Worshiping from Home | Sunday, April 19, 2019
April 16th, 2020From time to time, Jeff will stress in his messages that it matters who you listen to, who you ask, and what answers you choose to heed. And when it concerns the issues of life, truth, your walk with God, and spiritual obedience, it matters . . . a lot.
A chorus of voices are offering their take on all aspects of COVID-19. And true to form, there are all kinds of ideas and explanations cropping up in the Christian community. You’ve heard them too. Here’s one from Thomas Jay Oord, a theologian, author, and teacher at Northeastern Nazarene University:
God can’t simply prevent the coronavirus–or any other natural evils–singlehandedly but requires “our participation and cooperation” to fight it.
But the Bible says:
“For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
“Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Ps. 135:6).
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25).
God doesn’t need our help for anything. We need God. God gives life to all that He has made. And only God knows His appointed time for every person’s death:
“. . . in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16).
“Since his [man’s] days are determined, and the number of his months is with You, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5).
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
No one is living or dying without God’s direct involvement. He is not hands-off with the souls of men and women. And nothing in His world is happening beyond God’s sustaining grace, His sovereign power, and His supreme love. Nothing!
The greatest tragedy in this crisis is not that people are dying—all people are appointed to die. The greatest tragedy in this pandemic must be measured spiritually and not temporally—many if not most people are dying as rebellious sinners without faith and hope in Jesus Christ. That is the greatest calamity about this pandemic.
The question most pressing on mankind is not why Corona, or why is God allowing so many people to die from Corona. The question, from a spiritual mindset, is why is God allowing any of us to go on living?
And consider this, my friends, what does the Bible repeatedly call on people to do when they are confronted with the hardships, suffering, pain, fear, uncertainty, frailty, destruction, and death of this world which are all due to sin?
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6-7).
“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:7-8; and see also vv. 12-19).
Beloved, as your earthly under-shepherds charged with your care by the Great Shepherd of your souls, Jesus Christ, we are prayerfully urging you to be sober-minded and to spiritually discern this unique time in our history. It is not for us to know all of God’s mind about this crisis:
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this Law” (Deut. 29:29).
What we can and should do is live within the revealed will of the Lord and make the most of this time for Him day to day. This is so important, and we do not want to miss this lesson through this current situation. Look to and listen to the Lord as He speaks to us in the Bible.
Be about spiritual things and prayerfully pour into your soul the goodness of God in Christ as your Lord and Savior. Listen to and heed the voice of the Lord through the pages of Scripture, and pray earnestly. If there is one thing that we will solemnly encourage you in it is in an attitude of prayerful dependence on God through confession, intercession, and repentance. Pray!
We are changing our Sunday worship-from-home format a bit and asking you to watch a teaching series by R.C. Sproul: When Worlds Collide. We provide the links below. Watch the first of five lessons for this Sunday: A War of Ideas, and we will plan to Zoom on Sunday evening at 5:00 to discuss this lesson and encourage each other in our faith.
In addition, please know that we are still encouraging you to take in a sermon each Sunday, so feel free to watch a sermon from the four links we provided last week (live stream; listed below) or choose a different sermon/preacher and watch them. Watch whoever you want to watch . . . but please be careful about who are you listening to 😉 .
We hope you are encouraged by R.C.’s teaching. And we are praying that this series will give you some helpful spiritual confidence about the good God we serve and about His good ways of managing His creation —Corona and all (Ps. 119:65).
In Christ,
Greg and Jeff
Teaching link (for Sunday’s Zoom discussion): When Worlds Collide: A War of Ideas (Lecture 1)
Suggested live-streamed worship service links:
Faith Bible Church (10:30am ET, John Crotts, pastor)
Grace Community Church (1:30pm ET, John MacArthur, pastor)
Grace Immanuel Bible Church (10:45am ET | Jerry Wragg, pastor)
Parkside Church (9:45am ET, Alistair Begg, pastor)