Franklin Graham, in a recent interview with the President of Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, urged Legislators, Pastors, and other believers to have the guts to take a stand for God’s Word.
In the interview, the two specifically addressed a bill in Arkansas that sought to ban gender transition and puberty blockers for minors.
The Hill reported that Gov. Asa Hutchinson made the unfortunate decision to veto this bill which would have protected venerable children from life-altering consequences of transitioning.
“What’s happening, we see, is just wicked. To take a child and try to convince them that they can change and be a girl, they can change and be a boy, and we can give you drugs, and you can have surgery and all of these things… a child can’t comprehend that, and once you start down this path you can’t reverse it,” Rev. Graham said in the interview. “It’s just a wicked thing, and we just need to pray that the church will stand.”
UPDATE – 04/06/2021: Although the Governor may not have had the guts to sign the bill, the Arkansas legislature sure did, voting “overwhelmingly” just one day later to override the Governor’s veto.
“It is unfortunate that the law’s passage had to come over the veto of Gov. Hutchinson… We are grateful the legislature had the courage to act to protect the health and well-being of children,” Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project said in a Press Release.
It was the hope and prayer of both Tony and Franklin that the Arkansas Governor would stand up for what is right and would not bow to the pressure from the left.
“God made us male and female; two men can’t make a child, two women can’t make a child; it takes a male and a female. That’s the way God made us and created us,” Rev. Graham asserted. “For someone to come along and say you can change that if you want… Well, you better talk to God about that because we’re on very thin ice when we start messing with the way God made us and created us.”
“You know,” he continued. “We’re all going to get attacked no matter what we do if we stand for God’s Word. If we stand for truth, we will be attacked.”
But the evangelist urges, “We’ve got to have thick skin.”
The problem we are seeing today, Franklin Graham explains, is that as we see a rising moral bankruptcy in America, we are also seeing silent pulpits and people sitting on their hands instead of speaking the truth.
“Tony, it’s like every demon in hell has been let loose in just these last few months. It’s frightening to see what’s happening,” he said. “You talk about pray, vote, and stand, and this is the time for the church to stand. We need to stand for truth, we need to stand for God’s Word, and we need to stand behind these legislators and the governors, and others that are willing to sign bills.”
“This is a time to stand and let your voice be heard now. Don’t just stand and be quiet. It’s time for the pastors to preach it from the pulpits and, I think, for denominations to stand,” he said. “Think about the evangelical denominations out there. They need to let their voices be heard as loud or louder than what we hear on the left.”
“If we don’t, Tony, we’re going to lose,” Graham cautions. “The worst thing that could happen is for the Lord Jesus Christ to come back and find us sitting on our hands and keeping our mouths shut. When He comes back, I hope he finds us fighting and standing for truth. When I say fighting, I’m not talking about taking a baseball bat out there and hitting somebody. I’m talking about standing up against this onslaught, this tsunami, this tidal wave of evil that is coming down on society today. I would encourage the church and pastors to speak out. This is the time for us to stand together and be one voice.”
Graham also states that he does not expect that America will stop its free-fall from Biblical values, reiterating that it is only the job of Christians to delay the decay.
“America is not going to, in my opinion, turn around. We’re in a free fall of moral decline,” he explains. “But the church can help preserve. The church can help slow this down”
“I would encourage the church to stand and let’s do it together, and let’s be loud and let’s be vocal about it,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to be under the delusion that we’re going to turn America around. America is falling, but let’s slow it down…”
The two reiterate that what we are witnessing today is a Spiritual battle.
“This is spiritual warfare, and this is the time for the church to stand up. You don’t go back into the barracks when the warfare is raging, and it is raging now more than I have seen in my lifetime,” Perkins stated. “If we won’t stand up and speak out, and as you say, fight spiritually on issues such as this, what will we fight for?”
It is not just morality-related issues that Christians need to push back against; it is also extremely important that the church worldwide be fighting on the frontlines of issues dealing with freedom.
Over this past Easter weekend, a Pastor in Calgary chased away police officers that were attempting to disrupt his Church service.
The Polish Canadian Pastor shouted, “Nazis are not welcome here! Do not come back you Nazi psychopaths. Unbelievable sick, evil people. Intimidating people in a church during the Passover! You Gestapo, Nazi, communist fascists! Don’t you dare come back here!”
“Unbelievable, we’re living in a total takeover of the government with their thugs, goons, the brown shirts, the Gestapo wannabe dictators… People, if you don’t stand up, wake up, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” he added after the officers, turned around and left the church.
Franklin Graham responded to the now-viral video of the Canadian Pastor commending him and saying that “we must be careful to defend our rights and our freedoms—or we will lose them.”
“I don’t know who this pastor is, but I kinda like him!” Graham wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “I appreciate his boldness and tenacity in standing up for the rights of his church when police showed up without a search warrant. You can watch his cell phone video in this [link]. This is a reminder that, if we’re not careful, the coronavirus pandemic could turn the entire world into a police state. I am not saying that we should break the law, but I am saying that we must be careful to defend our rights and our freedoms—or we will lose them. We have seen this happen throughout history, so let’s be on guard against it happening to us.”
