How Do We Make Sense of the Coronavirus?
00:00:00.000 | Hey everyone, this is Tony with Pastor John in studio for a special episode of the Ask
00:00:08.560 | Pastor John podcast.
00:00:10.400 | As I'm sure you're all aware, the coronavirus continues to grab headlines as it spreads
00:00:15.060 | across the globe now in 53 different countries.
00:00:18.920 | Infection numbers globally are over 83,000 now, fatalities nearing 3,000.
00:00:25.200 | It's a multinational epidemic now moving toward a global pandemic.
00:00:30.640 | Wednesday morning the president tasked the vice president with stopping the virus here
00:00:34.020 | in the states.
00:00:35.120 | Some are hopeful this can be done, others claim this is futile.
00:00:38.300 | It won't be stopped and will continue to spread for months.
00:00:41.500 | Some experts are going so far as to say a majority of Americans will be exposed to the
00:00:45.120 | virus before this is all said and done.
00:00:47.000 | There's a lot of speculation afoot.
00:00:50.400 | Less theoretically, world markets are tumbling.
00:00:53.100 | The Dow Jones continues to nosedive this week as international work stoppages interrupt
00:00:57.360 | imports, exports, and global trade.
00:01:00.560 | In situations like this, it's very easy to lose faith and to live in fear of the headlines
00:01:05.580 | and the unknowns.
00:01:06.580 | And this global uncertainty has now reached into the states.
00:01:11.280 | But several days ago, we began hearing from podcast listeners around Southeast Asia who
00:01:14.800 | offered updates on the situation there.
00:01:17.440 | That includes a man in Singapore who wrote us this.
00:01:19.760 | "Dear Pastor John, hello.
00:01:21.180 | I listen to every episode of this podcast from my home in Singapore.
00:01:24.420 | I thank God for you.
00:01:25.680 | I'd like to ask you about the unfolding coronavirus outbreak that started in China
00:01:29.340 | and has gone on to infect many more around the world.
00:01:32.960 | When it reached Singapore, the government and citizens responded well and our collective
00:01:36.700 | efforts won international praise.
00:01:39.820 | But church responses were mixed.
00:01:41.960 | Several continued with Sunday services with added precautions.
00:01:45.460 | Some suspended church services altogether.
00:01:48.160 | Some pastors are promising, "If you are a believer, God will not allow this virus
00:01:52.380 | to touch you."
00:01:53.900 | Other pastors are saying, "This is God's judgment on sinful cities and arrogant nations."
00:01:59.220 | Pastor John, how do Christians with open Bibles make sense of a viral epidemic like this one?
00:02:05.820 | Well, I'm going to try to answer the question that was asked.
00:02:08.980 | How do you make sense?
00:02:10.500 | How do you get understanding with an open Bible in front of me?
00:02:15.340 | But before I do, let me just say, I have misgivings because I make a distinction between helping
00:02:20.920 | people get ready to suffer with making sense of biblical teaching about suffering.
00:02:27.340 | That's one thing.
00:02:28.340 | And then another thing is physically, emotionally embodying that theology in the moment when
00:02:35.180 | somebody is suffering.
00:02:36.660 | And we've got thousands of people now who are dying, which means hundreds of thousands
00:02:41.580 | of people who are grieving.
00:02:44.140 | And what I'm about to say might not be well-timed in some of their lives, because if I were
00:02:50.340 | on the ground in a church, I would be discerning whether there's a time to speak here or not.
00:02:57.780 | But with that preface, let me try to own what I've been asked to do, make sense of a deadly
00:03:05.620 | virus.
00:03:06.620 | So let's start with an empirical historical fact and a clear Bible fact.
00:03:11.660 | The empirical fact is that on the Lord's Day, Sunday, December 26, 2004, over 200,000
00:03:20.580 | people were killed by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, including whole churches gathered for
00:03:29.220 | worship on the Lord's Day, swept away in death.
00:03:34.740 | That's the historical fact.
00:03:37.100 | That sort of thing has happened to Christians as long as there have been Christians.
00:03:42.740 | Now the biblical fact is Mark 4, 41.
00:03:47.300 | Even the wind and the sea obey Jesus.
00:03:52.540 | That is as true today as it was then.
00:03:55.900 | Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
00:03:59.820 | So put those two facts together, the historical fact and the biblical fact, and you get this
00:04:05.100 | truth.
00:04:06.420 | Jesus could have stopped the natural disaster, and he did not in 2004.
00:04:15.380 | Since he always does what is wise and right and just and good, therefore he had wise and
00:04:24.740 | good purposes in that deadly disaster.
00:04:29.380 | I would say the same thing, therefore, about the coronavirus.
00:04:34.060 | Jesus has all foreknowledge, all authority over the natural and supernatural forces of
00:04:40.660 | this world.
00:04:41.940 | He knows exactly where the virus started, where it's going next.
00:04:47.180 | He has complete power to restrain it or not, and that's what's happening.
00:04:53.460 | Neither sin nor Satan nor sickness nor sabotage is stronger than Jesus.
00:05:01.420 | He's never backed into a corner.
00:05:03.420 | He is never forced to tolerate what he does not will.
00:05:09.780 | The counsel of the Lord stands forever, his plans, the plans of his heart to all generations,
00:05:16.780 | Psalm 33, 11.
00:05:18.180 | "I know that you can do all things," Job says in his own repentance, "and that no purpose
00:05:24.700 | of yours can be thwarted," Job 42, 2.
00:05:30.380 | So the question is not, is Jesus overseeing, limiting, guiding, governing all the disasters
00:05:37.660 | and all the diseases of the world, including all their sinful and satanic dimensions?
00:05:43.620 | He is.
00:05:45.140 | The question is, with our Bibles open, how are we to understand this?
00:05:49.980 | Can we make sense out of it?
00:05:52.020 | So here are four biblical realities which we can use as building blocks in our effort
00:06:00.620 | to understand and make sense of it.
00:06:02.980 | Number one, building block.
00:06:05.540 | Number one, when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, God ordained that the created
00:06:12.900 | order, including our physical bodies as persons created in his image, would experience corruption
00:06:20.660 | and futility and that all living things would die.
00:06:26.620 | Christians by being saved through the gospel of God's grace do not escape this physical
00:06:34.500 | corruption, futility, and death.
00:06:37.500 | The basis of this point is Romans 8, 20 to 23.
00:06:41.940 | The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him, God, who subjected
00:06:49.460 | it in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption
00:06:55.060 | and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
00:06:58.500 | For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth
00:07:03.780 | until now.
00:07:04.780 | And here's the key verse for Christians.
00:07:07.140 | And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan
00:07:15.020 | inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
00:07:22.860 | The day is coming when all creation will be set free from its bondage to disease and disaster
00:07:31.340 | and death and inherit the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
00:07:36.900 | Until then, Christians, what Paul says, "Even we who have the spirit."
00:07:43.420 | Christians groan with all creation, sharing in the corruption and futility and disease
00:07:49.940 | and disasters and death as we wait with groaning the redemption of our bodies that happens
00:07:57.020 | at the resurrection.
00:07:58.580 | The difference for Christians who trust Christ is that our experience of this corruption
00:08:05.820 | is not condemnation.
00:08:08.580 | Romans 8, 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation."
00:08:12.780 | The pain for us is purifying, not punitive.
00:08:17.260 | God has not destined us for wrath.
00:08:19.980 | 1 Thessalonians 5, 10, "We die of disease like all men."
00:08:25.420 | Not necessarily because of any particular sin.
00:08:27.820 | That's really important.
00:08:29.300 | We die of disease like all people because of the fall.
00:08:33.180 | But for those who are in Christ, the sting of death is removed.
00:08:37.660 | 1 Corinthians 15, 55.
00:08:40.060 | It's building block number one for understanding what's going on.
00:08:44.540 | Number two, God sometimes inflicts sickness on his people as a purifying and rescuing
00:08:51.860 | judgment which is not a condemnation but an act of mercy for his saving purposes.
00:09:00.300 | That point is based on 1 Corinthians 11, 29 to 32.
00:09:05.300 | That text deals with misusing the Lord's Supper, but the principle is broader.
00:09:10.780 | Here it is.
00:09:11.780 | "Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself."
00:09:18.660 | This is Christians at the Lord's table.
00:09:21.100 | "That is why many of you, you Christians, are weak and ill, ill, ill, and some have
00:09:29.740 | died.
00:09:31.420 | But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
00:09:36.660 | But when we are judged by the Lord, the Lord Jesus, when we are judged by the Lord Jesus
00:09:42.740 | with this illness and weakness and death, when we are judged by disease and death by
00:09:48.060 | the Lord, we are disciplined, paiduamitho, disciplined like a child, so that we may not
00:09:55.700 | be condemned along with the world."
00:09:59.540 | Now let that sink in.
00:10:00.940 | The Lord Jesus takes the life of his loved ones through weakness and illness—the very
00:10:10.020 | same words, by the way, used to describe the weaknesses and illnesses that Jesus heals
00:10:17.300 | in his earthly life, Matthew 14, 14—and brings them to heaven.
00:10:21.660 | He brings them to heaven because of the trajectory of their sin that he was cutting off and saving
00:10:28.300 | them from, but not to punish them, but to save them.
00:10:31.620 | In other words, some of us die of illnesses, quote, "that we may not be condemned along
00:10:38.580 | with the world," verse 32.
00:10:41.500 | If he can do that in a few of his loved ones in Corinth, he can do it to many, including
00:10:49.480 | by the coronavirus, and not just because of abusing the Lord's Supper, but also for
00:10:55.360 | other kinds of sinful trajectories, though not all death is for a particular sin.
00:11:03.140 | That's building block number two.
00:11:04.580 | Here's number three.
00:11:06.380 | God sometimes uses disease to bring particular judgments upon those who reject him and give
00:11:13.860 | themselves over to sin.
00:11:15.500 | Two examples.
00:11:16.500 | Acts 12, 23.
00:11:17.500 | "Herod the king exalted in being called a god."
00:11:22.140 | He exalted himself.
00:11:24.680 | And verse 23, "Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give
00:11:31.280 | glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last."
00:11:37.700 | God can do that with any man or with anyone who exalt themselves, which means we should
00:11:45.860 | be amazed that more of our rulers do not drop dead every day because of their arrogance
00:11:53.100 | before God and man.
00:11:55.220 | Sheer common grace and mercy.
00:11:59.100 | Another example is the sin of homosexual intercourse in Romans 1, 27.
00:12:06.500 | It says, "Likewise, men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with
00:12:13.460 | passion for one another.
00:12:16.060 | Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of
00:12:24.580 | their error."
00:12:25.580 | Now, that's an example of the wrath of God in verse 18 of Romans 1, where it says, "The
00:12:32.820 | wrath of God is being now revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
00:12:39.580 | of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."
00:12:45.060 | That's building block number three, that God can and does use illnesses to bring judgment
00:12:52.620 | sometimes upon those who reject him in his way.
00:12:57.460 | And here's the last one, number four.
00:13:00.260 | All natural disasters, whether floods, famines, locusts, tsunamis, or diseases, are a thunderclap
00:13:10.780 | of divine mercy in the midst of judgment, calling all people everywhere to repent and
00:13:17.780 | realign their lives by grace with the infinite worth of the glory of God.
00:13:23.980 | And the basis for that building block is Luke 13, 1-5.
00:13:28.620 | Pilate had slaughtered worshipers in the temple, and the tower of Siloam had collapsed and
00:13:34.500 | killed 18 bystanders.
00:13:36.500 | And the crowds want to know from Jesus, just like I've been asked, "Okay, make sense
00:13:40.580 | of this, Jesus.
00:13:41.580 | Tell us what you think about these natural disasters and this cruelty.
00:13:45.460 | These people were just standing there, and now they're dead."
00:13:47.780 | And here's Jesus' answer in Luke 13, 5.
00:13:51.100 | Those 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were
00:13:57.140 | worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
00:14:01.940 | No, I tell you.
00:14:04.580 | But unless you repent, He shifts from them to you.
00:14:09.380 | You, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
00:14:14.100 | Now that's the message of Jesus to the world at this moment in history under the coronavirus.
00:14:22.020 | A message to every single human being, me and you, Tony, and everybody who's listening,
00:14:28.900 | and every ruler on the planet, every person who hears about this is receiving a thunderclap
00:14:34.780 | message of God saying, "Repent."
00:14:39.980 | And I think the Chinese authorities should especially pay attention who have recently—and
00:14:45.020 | I just read another article yesterday—recently have become so increasingly harsh and repressive
00:14:52.740 | against the followers of Christ.
00:14:55.620 | Repent and seek God's mercy to bring your lives, our lives, into alignment with His
00:15:04.500 | infinite worth.
00:15:07.060 | A thunderclap of God saying, "Repent."
00:15:09.980 | That's powerful and urgent.
00:15:11.700 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that word.
00:15:13.540 | Well, because we have international listeners in Singapore and all around the globe and
00:15:18.020 | in Southeast Asia, it would be really fascinating to hear what you're seeing on the ground in
00:15:22.340 | your own community.
00:15:24.040 | How is God using this global disruption to reach people with the hope of the gospel?
00:15:28.380 | How are churches responding in your community to minister to others?
00:15:32.220 | Are they open?
00:15:33.220 | Are they closing?
00:15:34.220 | And what are preachers saying?
00:15:35.860 | If you have any observations to share with us, we would love to hear what you're seeing
00:15:40.020 | in your own community.
00:15:41.760 | You can email those observations to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:15:46.500 | That's askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:15:49.980 | Thanks for listening to this special episode of Ask Pastor John.
00:15:52.580 | I'm Tony Reinke.
00:15:53.780 | Pastor John and I return next week.
00:15:56.220 | Until then, stay safe, wash your hands, cover your coughs, love your family, serve your
00:16:01.740 | neighbor, treasure Jesus.
00:16:03.740 | We'll see you on Monday.
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