then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. - 2Peter 2:9-10 (ESV)
Normally hindsight causes most people to approach previous misconceptions with some humility. Not so with the NAR dominionist crowd. Unless you are so detached from reality as to follow QAnon, you know the truth now about the COVID epidemic. You cannot pretend that nearly seven million people died from it. You have seen the headlines. You have heard the stories. In the apostate church system, we all saw how John MacArthur reopened his church too early, defying the government, only to contract COVID himself for over a month and watch as some of his sheep did not survive. We watched in horror as Pastor Loren Sandford mocked the very existence of COVID while his church gathered maskless and as poorly distanced as church folk usually are. His entire church contracted the virus and Pastor Loren died from it. The list goes on and on and not just in America as we outsourced our stupidity to churches in other countries, such as Canada. There, we watched the nearly comical truckers blocking highways, protesting nonsense. We also met Pastor Artur Pawlowski there.
If you are struggling to remember him that is because once the NAR extracted their pound of flesh from the man, they quickly deserted him. Pawlowski was the right-wing media darling for a few months because in the middle of the outbreak, he refused to close his church, multiple times. This is the same guy that screamed at the police who came to his church as "Nazi psychos" as he kicked them out. The government gave him opportunity after opportunity to do the right and lawful thing but at every turn he thumbed his nose at them, you know, like Jesus would have done. He purposefully stayed in prison to look more sympathetic and because he refused to agree to stop breaking the law! Well, the bill for his defiance comes due next week as he is set for trial. Charisma News is nice enough to publish the updated linked above. Let us reason once more together and not lose sight of this story as it remains very important, even as a lesson in retrospect.
"Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who has faced three years of repeated fines, arrests and imprisonments for keeping his church open during the COVID pandemic in 2020, is preparing for what he says is his "final trial" on Feb. 2 in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada and asks for believers to "pray with me that the will of God will be done." Pawlowski faces 10 and a half years in prison for what he termed in a press release as "terrorism charges, for allegedly causing harm to Canada's economy and for speaking to and for providing a sermon to Albertans whom came together to oppose the heavy handedness of their elected representatives." The first Canadian clergyman to be ticketed for alleged COVID violations, Pawlowski claims the charges against him are an attempt to criminalize his speech." - Charisma News
No Artur, they are not. It is crucial that we do not get lost in the myriad of weeds that Pawlowski and his supporters constantly want to discuss. This has nothing to do with heavy handedness, terrorism or the economy. Those may be arguments the government will try to make at trial. For example, Pawlowski did speak at the trucker blockade, which cost Canada millions of dollars. That however misses the true point as well. Canada passed laws regarding COVID and Artur Pawlowski disagreed with them. While he has the right to disagree, he has no legal right to break the laws he disagrees with. Artur Pawlowski is facing ten years because he made and ass of himself for months on end. Besides the trucker blockade and screaming at the police, Artur also made this an international political spectacle. He toured America with MAGA politicians to rail against vaccines. He has referred to judges as crooked and now is spewing hate at the new Premier, calling her weak. Pawlowski was initially guilty of the same thing as John MacArthur, Shane Idleman, and countless other America pastors who opened their church doors in petulant defiance of laws. He simply took a different tact by going after the government directly and aggressively. Make no mistake about it, Artur Pawlowski made the bed he now must lie in.
'"This is the final culmination of over 40 tickets for the COVID tyranny, the house arrest, the prison, all of that stuff," Pawlowski told Fox News Digital recently. "It's crazy stuff." In Sept. 2021, Charisma Media CEO Stephen Strang Interviewed Pawlowski for his Strang Report podcast, and spoke to the Canadian pastor about his trials and tribulations. On Twitter, Pawlowski said, the Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Appeals and Specialized Prosecutions have charged me with: "Interfering with Critical Infrastructure under the Defense Act", "mischief over $5,000" and a "breach of probation." Pawlowski quotes 2 Peter 2:9, "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from a trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment."' - Charisma News
I love when Christians who are wrong, try to leverage scripture. The key verses today are 9 AND 10, not just the verse 9 Pawlowski referenced. Here was see a declaration that God can rescue the godly from trials, and Pawlowski certainly views himself in this scenario as the godly in need of rescue. Verse ten however, provides the contrast. Who does the Lord hold over for judgment? Those that indulge in the lust of defiling passion AND, wait for it, those who despise authority! You cannot make this stuff up. Artur Pawlowski is the poster child for despising authority! He physically removed the police from his church while disparaging them for doing their jobs! Instead of agreeing to stop behaving as he was, he chose to remain in jail and call the judge corrupt! Instead of staying country as he was supposed to, he toured around America as a conquering hero for the right and vaccine deniers. It is not "crazy stuff." At every turn Pawlowski could have ended this but he chose to continue to brazenly stick his thumb in the eye of the authority in his country. Now he will answer for it.
'A year ago, thousands gathered for a standoff at a U.S.-Canadian border crossing, partially in support of Pawlowski and his ongoing troubles. Thousands of Albertans also came together in Coutts, Alberta"farmers, ranchers, truckers, people from all walks of life"opposing the COVID mandates, the loss of their rights, freedoms and dignity. Pawlowski answered their call with his actions. The leader of the Independence Party of Alberta, Pawlowski is set to speak to supporters of the party early on Feb. 2, at the Provincial Court House in Lethbridge. Canadian lawyer and Deputy Premier Kaycee Madu has defended Pawlowski saying, "Radical control [has] led to unprecedented violations of our citizens' privacy and fundamental human rights and freedoms."' - Charisma News
The fact that other people bought into the same crazy lies as Pawlowski does not provide cover or excuse for his lawbreaking. Please remember that Artur had the right to disagree if he felt the government was overreaching just as much as any of us did in this country but there are mechanisms for expressing our disagreement. We could organize the community, hold public hearings or even vote people out we feel are not serving our interests. What we cannot do, is simply disobey laws we disagree with. No matter how his supporters try to disguise the real issue - Artur Pawlowski had no legal right to violate the law over and over again.
"Pawlowski's Independence Party of Alberta advocates and defends the rights, freedoms and dignity of all Albertans. "We demand fair and due process for all people of Alberta." Pawlowski slammed Alberta's new premier, Danielle Smith, whom he said he had discussed his potential amnesty with last fall but has since "backpedaled," he told Fox News. Calgary policed arrested Pawlowski five times after he continued to conduct services in defiance of the court order to stop him preaching, including once in the middle of a busy highway on his way home from church. On another occasion, he was arrested on the tarmac at Calgary International Airport following a speaking tour in the U.S." - Charisma News
Just more camouflage. I am glad the new Premier changed her mind if true. I do not know if he deserves ten years, but Artur Pawlowski belongs in prison. There needs to be a message sent to all of the crazies that just because you believe something, that doesn't mean you get to unravel society. What is truly sad here is the damage wrought to the cause of Jesus Christ. As a pastor, his first responsibility was to the gospel and second to the sheep entrusted to him and he violated both. When we all stand before Christ for judgment there will be no discussion of unfair laws, lost freedoms, activist truckers or the time you got yourself arrested on a tarmac. You will not be able to speak about how you defended your vision of power creep by politicians. You will not be able to discuss your voting record. The only thing that will be relevant is your relationship with Jesus Christ. Pastors will be held to a higher account as they will answer for the blood of their listeners. Did the listeners of Artur Pawlowski hear about their need to repent? Did they hear about the Savior who died for them? Or did they hear about how the judge is corrupt and the Premier is weak? Pray for him but if your scope is limited to the ten years he faces next week, you are missing the point because eternity is a lot longer than that.
Reverend Anthony Wade - January 27, 2023