Christ, the Corona Virus and the Cross, Part 2 | Christ, the Corona Virus, and the Cross

Selected Scriptures

The Bible describes a God who is both transcendent, high and lofty and on his throne, never changing, always consistent, faithful, perfect, eternal, infinite. At the same time, that God is imminent, he is near. And that God visits every single land with its own particular trial, judgments, challenges, graces. Our God is a God who is both far and near. He is transcendent and he is imminent.

And our God rules and reigns not just over his chosen people Israel from back in the Old Testament, but every single nation on the earth at that time and every time since. God has direct involvement in every nation on the earth and every single human being. But don’t think of him as remote and uninvolved. Don’t think of him as watching as something he didn’t plan take effect.

Also, I want to caution you not to recoil from the fact that Christ is sovereign over the Corona virus. I don’t want you to back away from the thought that Christ sovereignly directs the spread of the Corona virus, its effects, all the reactions to this disease. Don’t draw back from the truth that he planned it, that he ordained it, that he has executed this trial according to his perfect will and for all of his purposes.

Because, beloved, if you think that somebody else or just the virus itself with its own thinking is in control and Christ is not control, you’re severely mistaken. There is no hope if Christ is not sovereign over this virus. Beloved, there is no other Savior. There is none. So don’t withdraw from the truth of his sovereignty. If you pull away from the sovereignty of God that he’s in control, that he planned this, that he’s in charge, that he controls every single instance of spread, if you pull away from that, you’ll wander into a hopeless abyss.

The fact that we have a God who is sovereign and in control, though it’s difficult to bear, though the affliction is troubling, you need to embrace that. Because that God is our Savior. And if we embrace the fact that he is sovereign over the Corona virus, sovereign over this time, sovereign over the reactions, counterreactions, and all the rest, if we embrace that fact then we need to step back and think and learn from what he wants to teach to all of us.

We asked first what is Christ doing with the Corona virus in the world? Now, second, we need to ask an even more uncomfortable question: what is Christ doing with the Corona virus in the visible but professing church? Answer: Christ is exposing the professing church.

I want to be crystal clear with what I’m saying here. Christ is exposing the professing church by which, by that I mean, he is showing many of the visible professing churches and many of the visible professing believers to be frauds, having no part in him. And I understand and I do recognize, and I want to say this right from the front lest I forget to say it later that in the visible professing church, as weak as they are, as drifting as they are, in some of those communions, I acknowledge there are true believers. If there is the means to find a true Gospel through the Scriptures in a trinitarian religion, even Roman Catholicism or some other form of Arminian theology church, I understand that there are true believers in those.

But I want to say this very clearly, if you’re a believer and you’re in one of those churches and communions, you need to come out. You need to come out of what is weak and what is really false. I want you to listen to this. You can turn there if you’d like to. Isaiah chapter 1. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 10 and following. This is what the Word of the Lord is through the prophet Isaiah to the false professors, false believers in that time.

Isaiah 1:10 and following, “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!” Sodom and Gomorrah, wasn’t that a bunch of reveling partiers and homosexual offenders and unrighteous and uncaring and unloving people? What, what, wasn’t the city full of that? Why is he calling the people of Israel, the people Judah, why is he calling them “rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah”? Because their sins are the same.

And so he says in verse 11, “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Says the Lord; I’ve had enough of burnt offerings of rams, the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of boats. When you come to appear before me, who’s require of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.” Don’t hold the two in the same, don’t hold the two together and come before me, he says.

Verse 14, “Your new moons, your appointed feasts my soul hates; they’ve become a burden to me; I’m weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands [that is for prayer], I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers; I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

Who is the Lord speaking to in that passage? All those who claim that he is their God. all those who profess that Yahweh is their God, but they don’t walk in obedience to him. They are lying hypocrites. They are false religionists. They say they are Christians, but they practice another religion entirely. And God is saying to them, “You do not represent me. Stop taking my name upon your lips and coming to me with your sacrifices. Don’t take my name in vain anymore.”

Who are they in our own day? Well, sadly the world is full of them. False teachers abound. They have multiplied exponentially. They’ve been filling the airwaves and the internet with their poisonous teaching, and it effects so many of the poor and the needy with the virus of their own filthy greed.

Worse in my mind are all the false shepherds out there who are speaking to all the false converts, those who have swallowed up a false sub-Christian gospel, who think they’re Christians, but they’re not and they’re. These pastors are misrepresenting God, and they are undermining the faith of so many by mishandling the Word of God and by sowing doubt. I heard one man say, he’s known as a pastor. One man say in our city, he was speaking to his church of thousands through video, through this livestream like we’re doing.

And he was speaking as this Corona virus pandemic began. And he was teaching his own congregation that they should embrace the errors and the congri, and the contradictions in Scriptures. And then to love the Bible anyway. This man belched forth his own foul smelling doubts, walking text by text, citing these as problem passages in the Bible. Ones that he thinks embarrass Christians. They certainly embarrass him. He’s trying to accommodate the world’s unbelief. Because he’s ashamed of the Gospel. He’s ashamed of the Word of God and he’s trying to avoid ridicule by sounding cool and sophisticated. And in so doing, he has embraced irrationality and he’s leading many, many others to do the very same thing.

Folks, you need to understand that judgment is coming upon men just like that. Judgment is coming. Along with all the charlatans and hucksters and megachurch celebrities who are driven by greed and care nothing for the sheep. The only thing the sheep are good for is for their fleece, for their wool. They want to fleece the flock, put the money in their pockets and go live large. They refuse to rightly divide the Word of truth lest that rightly divided Word of truth turn and cut them.

Jude says of them that “These are hidden reefs in your love feasts as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves. They’re waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late on, autumn, twice dead, uprooted. They’re wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame. They’re wandering stars [that is you can never pin them down], for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

Judgment is coming, folks. And I say on this visible false professing church, I say to let it come. May God use this Corona virus to shut the doors of false churches. We’ve had enough of that. Enough of people being led astray. Any true believers, like I said earlier, any true believers, those of you who may be tied into those false churches in some way. Maybe you’re staying put because of comfort. Because you really like the kids’ program. Maybe it’s because they’ve got great worship bands or probably this, it’s because of family ties, because of relationship.

Whatever it is, listen my believing brother, listen my believing sister, get out of that false church. Come out from under that weak, insipid drivel that they call teaching and preaching. At the very best, you’re getting a diet of sugar and mush. Much of it, though, is mixed with worldly poison and the longer you stay there, the more intolerant you will become to the true truth of Scripture.

As Paul says, and here he’s quoting the words of the living God, “Go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. I’ll be a father to you and you’ll be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” Listen, do you fear the Lord, or do you fear your family? Turn away from your family and get with the Lord and his people.

Judgment is coming. Folks, this is the Word of the God to the transgressing world and the professing church. The false forms of visible religion that pawned themselves off as Christianity. Listen, repent, turn to Christ and find forgiveness of your sins.

Listen to the offer from the Lord himself. Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.” Isn’t that beautiful, that appeal? Come now, let us reason. I mean is there, is there any greater distance between God the transcendent sovereign one and us little ants? He says, “Come now. I put a mind of reason in you. I’ve created you in my image. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

How can God say that and still maintain his position as a just judge? Isn’t he angry over every single infraction in his law? Yes, he is. Is it not the judge of all the earth that will do always what is right? So how can God be just if he justifies those who are ungodly? Doesn’t that seem like a perversion of justice if he justifies those who are guilty of sin? How can he forgive sins?

Transgressing world, my unbelieving friend, the visible professing church, you have been blinded by false religion for son long. Listen to me. The reason God can forgive sin and still remain just and holy, the reason that he can justify you, calling you, declaring you righteous even when you’re not is because God sent his one and only Son Jesus Christ to die for sins. So that everyone who believes will not perish but have everlasting life.

You know that verse. It’s John 3:16. But let me read you the Old Testament. Isaiah says in that precious 53^rd chapter that this Christ was despised and rejected by men. And make no mistake, he’s being despised and rejected even to this day. “He’s a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is as of one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs, he’s carried our sorrows and yet we esteemed stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we’ve turned—every one—to his own way; the Lor has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” How can God be just and the justifier of the one who puts faith in Jesus Christ? Because every sing, if you believe if you repent, turn from your sins, put your faith in Jesus Christ, trust and obey him.

He’s taken all of your sin; every thought, word, and deed that is sinful against his law. Every sin of commission, every sin of omission. He’s taken everything past, present, and future of yours. If you’ll believe, if you’ll repent, if you’ll put faith and trust in Christ, he’s taken that sin and he’s placed it on his Son and he’s punished him instead of you. He was stricken, smitten, and forsaken for your sake.

And then he’s taken that perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, that perfect life he lived in obedience to every single jot and tittle of God’s Word. Walking even to the obedience of the mind and the heart and the two commandments that sum up all the rest, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus fulfilled that perfectly. And he did it to please his Father because he loves his Father. And he did it to love you.

Will you repent? Will you believe? Will you trust in the sacrifice for sins? Will you trust in the perfect righteousness of Christ that can be granted to you by faith? That’s how God can be just, punishing every single sin, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ, showing him grace and mercy. So come to Christ, transgressing world. Come to Christ, you who profess faith in God, but you actually live by taking his name in vain. Escape the wrath to come by turning to him in faith and repentance and you will find rest for your souls, even amid this silly little scrouge called the Corona virus. The preview of a wrath to come.

Well, I want to speak thirdly and finally, I wanna speak to the true church. I want to speak to you Grace church. We want to speak to any of you who are true believers and true churches. How is Christ using the Corona virus for us in the true and confessing church? Answer: Christ is purifying the confessing church. He’s purifying us. He’s bringing us through a period of difficulty, of chastisement, of discipline that we might grow stronger through all of this.

I wonder, folks, if Christ has separated us and forbidden us to meet together at this time and taken away the gift of the fellowship ordinance like I mentioned earlier, the communion table. I wonder if he’s not chastising us just a bit. Just giving us a bit of loving discipline. So many that I’ve talked, so many of you that I’ve talked with since this whole thing started, you’re rightly expressing a longing, a desire to be back in fellowship together. You want to be in church with each other. We want to be under the teaching of the Word, the singing of the songs and all the rest. And I get that.

I wonder, though, if perhaps we need to wait just a little bit longer. And see the incredible gift that we have been given and this gift that’s been removed from us for a time. And it’s this gift, it’s the gift of Christ and the church. It’s the gift of the body of Christ. It’s the gift of being under the leadership of the church. It’s the gift of submission to one another in the fear of Christ.

It’s the privilege of meeting regularly for teaching and singing, of edifying one another, of provoking one another. That word “provoking one another to love and good works,” it’s not just a gentle nudge or encouragement, it’s taking a sharp stick and sticking you in, into each other’s sides. To get us moving again. I wonder if we need to wait just a little bit longer so that we can love discipline in the church.

Even more than that, I wonder how many of us here, here in the true church, any true church, have really taken the gift of the Lord’s table for granted, as well. In 1 Corinthians 11, that’s a text that we turn to often when we’re celebrating communion to warn people not to take communion in an unworthy manner. You know that in that 11^th chapter of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, the Lord punished some of those Corinthian believers for doing just that. For taking, coming to the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner.

He took away some of those believers in the Corinthian church, he took away their opportunity to approach his table by inflicting upon them an illness on some. And on some others, he even removed them from the fellowship through death. Folks, that’s the practical reality of what has happened to all of us during this time, isn’t it?

Our Lord never stops building his church. But it does seem that every now and again, while he holds a trial, a trowel in one hand for mortar and brick, in the other hand he’s picked up a switch. He’s administering a chastisement to the backsides of all of us. We know that when God plagued Egypt, executed judgment on its false gods, on all of its pomposity, its pride, its superpower status, all the rest, there were certain plagues that did not touch God’s people who were living in Goshen. That’s where the Israelites lived.

He could do the same thing now, could he not? He could spare all true churches, spare them from any of the effects of this Corona virus. He has the power to design a judgment that inflicts suffering on the transgressing world and the false process, professing church. And then to spare all true churches of his. He could spare us if he wanted to. But here we are.

We’re enduring the same trials and afflictions along with everybody else. Very few of us have suffered to the point of shedding blood. We need to admit this could be a lot, lot worse, couldn’t it? We’ve been spared the plagues of Egypt under the blood of the Passover Lamb. We trust in the Lamb of God, who was appointed to take away our sin.

And so this is but a mere momentary light affliction, not full on persecution, not bloodletting, not imprisonment, not the loss of property. So we need to stop and reflect as well, don’t we? We need to consider what Christ wants us to learn here, to think about and to confess any sin that we have and repent of it all. There are some among us, as with all true churches, who are tares among the wheat in a true church. Well, listen, you’ve had your warnings.

But there are others. Maybe weak Christians, maybe mediocre Christians. Others who love this present world too much, who love to drift in and out of the fellowship, who stay on the, the fringes of the church. There are some who are too devoted to their businesses, to climbing the ladders of the world, to making money, to seeking the approval of others, to finding fame and everything else out there. There are others who love this world with its distractions and its entertainments, its travel opportunities, its pleasures.

So beloved Christian, examine your heart. Examine your own heart. See if there be in you any love for the old idols, any love for the false gods of this age. Throw them all away. Be, ‘member Israel, they came across the Jordan with Joshua. He entered into Jericho great defeat of Jericho, success, victory. They went to Ai and what happened? One man and his family took one forbidden thing, hid it and they tried to go forward pretending righteousness.

Don’t be that Achan in the camp. Don’t be that one among your brothers and sisters in the church who’s gonna hide the silver mantle underneath your tent. Throw all your false gods away. Examine, take the light of Scripture and examine every corner and crevice of your heart. And kill it all. Return to the fountain of living waters to find your soul’s thirst quenched. Eat daily of that manna, feeding daily on the Word of God. Attend to the regular means of grace.

But I just want to call all of us Christians to examine our hearts, to see as, as David called upon the Lord. “Examine me and see if there be any wicked way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.” Let there not be any sins within us, any love for those old idols like Rachel, who hid the, the gods of her family underneath her saddle and kept them because she wanted to carry that new religion into, into the new promised land.

Let there not be in your heart any love for the old idols. Any of the false religion, any of the gods of this age. There so enticing, so powerful, so attractive. And they come into your home through this. Throw them all away. I mean, keep your iPhone, but don’t, throw all the false gods away. Return to the fountain of living waters and drink deeply of him and quench your thirsty soul.

Eat the bread the, that he has given from heaven. Christ in the Word. Eat daily from him. Attend to the regular means of grace, the church, week by week and every time you can during the week. Come to this fellowship ordinance, like the Lord’s table. Don’t despise the Lord’s table. Don’t despise the need to meet. Rather, rejoice in it. Celebrate in the regular means of grace.

Celebrate in holiness and in purity and with a cheerful and grateful heart. Never grumble and complain against the Lord’s gifts. So beloved, as Christ swings the stick of the Corona virus, don’t ever turn away from his loving lashes. Rather, cling to the rod of chastisement itself, kissing the nail-pierced hand of the Savior who wields the rod.

For as God’s children by faith, we don’t look just to the rod. We look to what it produces, the peaceful fruit of righteousness in our lives. We look to the face of a loving Father who looks down at us and loves us and disciplines us for our good. We climb into his lap for fellowship. Beloved, let me tell you, too, during this time, don’t be anxious, do not worry, do not fret. That is another form of sin.

Just keep trusting in him, keep obeying and keep praying things like the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen. Pray that often. Pray it daily.