The world has come to a standstill over the COVID19 virus how should the Christian respond. 

<p>The world has come to a standstill over the COVID19 virus how should the Christian respond. </p>

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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 2

Stopping the Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 3

COVID19: Spiritual Distancing - Deep Prophecy Version

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 4

The Pandemic of Perversion

Don’t Cry for Jesus: Warning to the Last Generation

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 1

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

Pandemic of Addiction

After the Lockdown: Through Trials and Difficulties

Appetite for Pandemic


Happy Sabbath, everyone. This is Dr. Eric Walsh. I'm at the 3 Angels Church in Newington, Connecticut. And we are filming in an empty church because of the fear of the COVID-19, once known as the Wuhan virus and then the coronavirus, that is affecting America and the world today.

I've been asked by a few churches to kind of give a bit of an update and some thoughts on this, a Christian perspective, Adventist perspective on what is happening in the world. And so I'm going to say a word of prayer and then just for a few minutes we're going to talk a bit about the virus and what it means to us from a physical health perspective, public health perspective, a spiritual perspective, and where it lands us in the stream of prophecy. Let's bow our heads and pray. Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word and to place into perspective what has now become a global phenomena, a pandemic. Lord God, there are many who are afraid.

Lord, now let us turn to you. This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name. Amen. So I want to start in the book of Matthew, the 24th chapter, Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24.

Most of you know, normally when I preach, there are a lot of slides and I give infographics. On this subject, things are changing so fast that I don't want to put up an infographic. I'll stick with the 1 thing that does not change and that is God's Word. Matthew 24, if you begin to read at verse 4, and I'm reading from the New King James version of the Bible, It says, take heed that no man deceive you, for many will come in my name and will deceive many. You'll hear of wars and rumors of war, see that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, But the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. The Bible tells us as Jesus is exiting the temple, he's talking to his disciples who have just seen him run ripshod through the temple, seeing him bring low the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they're wondering how is it that Christ could do this and not recognize the temple?

So they say, hey, do you see the wonder and the splendor of the temple? And Jesus says, listen, eventually, I assure you that not 1 stone of this temple will stand 1 upon the other. The disciples begin to realize that Christ is being prophetic, and they ask him, what does this mean? What does this mean? And when, they say, and what are the signs of your coming and of the end of the age or the end of the world.

This is when Jesus gives us this passage of scripture. He begins by saying, make sure that no 1 deceives you. The Greek word for deceives there is planeo. It means like to lead away a sheep, as in the parable of the 99 sheep. And Jesus says, for many will come in my name, saying I am Christ, and will deceive many.

And we know much of this has happened. I normally would go more into all of this, but I want to jump into 1 thing where it says, and there will be wars and rumors of wars, then Christ says to his disciples, see that ye be not troubled. In other words, when war begins to happen, when the world begins to turn on itself, that is not the time to be troubled or in fear. Scripture clearly says, Jesus says, listen, don't be troubled, for this must come to pass, but it is not the end yet. Then to describe this time period just before the end starts, he gives some more details.

He says, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. He says, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginnings of sorrows. I could talk about famines, the fact that 1 out of 7 people in the world are in hunger, and hunger and malnutrition are still the leading causes of death in many parts of the world. Not just hunger and lack of food, but in America in the West, we have malnutrition and famine in an abundance of calories.

Not for tonight. Tonight I want to hit pestilences. We know, and normally I could put up slides to show you that we have seen diseases come out of nowhere, like Ebola. We've seen diseases like SARS, MERS. We've seen diseases like HIV, Zika, all of a sudden pop up.

And if you look at the iteration of the times when they come, Some argue these things seem to happen often in an election year. But I want to say that pestilence is 1 of the things that Jesus says would happen. And the connotation, the way that I read this is that there will be diseases in the last days that will come out of nowhere, that will shock the world. And pestilences will happen. And they will cause people to be afraid.

What we're looking at right now is pestilence. I'll finish the verse and then we'll get to the coronavirus component of this and the rest of that verse is an earthquakes in various places and we've seen this. We've seen earthquakes in Puerto Rico somewhere where you wouldn't think you'd get an earthquake. Several years ago, there was 1 in Haiti. We also recently had 1 between the islands of Jamaica and Cuba.

If you look at the National Geological Society's maps, there are earthquakes happening all the time. Jesus's prophecy is fulfilled. The earthquakes often are happening in diverse places. The pestilences are relevant to us now as the world is gripped. There are a few things that this pestilence actually helps to teach us.

1 of them is that what we think is life is very fragile. Not just in that a virus can come out of nowhere and begin to kill hundreds, yea thousands of people, but life is fragile in that all of the normal social construct here in America has been shut down and in much of the world. The NBA has canceled or suspended its season. The NCAA has canceled the March Madness playoffs that would have happened this month. We've watched pretty much every other major sporting system shut down.

We have watched conferences, medical conferences, government conferences, business conferences, all close and shutter and cancel. We have watched cruise ships become empty and we've watched as even now churches are not being able to meet. We are watching what we thought was stability and God is showing us through what's happening that what we thought was stability is actually instability. That this world is fragile. As much as we wanna think we know what's gonna happen tomorrow, we now know as the schools all begin to shut down, the state of Ohio has just shut down all of its schools.

We now know that what seems like it is going to be for sure tomorrow, in these end times, they may not be there the next day. In fact, the spirit of prophecy tells us that the last events will be rapid ones. I want you to look at what happened at a disease that is 80% of the people who get this disease, it's a mild disease. The case fatality rate ranges anywhere from .4% up to 2.8%, depending on where you are in China, higher for those that are older. A disease that overall most people that get it are not going to get very sick.

And yet, with all of that, the world has come to a halt. What happens? The disease whose case fatality rate is 33%, as described in the 7 last plagues, when that hits the world, what will happen when that happens? We are living in a time of great uncertainty, and there is great fear. In fact, further down in Matthew chapter 24, 1 of the things that is said by Jesus in this same passage is that in the last days, men's hearts will fail them for fear.

You can see it. I mean, here's the funny thing. You can't find toilet paper in most of the grocery stores now. And toilet paper has nothing to do with the virus. It doesn't cause diarrhea.

Yet you can't find toilet paper. It's interesting. We went into the hood. We went down into the city, and we were able to find it in abundance because there's another even greater pandemic, and that is poverty. And poor people, those of us who grew up poor, you know you buy enough to get through the week.

Doesn't matter what virus is outside. You don't have enough money to go and buy 6 months worth of toilet paper. The world has gone mad with people fighting in the grocery stores over toilet paper and paper towels and other stuff that they think they're going to need, canned goods. Just like that, men's hearts are failing them for fear, just as Christ predicted. We have no vaccine for this.

There's no treatment yet. 1 of the things they keep telling us is if you just hold on, we will be fine because these things will be brought into existence, but I will tell you, that will take some time. You know, we're going to have to go through different types of trials, into human trials. All of those things are going to take some time. Even the tests, we see them in some places in America.

They have shortages of testing materials so we know who has the virus and who doesn't. It is showing you that what we thought was an invincible system, this Babylonian system that we've all bought into and believe in, this shows you how quickly Babylon, as Revelation chapter 18, I believe it says, Babylon can fall just like that. And that's what this virus is teaching us. So Jesus wants to speak to us in the middle of this storm. If you turn with me to Matthew chapter 14, there's a great story.

And there are words from Jesus that apply for any who's going through difficulty right now dealing with this virus. Matthew chapter 14. And if you look at the story that we're looking at, the story of when Jesus walks on the water. And when we start, in verse 22, it says, and immediately Jesus made his disciples to get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up onto the mountain by himself to pray.

Now, when evening was come, he was alone there. So he was alone praying. He was alone praying in the mountain. But a boat was in the middle of the sea with the disciples. The Bible says it was tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

The enemy came after them. The spirit of prophecy tells us that the disciples were in the boat after Jesus had fed the 5, 000. The disciples were in the boat, clamoring and complaining as to why Jesus wouldn't allow them to crown him king. While they're there fussing and fighting and speaking against the Most High God in the person of Jesus Christ, while they're doing that, the storm arises. The Bible says, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Then the Bible says in verse 25, now in the fourth watch of the night, in the darkest part of the night, Jesus went to them. And the Bible says Jesus doesn't do a butterfly stroke out to the boat. He's not doing a backstroke. He's not doing a crawl stroke. Jesus doesn't have time to get wet.

He just walks on the water. Scripture says he comes to them walking on the sea. And when his disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost! And they cried out for fear. Sound like Scooby and Shaggy from the old cartoon.

They cried out for fear. They were afraid that a ghost was coming, but the words that Jesus tells them in a boat that seems like it's going to sink, at a time when they thought they were under attack by spiritual forces, supernatural forces, Jesus looks at them in verse 27 of Matthew 14, says, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, do not Be afraid. Those are the words I wanna give you tonight. I wanted to give you the words that say, be of good cheer. The Christian sitting at home today, because your church can't meet, because we're all worried about this virus and the virus deserves concern.

I want you to know that if you are a Christian, as the boat begins to rock, this boat of earth begins to rock, as it begins to shake, as it seems like it will sink. I want you as Christians to get the word that Jesus is speaking as he was walking to his disciples on the water he is now preparing to leave the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary as he's looking to do this to put on the garb of Christ as a king and take off the garb of priest as he's looking to make that transition and begin his walk across the Milky Way all the way back to earth. Jesus is saying, listen, I know the boat is shaking and I know how afraid you are. I know you see what's happening and you think it's all over, but I think in a time of trouble, Christ is trying to tell us, be of good cheer. In other words, Christian, don't be panicking.

Don't be afraid. Be of good cheer. Why should you be of good cheer at a time like this when the whole world is on meltdown? Because Christ is saying, listen, what you're seeing are the signs, And it is I. All of this is simply telling us Jesus is about to return.

So he says, it is I. Do not be afraid. Second Timothy 1.7, 1 of my favorite Bible verses says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. This virus is for real. The case fatality rate is for real.

It causes fibrosis and honeycombing of lungs. There's some people who get it and get super sick. Some people get it and don't even get symptoms. This is part of the reason it's so effective, because so many people can walk around with it, and you don't see the effects of it. So it can spread very well.

It's not deadly enough to be easily contained, and it's not so easily identified that it can be easily contained. It is a stealth virus that will sneak into communities, and when a few people don't get very bad symptoms, they'll give it to somebody for whom it may be caused a critical disease or be lethal. That is the nature of this virus, and let me warn you, let me remind you that such is the nature of the real great virus of this world, the real pandemic of this world, sin. We live in a society where we see so many people living in sin, celebrating sin, and nothing seems like it happens to them. And so our guard is down.

We're not covering our cough. We're not making sure that we take respiratory precautions. We're not making sure that we're washing our spiritual hands. We're not making sure that we're not shaking the hands of those who might be infected. We're not making sure that we're protecting ourselves because we have come to believe that the virus really isn't that dangerous.

But I wanna warn you on this Sabbath, as the world is on shutdown, that the real virus that needs to be treated is the virus of sin and it's stealth. There are a lot of people who look like they're prospering in their sin, but the sin like these viruses is deadly. And there's only 1 anecdote, only 1 way you'll survive the disease of sin. And that is that you have the anecdote. That anecdote is the blood of Jesus Christ.

We already know the cure for the greatest pandemic in the history of the universe. The anecdote is to have the blood of Jesus Christ applied to your life, to turn your eyes upon Jesus, to look full in His wonderful face, so that the things of earth will grow strangely dim, the light of His glory and grace. Amen. Father God, as I step down from this pulpit, Lord, let us never step away from your presence. I am asking in a special way, Lord, tonight as many are so afraid that they remember what you said, be of good cheer.

It is I, be not afraid. Lord, this virus will wreak its havoc. We are praying that you stop it, that you cut this thing short in mercy, that you save the lives that could be lost, that they might hear of the power and the wonder that is in the name of Jesus. Father God, if this thing goes far and it does what the Spanish flu once did and the Black Plague once did. If it circles the globe and just completely wreaks havoc, Lord, let us still not forget that you are in control.

Father God, we need to draw closer to you. This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name. Amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about Audioverse, or if you

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Series

Pandemic at the Door

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 1

18m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 2

27m

Stopping the Pandemic at the Door

31m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 3

33m

COVID19: Spiritual Distancing - Deep Prophecy Version

51m

COVID19: Not Afraid - Part 4

18m

The Pandemic of Perversion

46m

Don’t Cry for Jesus: Warning to the Last Generation

37m

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 1

1h 2m

Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

58m

Pandemic of Addiction

50m

After the Lockdown: Through Trials and Difficulties

27m

Appetite for Pandemic

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine