(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the podcast. This is another special episode related to current events. We don't plan to dedicate a lot of episodes to the coronavirus pandemic, but we will today speaking directly to youth. Pastor John is with me today from his home office. And Pastor John, as you know, just a few weeks back, I spoke to a youth group in Frisco, Texas, about 100 or so students packed together in a little room in the church to talk about smartphones and social media habits.

It was a great time. But I started off by asking how many of them knew what Ask Pastor John was. And I think every single hand went up in the room. It was shocking to me, I wasn't expecting it. So I think a lot of youth listen to this podcast already.

I suspect that's because their parents listen to episodes and car rides around town. For whatever reason, they know about this podcast. So let's take this moment to speak directly to those youth. You have 14 grandkids now. That's incredible. Become Grandfather John for a moment. What would you say to the youth in this season about God and coronavirus?

- That's good, I didn't know you were gonna say that. But I had thought, I'm 74 years old. That means I'm old enough to be your granddad, and maybe your great granddad. My name is John Piper. You can call me Pastor John. I want to talk to you for a few minutes about the coronavirus, that sickness that is changing how people live all over the world.

And I want to talk about God, I want to talk about Jesus, and about you. What does the coronavirus have to do with you and God and Jesus? So I hope you'll listen for just a few minutes. What makes the coronavirus so unusual and so dangerous is that you can catch it as a sickness by just being around people who have it, and you can't tell when they have it.

And that makes it really dangerous, which is why everybody is staying inside these days, trying to stop the virus. And because it is 10 times more serious than the ordinary flu. And the reason our leaders, like the governor and the president of the United States, are so concerned is because maybe one or two or three people out of every hundred who get this sickness will die from it.

Now that may not sound like a lot, like one or two out of every hundred, but if in my town, for example, Minneapolis, 100,000 people, which is not unlikely, 100,000 people got sick with this, that means 1,000 or 2,000, maybe 3,000, are going to die of it. So when you think of it that way, that's a lot of people who weren't planning to die that quick are now gonna die if it spreads that much.

Now the Bible teaches, and the Bible is God's very word, the Bible teaches that God is stronger than the coronavirus. I hope you believe that. We know this because Matthew 4, verse 24 says, they brought Jesus all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, and he healed them.

So Jesus is more powerful than diseases, every one of them. In fact, over and over again, the Bible tells us that God commands the wind, rain, snow, lightning, plants, grass, grasshoppers, flies, frogs, gnats, worms, whales, birds, everything else. He commands them where to go, what to do, and they do what he says.

They have to, he's God. They do what he says. God made the whole world and everything in it, and he holds the world in his hand, and he does what he wants to do with the world and in the world, and you can see that again in Paul's letter to the Ephesians in chapter one, verse 11, where he says, "God works all things." That includes the coronavirus.

"God works all things according to the counsel of his will." That means nobody is over God, telling God what to do. He's the highest. He's the strongest decision-maker in the world. Nobody makes God do what he doesn't choose to do. He made the world. He holds it up, so he does what he wants with it and in it.

It never falls apart. It always does what he plans for it to do all the time and all of it. So, I hope you're asking, and it's right to ask if we ask humbly, ready to learn the answer from God, why is there a coronavirus? Why don't you, God, Jesus, please, take it away since you could, and that's right, he could.

He's God. The coronavirus is not God. The coronavirus is not stronger than Jesus. Jesus could take it away just by snapping his finger, and the time will come when he has decided he will take it away, and it might happen overnight. We don't know how it will happen. So, why is it here?

Why doesn't he just take it away now? And the answer's this, because he has wise purposes for it. God is perfectly wise. That means he knows exactly what needs to be done to bring about what's best for all time. That's called wisdom. When you know what's best to do all the time, you're a wise person, and God is perfect in wisdom.

He knows what needs to be done. He knows how it needs to be done. He knows when it needs to be done, and since God is perfectly wise and knows everything, he knows way, way, way, way more than we know. Everything he makes happen and everything he lets happen fits into a perfectly wise and good plan that he has.

We can't see all of it, all the plan, but we can see some of it. For example, let me give you some things that I can see and you can see in the Bible that God is planning to do with the coronavirus. Number one, Jesus said in Luke 13 that things like the coronavirus happen so that people in the world who don't believe in Jesus would wake up and repent and think about God and Jesus and heaven and hell and salvation and the need for forgiveness and that they would turn to Jesus and be saved.

That's one thing he's doing. Number two, Paul said that things like the coronavirus happen so that people would stop trusting in themselves and trust God, 2 Corinthians 1. Lots of people think, adults think, children think, that they're way smarter than they are, way stronger than they are, way more in control.

The captain of my soul. There's a movie about that, I'm the captain of my soul. Baloney, you're not the captain of your soul. God is the captain of your soul, and that kind of pride needs to be brought down. If it needs to be brought down by coronavirus, God will do it.

We have a lot of arrogant leaders in this world who need to be humbled, and if it takes the coronavirus to do it, God will do it. God wants us to know that he's in control and that we ought to trust him and not our own abilities or our own intelligence.

That's number two. And the third thing that God is doing is this. The Bible says that things like the coronavirus happen to show us that we might be loving things more than we love God. We might be loving other people more than we love God. And there's nothing in the world more important than loving Jesus more than we love ourselves or more than we love other people.

So the coronavirus is showing people what they love most. So God is in charge of the coronavirus, and he knows what he's doing, and he's perfectly good and perfectly wise. And here's the really good news we ought to want the whole world to hear. So I hope you will share with your friends, namely the news that Jesus, God's only son, came into the world and died so that God would never punish us if we trust him.

He said that the punishment that you and I deserve because of our sin, that punishment was put on Jesus. And if we trust Jesus, that is if we receive Jesus, welcome Jesus as our savior and our guide and our treasure, the one we really love, then we never have to be afraid of God.

We never have to be afraid of God's punishment ever. This is wonderful. That means we don't ever have to be afraid to die, not from the coronavirus or anything else, because when Jesus died and rose from the dead, he changed death from punishment into doorway to everlasting happiness with him.

So what does it mean? You don't have to be afraid of the coronavirus. God is stronger than the coronavirus. And if you trust his son, Jesus, God will make everything turn out for your good. So be brave. Don't be brave because you're strong. That's called pride. All those TV superheroes, they're all proud.

They're not basing their strength on God. They're just basing it on stuff that they have inside of them. Don't be like them because you're not them and you're not strong, you're weak. Be brave because you have a great savior, your best friend, Jesus, your savior and Lord is strong, strong enough to make everything, including the coronavirus, turn out for your good.

I taught the kids in our church when I was a pastor, a two-line poem. It's especially for children who believe in Jesus. Hundreds of them said it over the years. Let me teach it to you and we'll be done. And I'm gonna say it once and then you say it with me the second time, okay?

Goes like this. When things don't go the way they should, God always makes them turn for good. Okay, now you say it with me. When things don't go the way they should, God always makes them turn for good. You know, I bet if we say it one more time, you won't forget it 'cause you're kids, you remember everything.

Let's do it. When things don't go the way they should, God always makes them turn for good. Maybe kids, we'll talk again later. I don't know. But for now, trust Jesus no matter what. You'll never be sorry. - No, you'll never be sorry. That's a great word, Pastor John.

As Pastor John just mentioned here, in passing, we have an amazing opportunity to share the gospel with our classmates and with our friends in this season. And if you have access to social media or texting or phone calling or video messaging, or maybe you can even meet face-to-face, we would encourage you to reach out to your friends with the hope of Jesus.

This is the time. The time is right. - Yeah, amen. - And as you do, may the Lord give you boldness and the right words to speak eternal truth into the lives of your friends during this season. Well, here at DG, once a week or so, we're producing special resources related to this pandemic, including this episode and other APJ episodes and articles.

You can find all of those resources online at desiringgod.org/coronavirus. That's desiringgod.org/coronavirus. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the podcast, and we will see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)