of God and teach what’s wrong so we can resist, then you need to send him packing. Christian friends, we need to raise our voices to defend religious freedom. Because if we don’t raise them now for the protection of religious liberty, our religious liberties will be lost to tyranny. So I repeat, get registered to vote, get educated, vote, stay engaged, pray. And friends, let’s go impact the culture for Jesus.
Dave Kistler: Chris, outstanding. Gary, I want to go to you. Chris spoke to the common citizen. You’re a pastor, Gary. You’ve been in ministry for four decades plus. And I want you to address the pastors of America in your comments. What must the pastors of this nation do and do it, Gary, right now to resist tyranny?
Gary Dull: Well, I think is important, brother Dave, for pastors to recognize who has called them. It’s God who was called them into the ministry in which they are placed. And I think so often of 2 Timothy chapter 4 where we have one of the passages of scripture in the word of God where the pastor’s job description is laid out for us. And there it says in verse 2, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season. And then it goes on and says, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
I think it’s important that the pastor preach the word of God, the unadulterated word of God without compromise. And that’s important in a twofold way. And I can hear some people say, “Well, that just has to do with the spiritual.” Well, yes, it has everything to do with the spiritual. But we also understand, brother Dave, that our nation was founded on biblical principles on the Judeo-Christian ethic.
And so when the pastor stands up in the pulpit and preaches the word of God without compromise, he is going to be preaching principles that are laid out in the Declaration of Independence, principles that are laid out in our constitution, principles that are laid out in our founding documents. And as the result of that, he will be teaching his people what is truth and then be able to lead people, I believe, into the area of resisting that which is evil. And so, it’s up to the pastor to preach the word of God and bring it to bear upon where we are.
For instance, when there is a violation of the First Amendment, the pastor ought to preach from the word of God what that violation is, to bring the word of God to bear on what is actually taking place. And I want to end here today with, again, another statement, brother Dave, from Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. He said this, “That no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things inconsistent with the word and commands of God. All disobedience in such case is lawful and glorious.”
Did you hear that? “All disobedience in such case is lawful and glorious, particularly if people refuse to comply with any legal establishment of religion, because it is a gross perversion and corruption of a pure and divine religion brought forth from God to man, by the Son of God himself, the only head of the Christian church.” And so when we get into a situation where the government is leading the church or the Christian to do that, which is anti-biblical, it’s time to stand against it, it’s time to resist it. And it’s up to the preachers to lead that charge.
Dave Kistler: Gary, outstanding. Let me just say this, ladies and gentlemen, before Gary, I’m going to ask you to close our program in prayer that God will give us wisdom and God will give us courage to stand the wisdom to know when and how to resist. We talked about how to do that today. But also want to say this, the idea that life is divided into the secular and sacred is an unbiblical concept. One of the great preachers of the past said it just like this, “Life is not divided between the secular and sacred to the Christian, everything is sacred.”
That means this, my Christian faith is to be lived out in every avenue of my life, even at the ballot box and how I vote. And that is what Chris Hughes has talked about so powerfully today on the program. Gary, you have, too. Chris, I want to thank you for being on the program. We’re going to have you back, my friend. You have been a wonderful guest. And the Christian Perspective is his podcast. You can Google that and go listen to those programs. Gary, I know we have limited time here but would you do this, my friend? Would you take us to God’s throne of grace in prayer as we close the program today?
Gary Dull: Yes. And Dave, it’s great to know, it’s important to know that everything we as Christians do is sacred. Father, as we come to you today, we do thank you for the opportunity that we’ve had to do this program. Again, I thank you for brother Dave and brother Chris. But I pray for those of us who are born again believers that, number one, we will certainly understand the truth of your word, and that we will live out the truth of your word as it relates to every aspect of our life. Give us the strength and the courage to stand when it’s necessary. And we’ll give you the grace for it. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Dave Kistler: Amen. Gary, thank you so much. Friends, thank you for joining us. Our topic today has been resisting tyranny, when and how. Our special guest has been Dr. Chris Hughes. I encourage you to look him up online. The Christian Perspective, again, is his podcast. And until we meet by way of radio. Again, 23 hours from now on, I want to encourage you to stand up for truth where you are. And remember, keep looking up because the best is indeed yet to come.
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