March 23, 2020 Show with Bill Shishko on “Coronavirus Through Christian Eyes”

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensirenradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 23rd day of March 2020, and I am so thrilled to have back on the program somebody who has been one of the greatest sources of encouragement to me, not only in my life in general, but specifically in regard to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He has been a guest quite a number of times on this program, and I'm thrilled that he's back today to address a very timely issue.

His name is no stranger to the audience of this program, his name is

Pastor Bill Shishko, and he is the pastor at The Haven in Deer Park, Long Island, New York, which is a congregation of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Bill Shishko.

Hey, Chris, great to be with you today. Yes, and we are going to be discussing coronavirus through Christian eyes.

Obviously, as I said, a timely subject since many of us have been quarantined to our homes, and very rarely stray far from our homes, perhaps not even straying outside of the four walls of our homes, and it is quite an interesting phenomenon.

I have never experienced anything like this in my lifetime, but before we go into the subject of coronavirus through Christian eyes, why don't you tell our listeners about The Haven in Deer Park, quite an unusual name, especially for an

Orthodox Presbyterian congregation. Well, the concept is right, it's based on Psalm 107 .30,

appropriate for this time. The picture there is of people in the midst of winds and waves and storms, but the

Lord brings them to their desired haven, and we love to tell people that the great haven is heaven and glory, and the halfway house is the church, and the church makes known the haven of the gospel, which is

Jesus Christ, so we love the name, we love that we reach out to people that a lot of times

Reformed and Presbyterian people don't, and we've been pleased to see the Lord convert people from some difficult and different backgrounds, and we love the name, we love the ministry, we're just looking forward to be able to meet publicly again down the line.

Yes, as am I at the church where I am a member, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and for those of our listeners who don't know anything about the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, why don't you give them a little bit more detail. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church has no relation with Eastern Orthodoxy, other than we hold to, with them, to the deity of Christ, and that God is

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it's a term that means straight teaching, and the OPC as we call it was formed in 1936, it was the first denomination that was birthed out of the so -called

Fundamentalist Modernist Controversy, and so we are committed to the Bible as the

Word of God, we're committed to the historic Christian faith as represented in the

Westminster Confession of Faith and the larger and shorter catechisms as adopted by American Presbyterians.

And, of course, not only have you no connection with the

Eastern Orthodox Church, you have no connection with mainline liberal Presbyterianism.

Yeah, correct, we are not the Presbyterian Church USA, which long since abandoned its biblical convictions, we're thankful there are some local churches that are still evangelical in their convictions, but by and large that denomination has moved into the waters of apostasy, and so we're not part of that group.

Yes, and there is actually a newspaper, I'm assuming it still exists, called the

Layman, L -A -Y -M -A -N, which is edited and run by the evangelical minority in the

PCUSA. Right, correct, that's right. Well, by the way, I want to make sure our listeners, we will repeat this,

God willing, later on, but the website for The Haven is thehavenli .com,

thehavenli .com, and LI, of course, stands for Long Island, and I understand that you planted this church in Deer Park, Long Island, New York, because there was no evangelical presence there as far as the church goes.

Yeah, the corridor from, say, Dix Hills to the north and the northern part of Babylon, I really would love to be able to still have a church in Babylon, but that maybe three -mile corridor on the western part of Suffolk County and Long Island does not even have much of an evangelical presence, so I'll put it like that.

There's certainly no Reformed church in that area, and we particularly chose that area because we wanted to have some distance from the other

Reformed and Presbyterian churches, but it's primarily, there is no evangelical witness there, and we're praying that the

Lord will provide us a place of physical presence. Right now, we're thankful to be renting the facility of Ascension Lutheran Church, and we're meeting when we can meet at 4 .30

p .m., but we're looking forward to having our own place where we can meet for worship in the morning and launch out into the community with the

Gospel. And, of course, those who are most familiar with Pastor Bill Shishko remember him most for being pastor of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, for what, 35 years or so?

Thirty -five years, yeah. Thirty -five years, three months, and I forget how many days, and it was a delight.

Martin Luther had it right when he said, neither an angel nor a pope can give you more than Christ gives you in your local parish church, and I'm glad to, after a stint of being what was called a regional home missionary,

I'm glad to be back being a pastor again. Amen. And, of course, those of you who listen frequently to this show will remember that Pastor Bill is one of my oldest

Christian friends after becoming a newly reborn

Christian in the 1980s. Pastor Bill was one of the first pastors, other than my own, at Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, which, of course, later merged with First Baptist Church of Merrick and is now

Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick. But, other than my own pastors, you were perhaps the very first Bible -believing

Christian pastor from a Reformed perspective that I had met because you had been invited to preach at Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, and we met, we hit it off, and we have been friends ever since the late 1980s.

And brothers in Christ. Amen, more importantly. All right. Well, the big picture of the coronavirus, through Christian eyes, the big picture is what is

God doing through the coronavirus? And, of course, we could discuss that for months because we could never exhaust the many things, because, of course, there are even many things that we're unaware of that God is doing.

But if you could start off with the big picture. I appreciate that, Chris, and I appreciate the opportunity to be on the program.

I want to let people know I'm not an economist, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a medical doctor, and I'm not a politician, but I am a pastor.

And I'm hoping that the couple of hours we've got ahead of us will be helpful to not only look at the big picture, which

I want to deal with in this segment, but the church historically dealing with epidemics, and then some practical directives for individuals and families and churches.

Of course, I've been getting a lot of phone calls and emails, as all pastors have been. One dear brother who was fearful called, and his question was,

Do you think God is trying to get our attention through this? I said, well, there's something we call the still small voice conscience and the way the word works within, and then there's the preaching of the word of God and teaching of the word of God, and there

God speaks. Now God is really shouting to us. These are times that are designed to make us wake up.

I think it's very important that people always keep in mind that none of this is foreign to the word of God at all.

In the Old Testament, you don't go many pages without having some kind of calamity that befalls the

Lord's people, whether it's a plague, whether it's war, whether it's famine or something else.

And Psalm 46 .1, the mountains would fall into the sea and the waters foam.

I mean, it's a picture of a traumatized world, and yet we're called to be still and know that God is

God and know that there are streams that come from heaven that are to make glad God's people.

So I think that would be the overarching thing. But let me begin, though, Chris, with just an observation.

It's interesting how God works in this. On March 14th, I needed to make a trip to Atlanta for the funeral of a firstborn son of a very dear pastor.

And that was the time where people were not traveling as much, still are not, obviously.

And I was so struck throughout the day with so many parallels.

I thought to myself, if we were as fastidious about cleansing ourselves from sin as we are about keeping from the coronavirus, we would be a remarkably different generation of Christians.

Just some examples. Handrails. On the one hand, you see the signs that say to put your hand on the handrail so you don't get hypnotized by the escalator.

And yet you weren't supposed to put your hands on the handrails. I don't know quite how to do this, but I thought we were told to touch not the unclean thing.

The way people kept away from one another and the scriptures' admonitions to flee youthful lust and flee iniquity.

The gloves that people wore. Putting on their gloves, we're told to put on the

Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. And my favorite one, washing our hands over and over again.

What is baptism? But it's a sign of the washing that we need by the

Holy Spirit in order to be cleansed from our sins. And when I put all of that together,

I was reminded that sin has historically been called the plague of plagues.

Isaiah 1 and verse 5. The whole head is sick and raked out of the foot, and we're full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, which is the language of the disease of leprosy.

But it hit me then, and I think this is so important for everyone. This pandemic really is a parable that God has sent to make us look at physical things at the spiritual realities that are behind them.

So that was number one. And I don't know whether you can... You know me, Chris. I'll just keep going here.

Yeah, you can definitely keep going. Okay. All right. The second thing is this for everybody, and this is an exhortation.

We're called in the Bible to be sober -minded. The Apostle Paul and 2

Timothy, writing to the young ministers, says, God gave us a spirit not of fear, and that can also be translated cowardice, but of power and love and self -control.

And then Peter uses the same term, an added one, in 1 Peter 4, 7.

Interestingly, beginning, the end of all things is at hand. In terms of what

God is going to do in history by way of special revelation, the next event to come following Christ's coming and Pentecost is the return of Christ.

And we're meant to, people have asked, we'll probably get to this later, is this the end of time?

Well, we're meant to live like that. And then Peter says, therefore, be self -controlled and sober -minded.

Interestingly, for the sake of your prayers, above all, keep loving one another. And those words for sobriety, literally for sobriety and self -control, mean to think clearly with a mind that's moderated.

Moderated, not that we're tepid, but we have a governor over our minds so that we think clearly, and of course that's the

Word of God. Minds not out of control. Minds not intoxicated.

And we must keep in mind that media intoxicates. We're riveted to the radio, to the television, to the computer about all of this.

And we've got to be so careful not to become inebriated with media.

Fears, as one person wrote, is more viral than any virus. Or as he himself says, when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.

So always be going back to the Word of God, programs like this and others that you're doing, good materials that are being circulated that help us think biblically about fear and anxiety and worry and so forth.

All of these things should be governing our minds. So that'd be the general exhortation.

And then, I think it's important, Chris, that we have a framework for looking at the coronavirus.

Most of us don't. We're reacting to the latest news that comes out from a governor or from the president or from the medical community.

And I'm not pooh -poohing those things. We need them. But we've got to have a framework with which we look at all of these things.

And this is what I would suggest is four sides of a frame to look at the coronavirus from Christian eyes.

One is God's absolute sovereignty. Someone sent me a clip from a

Long Island newspaper written by a rabbi, and I know the man is well -meaning. But at the beginning, essentially he says, hey, these things are natural.

This is part of the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest.

And we just need to expect this. There's no comfort in that, number one.

It reminds me of Rabbi Kushner. Yeah, very similar, very similar. But see, the logical end of all that is why even bother to fight this?

If this is part of the Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest, just let people die and let the fit survive.

So he undercuts the message, which later on was a little bit better than that.

God is absolutely sovereign in these things, and we absolutely must not be backwards in saying that.

Two key texts in Isaiah 45, beginning at verse 1. Here you have

Cyrus, who is a pagan king, a Persian. And Israel's wondering what's going on with this man that God is using, even though he doesn't know

God. And the Lord speaks in verse 7 and says, I form light and create darkness.

I make well -being or peace or shalom and create calamity.

I am the Lord who does all these things. It's not sin. Calamity would be the evils of typhoons or tornadoes or hurricanes or coronaviruses.

God is sovereign over these things. He works out his will, as I tell people so often, on the dark canvas of a fallen world.

We live in a fallen world in which there is disease, there is death, there is suffering, there is pain.

And this is, again, a parable. God shouting to us that we're in a fallen world, but he is sovereign over these things.

Similarly, in Amos 3, in verse 6, does disaster come to a city unless the

Lord has done it? See, people don't like this. None of us likes this.

But the alternative is absolute chaos. I say to people, if you want a world of randomness, then forget washing your hands.

It may work sometimes. It may not work at other times. But God, who is sovereign, who has ordained viruses, which are genetic materials surrounded by proteins,

God has ordained that in a washing process and by the effects of ultraviolet rays and other things, there is, to some extent, a mitigation of these things.

That's the way God has ordered things. But we, Chris, and I know I'm preaching to the choir in this because Iron sharpens

Iron over and over again, you've emphasized a biblical view of God. We've domesticated

God in our American religion. That's right. God is there to satisfy my needs to be a cosmic

Santa Claus. He's showing us in all of this, he's not going to be domesticated.

It reminds me of the oft -quoted section in C .S. Lewis's The Lion, the

Witch, and the Wardrobe when the four children realize that there's this lion that's on the loose,

Aslan, and they're with the beaver family. And they're scared.

And they say, well, he's a lion. Is he safe? And Mrs. Beaver says, of course he's not safe.

He's the lion. But then she says, he's not safe, but he's good. And that's what we need to keep in mind in this.

No, God is not safe, but he's good, and he's good all the time, as we want to remind ourselves of.

That's one thing. God's absolute sovereignty, and don't back off from all that. The second is respect for those in authority.

And like, I'm sure, all of your listeners or most of your listeners, I don't like governmental overreach.

I'm a constitutionalist. I believe that the powers that be that are ordained of God are, first of all, our

Constitution and our Bill of Rights. And those in authority are to see that those things are upheld.

But we are in a wartime economy right now, and all societies recognize that temporarily, for good reason, there may need to be a certain restriction on freedoms.

I don't like that. Nobody does. But we need to respect those in authority when they tell us that we need to not have, as we have in New York now, any unnecessary travel.

We're told to wash our hands. We're told to stay six feet apart from people, and so in no larger groups.

We should be praying for our president, our governors, all in authority over us.

These are hard times for them, but they're set over us, Romans 13, for our good.

And we need to honor that. Next is, what a time, this is the third of the four sides of the framework, what a time to be reminded of the golden rule.

We're to love our neighbors as ourselves. Matthew 7 and verse 12 and Luke 6 and verse 31, all of the calls to love.

Peter's in 1 Peter 4 and verse 8, we're to be sober, we're to pray, and we're to love others.

Greater love has no man than this, than that he lays down his life for his friend.

And that's very, very practical for us. Don't hoard things. Leave some toilet paper for your neighbors to pick up, if they're even finding it at all at the stores.

But the Church is really meant to look outward. By the way, I'd like to ask our listeners, please leave some rye bread behind, also, because the only thing

I've found, hundreds of loaves of white bread, but no rye bread. Or if they have it, they can send it to you, the

Postal Service. But I mean practical things. You don't cough and send a speech reply at any time.

You don't cough in somebody's face. You use good sanitation and hygiene. Really, it's not just a matter of loving your neighbor, but it's also a matter of the

Sixth Commandment not to kill. We're to take all lawful attempts to preserve our own lives and the lives of our neighbors.

And here we're working that out. And the last of the four theological perspectives.

And Chris, I just love this one. It's the undergirding truth in all of this.

Jesus Christ is Lord. He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

The devil doesn't reign. Jesus does. And he's furthering his kingdom through this.

And he's answering the prayers of God's people. It's fascinating to me that not only

Ephesians 1 .20 is Jesus giving his head over all things for the sake of his church, but in Revelation 8, it is fascinating that in this picture of heaven you have incense in heaven.

And the prayers of the saints are mixed with that. And in that context, the

Lord brings down judgments on the earth. These are the trumpet judgments. And without getting into all the ins and outs of how to rightly interpret that, at least it means

God's people's prayers are being heard. And when God works in the earth in dramatic ways, which those trumpet judgments are, we pay attention.

And the other text in it is Revelation 18.

And I'd urge your listeners, Chris, to read, ideally read out loud,

Revelation 18 and verse 1. To chapter 19 and verse 5, it's the text,

And that haunting expression, in one hour, in one hour, suddenly these judgments come in the earth.

God, in that context, this is a picture of how God actually dealt with the

Roman Empire in the next segment. We can give some illustrations of that. But if the purpose is to bring down the idols of a culture, we have prayed so many of us,

Lord, please, that we have an educational establishment in the

United States, on every level, that really has become an establishment of religion.

Be honest about it. And people who are contravening that by way of Christian schools and homeschools have been experiencing increasing opposition.

Look at this. We've become a nation of homeschoolers through all of this.

And that cuts off at the knees the way the state can oppose what now they've mandated, what they have mandated the athletic establishment.

I'm not against sports. But pro sports, all sports, have become the

Sunday Steelers in the United States of America. Look at what's happened with the shutting down of pro sports, even now it seems as of today, the real possibility of shutting down the

Summer Olympics. Our economy. We have boasted in our economy, let's face it, we have boasted in the way we're going to be provided for in our

IRAs and so on, how God has brought that down. And that's really pretty much the main theme there in Revelation 18, is the bringing down of the economy.

Our footloose and fancy free ways of dealing with people in our culture sexually.

Now we have social distancing in our culture. And this one that fascinates me. What a rebuke to false religions that have proliferated in our culture in a time of prosperity.

Amen. How many of the name -it -and -claim -it preachers just claim your healing or claim healing for a country?

How many of them are interviewed on MSNBC or Fox News or any of this?

None of them, because they're phonies. And this has made that very, very clear.

It connected with that as well. A culture that has said with respect to sexuality, so long as you believe that you're a male or a female, even though genetically it's just the opposite, that's got to be respected.

Hello? Can you imagine people with coronavirus symptoms and testing positive for it?

That doesn't make any difference. I don't believe that I have it, and you've got to honor that. Chris, these are just some of the idols that in one way or another we have prayed about in our culture, asking that the

Lord deal with it. He's answering those prayers. Amen. In fact, we are going to our first break right now, and I'll leave most of the listener questions to the end of the program.

But I'll have you comment or respond when we return from the first break to a comment by a listener.

I usually only give the first name, city, and state of those who send in questions, but when it comes to ministers,

I typically give the full name and the name of the church and so on. We have

Joel Soliday, minister of the Lewiston Church of Christ in Lewiston, Idaho, and he says,

I expect that a year from now we will be told that most of what we thought we knew about the coronavirus was not accurate.

Science is far more unsettled than many presume, but uncertainty is a part of the human condition, and I take that seriously.

I think it is just as dangerous to refuse to take our uncertainty seriously than to refuse to take the virus seriously.

This is why Christians run on faith rather than fear. Faith and hope are qualities we cannot hold amid absolute certainty, but we can hold them up against the fear that comes with uncertainty.

And we'll have you respond to that. I'll even repeat it when we come back from the break. I'm going to take up the whole segment.

If anybody else wants to join us on the air, and keep in mind, we're going to be holding off until the last half hour or 45 minutes or so to start answering your questions, but if you want to get in line so you don't get ignored, send in an email as soon as you can at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with more Bill Shishko. When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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We are now back with Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination in Deer Park, Long Island, New York.

We are discussing coronavirus through Christian eyes. Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com and we had, as I said earlier Joel Soliday, Minister of the

Lewiston Church of Christ in Lewiston, Idaho who says, I expect that a year from now we will be told that most of what we thought we knew about the coronavirus was not accurate.

Science is far more unsettled than many presume but uncertainty is a part of the human condition and I take that seriously.

I think it is just as dangerous to refuse to take our uncertainty seriously than to refuse to take the virus seriously.

This is why Christians run by faith rather than fear. Faith and hope are qualities we cannot hold amid absolute certainty but we can hold them up against the fear that comes with uncertainty.

Now, I'm sure you would agree and I have a feeling, I don't know this for a fact but I have a feeling Joel Soliday would agree that there are things though that we as Christians believe with absolute certainty such as the gospel, the inerrancy of scripture.

Yeah, well I agree with Pastor Joel that's very well put and I'm glad you read it again. I mean hindsight in any case always gives us 20 -20 vision and we're all accustomed to saying you can lose the forest for the trees and when there's so many trees about the coronavirus it's easy to lose the forest.

I think for us to keep in mind we still, God doesn't need our perfect understanding to do

His perfect will. When the Bible says that the word is a light to our path and a guide to our way that was a candle basically that illumined one step at a time so rather than try to understand the big picture here which

God willing will become clearer in a year or so what does the Lord want me to do right now with what

I know? And I think that would distill the practical application of Pastor Joel's very fine statement.

Well, let's move on to how the Christian church has responded to these types of calamities pandemics, etc.

over the centuries. Yeah, that's a great question, Chris and I'm encouraged that there are more articles now coming out about this.

Rodney Stark, who was, I think he may be retired now but was a professor at Baylor University he has done tremendous work over the years looking at the

Christian church in the early centuries I'm very much indebted to him for his book Cities of God, the rise of Christianity and the triumph of Christianity and way before the pandemic he pointed out that the way the early church responded to plagues, and they had loads of them became a pattern for the way the

Christian church would respond to plagues down the line just some examples because pandemics or plagues have happened throughout history this is not unusual in the second century in what was called the

Antonine Plague about one quarter of the population of the

Roman Empire died but Christianity grew because Christians reached out to people and we have that documented even more a century later in the third century which was called the 249 -262 that's amazing, that was a 13 -14 year plague called the

Cyprian Plague and we don't know exactly what that was some have suggested it was probably similar to Ebola there were 5 ,000 deaths per day that came as a result of that plague and one of the bishops,

Bishop Dionysius from Bishop of Alexandria wrote most of our brother

Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another heedless of danger they took charge of the sick attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ and with them departed this life serenely happy for they were infected by others with the disease drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepted their pains many in nursing and curing others transferred their deaths to themselves and died in their stead and that was completely the opposite of the heathen who deserted people that were sick and fled from their dearest friends they didn't want any part in this now

I've got to be careful when we use these quotations that does not mean that all of us should run out and try to work with the people infected with the coronavirus this was pre -hospitals pre the kind of medical care that we've known of for centuries yet at the same time

Christians did not flee from this for fear of their lives they had an everlasting life and they gave themselves for the good of others then even in the 4th century interesting that in the 4th century there was a pagan emperor named

Julian and by that time the testimony of Christians as those who helped out others in times of plague would become well known and Julian did not, to say the least, did not like they call him

Julian the apostate he did not like Christianity and one of his statements was the impious

Galileans which was his term for followers of Christ the impious

Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well and so that testimony was known to pagans has a lot of bearing on what we'll deal with in your next segment about practical application in the 4th century, the 300s more plagues and what was interesting at least according to Rodney Stark and the fascinating statistics that he has the death rates in cities with Christian communities in the 4th century, the 300s was about half the death rate of cities that didn't have distinctive

Christian communities because Christians helped out one another and they followed basic principles of hygiene and so on that they basically got out of the word of God and out of love for their neighbor that really is the bedrock of what would happen in the future of course we have the black death in the 1300s we don't know quite as much about Christian response to that five year plague that wiped out about half the population of Europe but very interesting in the 1500s most people when they read about Martin Luther aren't familiar with this the outbreak of the bubonic plague came in the 1500s and then later of course in the 1600s

Martin Luther, the great reformer when the bubonic plague hit

Wittenberg he refused calls to flee the city and to protect himself he stayed and ministered to the sick actually his daughter

Elizabeth died as a result of that plague and Luther wrote a tract called whether Christians should flee the plague and basically he said among other things and here

I'm citing really an excellent article by Lyman Stone Christianity's been handling epidemics for 2000 years

Luther said we die at our posts Christian doctors cannot abandon their hospitals

Christian governors cannot flee their districts Christian pastors cannot abandon their congregations the plague does not dissolve our duties it turns them to crosses on which we must be prepared to die and Luther used

Matthew 25, 41 -46 for his text I was sick and you helped me

I was in prison and you ministered to me and then the last one we've got some time constraints here in the 1850's there was an outbreak of cholera in England it ravaged

London many many people were killed and Charles Spurgeon we all love to quote he was 20 years old at the time and he wrote in 1854 fear to die thank

God I do not the cholera may come again next summer pray it may not but if it does it matters not to me

I will toil and visit the sick by night and by day until I drop and if cholera takes me sudden death is sudden glory that's a powerful but it's true the way they responded and I think to kind of sum it all up and to encourage your listeners when over the years there have been responses to plagues by Christians two things happened number one the world was stunned the world of unbelievers was stunned that there was this kind of self -giving sacrificial love that spelled

Jesus Christ they saw Christ in the self -giving love of people who risked their lives to help out others and invariably let's pray that this be the case here too the church grew many non -Christians en masse came to Christ because they saw the gospel lived out by people so I think

I'm a great fan of Samuel Rutherford the Scottish Presbyterian minister of the 16th century and his precious volume

The Loveliness of Christ he says when I look over beyond the line and beyond death to the laughing side of the world

I triumph and ride upon the high places of Jacob albeit otherwise I'm a faint dead -hearted cowardly man often born down and hungry and waiting for the marriage supper of the

Lamb but nevertheless I think of the Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger and makes us fat with want and desertion that's beautiful and just remember in presenting the gospel to people the gospel is come by wine and milk without money and without price it's our very sense of poverty and desperation and need that is at work humanly speaking prepares us for coming to Christ for all the

Lord's justice in Him Amen and by the way I have a little announcement for Charlie Liebert the founder of sixdaycreation .com

who is a former colleague of Ken Ham actually he wrote in a question that I think you just stole his thunder but he asked has a pandemic ever brought about a revival and so you did hint at that just by discussing the fact that many people have come to Christ by witnessing the way

Christians have responded to these kinds of tragedies

Yeah, I'd like to Chris if it's okay in the Q &A time the last segment I would like to feel that just to anticipate it

Scriptures speak in a couple of different ways about that I think it's important to keep in mind that it's not that there was a plague and then revival but there was a plague and there was literally a display of Christ in the world a remarkable display of Christ people not loving their own lives unto death being led as lambs to the slaughter greater love has no man than this that he laid down his life for his friends and people saw the gospel in people during the plagues and that turned them to Christ this whole question of whether of whether plagues and judgments in themselves are instruments to bring about revival

I'd rather touch on that in the last segment That's fine and we have to go to our midway break right now and keep in mind folks the midway break is longer than our normal breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida who airs this program twice daily in a pre -recorded format they are required by the

FCC to localize their programming to Lake City, Florida being a non -for -profit station so while they air their own public service announcements and other things that are local to Lake City, Florida we air our globally heard commercials so please use this time wisely also please be patient with us as this is a longer break but use this time wisely by writing down information that our advertisers provide because we want you to more successfully and frequently patronize our advertisers whenever possible because as I said earlier with Solid Ground Christian Books one way to keep

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio on the air if indeed you want that to occur is to patronize our advertisers so that they want to remain as our advertisers so please patronize them as often as you can and also write down a question for Bill Shishko about coronavirus through Christian eyes and email it to us at chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com and remember please at least give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter don't go away we'll be right back with Bill Shishko Hi, this is

John Samson pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide this is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

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Choir singing This is Pastor Bill Sousa of Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially Grace Church at Franklin is an independent autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ and of course the end for which we strive is the glory of God If you live near Franklin, Tennessee and Franklin is just south of Nashville maybe 10 minutes or you are visiting this area or you have friends and loved ones nearby we hope you will join us some

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin Our website is

GraceChurchAtFranklin .org That's GraceChurchAtFranklin .org

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior and King Jesus Christ today and always

Amen Dan also has a master's degree in theology

Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for one million dollars or more and in approximately 10 different states

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity and besides that they feel so good

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Their website is cvbbs .com Browse the pages at ease shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you the church and to Christ That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com

That's cvbbs .com Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio And don't forget folks you can call cvbbs .com

Monday through Friday only between the hours of 10 a .m. and 4 .30 p .m.

Eastern Time because that's the only time they have somebody manning that line there is no voicemail on that line

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And remember folks since I have two advertisers who are both book -related advertisers there are two different kinds of advertisers though solid -ground -books .com

is a publisher cvbbs .com is a book distributor So what I would ask of you is to keep both of my advertisers happy go to solid -ground -books .com

first make a long list of books that you want to order from solid -ground -Christian books and then you can go to cvbbs .com

and order them there because they carry all of solid -ground -Christian books titles So help keep both of those advertisers happy in that way

Before I return to our discussion on coronavirus through Christian eyes with my guest

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Haven and Deer Park Long Island, New York a congregation of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church I just have some announcements to make First of all, tomorrow we have on the program returning to this broadcast

Joe Moorcraft Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia He is going to be discussing

Part 2 of his book With Liberty and Justice for All Christian Politics Made Simple And then on Wednesday the 25th of March we have his sister -in -law returning to this program after a long absence

Judy Rogers one of my favorite Christian recording artists of all time

We're going to be playing some of her latest music and as well we will be addressing the whole concept of Christians in the

Christian recording industry Then on Thursday we have for the very first time

Ron Dart Ron Dart is the editor of a new book called

Myth and Meeting in Jordan Peterson A Christian Perspective And then on Friday we have

Joe Jackowitz the founder of First Love Radio First Love Missions and First Love Publications He's also

Pastor of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California He is going to be continuing a series that we just launched last

Friday where he is going to be giving updates on the coronavirus And next

Monday and Tuesday Jeff Thomas the world -renowned Reformed Baptist author and a man who was who had pastored the

Alfred Place Baptist Church in Everest with Wales for half a century before retiring

He will be our guest both on Monday and Tuesday of next week Also folks as far as we know right now the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Spring Pastors Luncheon is still taking place on Friday, May 29th 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania For the very first time ever we are delighted to announce that Dr.

Conrad Mbewe Pastor of Kubwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa He is going to be our guest speaker

He has been a dear friend of mine since 1995 I am so thrilled that he will be with us

God willing of course because the way things are going we have no idea what God has in store in our future for certain

But right now we are still as far as we know going through with that Spring Pastors Luncheon Not only will you be fed a sumptuous meal absolutely free of charge and here

Dr. Conrad Mbewe speak absolutely free of charge but you will also every man in ministry leadership who attends is going to be leaving that event with a heavy sack of free brand new books donated by Christian publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom and this is for men only, men in ministry leadership only, whether you are a pastor, an elder, a deacon a parachurch leader if you are a man in ministry leadership you are welcome to this free event which was the brainchild of my precious late wife

Julie we conducted these annually for quite a number of years in the 1990s and even in the 2000s before she went home to glory and then when

I relocated to Pennsylvania I relaunched these luncheons in 2015 and have been conducting them ever since in her tribute and her honor and in her memory and she loved the preaching and teaching of my guest today

Bill Shishko and would speak fondly of him often in fact my brother

Pastor Bill Shishko had some wonderful words to say at her funeral as well but if you are a man in ministry leadership please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

and I will register you for free for this luncheon immediately that's Friday May 29th 11am to 2pm last but not least folks if you love

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio you listen to it frequently you share the free downloadable mp3s with family, friends and loved ones you love the topics and guests that we have on the show that very often are never heard anywhere else well

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remain on the air if indeed you love the show obviously if you don't love the show I'm not sure why you're listening but please go to ironsharpensironradio .com

click support then click click to donate now last but not least if you are not a member of a local bible believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one you need to rectify that situation immediately you are living in rebellion against God if you think that you can wander around as a lone wolf or maverick in the christian church there is no such a person in the new testament so please if you need help finding a good church send me an email to chrisorenson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world and I have already helped many people find churches that they have visited and joined and become members of and also people who are going on vacation and looking for a church where they are vacationing or if they have family friends and loved ones in any part of the planet earth that does not have a local church that they know of I have had people find churches for their loved ones through the lists that I have so send me an email to chrisorenson at gmail .com

chrisorenson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you could send in a question to Pastor Bill Shishko on coronavirus through Christian eyes that's chrisorenson at gmail .com

chrisorenson at gmail .com and we will be beginning to ask questions of listeners momentarily but first Pastor Bill did you want to finish on the things that have occurred in our past regarding pandemics or did you want to move on to the practical suggestions?

Yeah let's move on to some practical suggestions for individuals and families in church and you've got what

Chris 530 we have another break right? Yeah between 530 and 540 Ok great well let's see because I do want some time for questions so let me try to condense this as far as individuals go and this is apropos of your previous comment about church membership to which

I say many many many amens. Remember that you're still parts of local churches and if you're not a part of a local church then you need to be

Chris said it exactly right the bible knows nothing of people who are professed faith in Christ and were not part of a local church but support your local church including continuing to give your tithes and offerings and honor your leaders obey your leaders and submit to them

Hebrews 13 17 for they're keeping watch over your souls as those who still will have to give an account let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you and epidemic or not and wartime economy or not this is still true so support for example the

Sunday directives that are given to you some churches we're doing setting out a bulletin for family worship encouraging heads of homes to lead worship others are doing live streaming follow the directives of your leaders please don't follow a consumer model

I like the way this church is doing it the way it's live streaming I was very excited about the orchestra in this one or whatever it would be you're part of a local church and even if you can't attend that body on Sunday you should participate in the way your leaders call you to honor the

Lord's Day um honor the bottom line is honor the

Lord's Day it's still the Lord's Day another thing individually this comes up in every category reach out to others with wise compassion we have one of our daughters in the

Lord is in China we Skype her every month she happened to be in the Hubei province somewhat distant from Wuhan Christian friends in Wuhan fascinating to hear of how people in Wuhan they were ordering masks they were ordering antiseptic things they were going to people and giving them these things

I'd love to get her on the program at some point I think uh given some of the restrictions from China that may not be the wisest but we could we could discuss that but she could also remain anonymous by the way that's the way they'd have to do it but um some practical things to help out for herself caregivers we've got people now that are having to work in emergency rooms and they're having to work in hospitals they have children they have needs at home if you know caregivers communicate with them find out how you can be of help and help them again this is not like the epidemics in the early centuries of the

Christian church where there were no hospitals but we can be of help to the caregivers babysitting food or whatever just when it comes to food be careful to honor the the way we practice hygiene with things certainly the elderly there's going to be a lot more unemployed and finding out how we can be of help to them and quarantine people but look outward

Christians look outward we should do that please avoid finger pointing

I received in the right sense of the word a pathetic email from another one of our daughters in the

Lord who is from Asian background and it's an appeal regarding it's called a call for protection she said dear friends this is an earnest call for you to intentionally watch over the safety of the

Asian looking people and friends around you during the pandemic and following post pandemic season especially if you're in the

United States and she gives some examples of how she was harassed when she was out of the street as an

Asian she said after reading others experiences about the ill treatments or violence they received recently as Asian looking people on multiple medias

I've experienced it myself I not only feel fear of my dignity as a human being is diminished but even my safety is at risk during this time just as the virus we don't need to see the ill treatments violence persecution racism everywhere in order to be personally convinced that they are there it only takes one incident for a person to be harmed or even killed please pray for and protect the

Asian looking people and friends around you during this season please avoid the finger pointing on every level blaming the president blaming the governor blaming

Asians or whatever it would be and kind of a positive of that we should be frequenting small businesses especially restaurants that may very well have to go out of business frequent them don't just buy food for yourself but order take out even if it is a little bit more expensive and I would say supporting some of those

Asian businesses that you know don't circulate hearsay don't circulate bad information people have got a lot of time in front of their computers there's all kinds of junk that's out there be careful with what you circulate and then also

I just use this word transmute transmute is to change into something else transmute your panic and your fear and your anxiety into wise both wise provision for yourself and provision for others works of love for others no person can serve two masters and if you're being mastered by fear and anxiety and panic that's going to neuter your ability to be giving yourself and self giving love to others again learn the lessons from church history we're not talking about self preservation here but we're talking about selfless

Christ like service just some individual things for families praise the lord for the opportunities before us as most of us now are family bound god knows we've needed more family time anyway but please keep schedules the mind of a man plans his way most of us are having to look at our schedules in different ways keep schedules so you use your time wisely we're to be good stewards of the time the lord gives us be family piety especially the head of the home whether it be a male or a female in many cases promote family worship reading of scripture prayer and singing link up some of the good youtube links to hymns that are behold our god is marvelous a mighty fortress is our god in christ alone and sing in fact that's one of the topics jeff thomas is going to be addressing on either the 30th or the 31st one of those two days he's coming to the program excellent we need this we need to learn this in that context in your homes please be devoted to the mediator not the media limit your exposure to the media you can listen in the morning and the evening and you'll get the gist of what's coming on every minute of every day but don't let that distraction take you away from this superlative time to develop family piety and yes it is a time of homeschooling that's wonderful but give a christian worldview to your children have discussions about things i appreciate the advertisement for world magazine and the world news service i think they call it world magazine the magazines for young people their podcasts are outstanding to help you give a worldview as far as media goes redeemerbroadcasting .org

another faithful outlet for the media giving you a christian perspective on things family meals isaiah 25 6 in the midst of judgments in the earth the lord says that his people will have a feast of wine on the leaves the bitter dregs of wine that's fermenting a feast that's given that's the way we should approach it in our homes even if our resources might be somewhat meager what we're not talking about don't make your home a funeral home our lord is alive and he's at work we should celebrate that and discuss things and i think especially we're on the cusp of a time now that we can be looking at family ministries not unlike what you read in first corinthians 16 15 the household of stefanos devoted themselves to the needs of the saints and i would say to others as well where your family models love of your neighbors love of others partnering with other local churches or other organizations to help parents with children who are in need and bring your family to them let families that are that are dysfunctional that are poor that are needy let them be blessed by your family i just think this is a thrilling time for families because i know we have the time constraint here for churches, pastors, elders deacons remember you're still charged with providing the means of grace for your people the preaching prayer sacraments are somewhat difficult can't administer the lord's supper same with baptism but certainly the fellowship of the saints the communion of the saints do your pastoral work elders and ministers phone calls prayer meetings where we can't meet we're not supposed to be meeting even now in groups of 10 video conferencing is a good way to have prayer meetings a conference call again providing for home worship or streamed worship this is a good time for pastors like me who need to learn more about modern technology learn how modern technology can help all i would say is this and this could be for a program for another day be thoughtful about how you use the media for example don't mention the names of specific missionaries in closed countries like china and virtual worship be careful because a virtual worship that metaphor can communicate something you don't want to communicate virtual worship's not virtual it's real so just be careful with all of those things and last but not least please address the issues that are on people's minds pastors don't go on with business as usual if you're preaching through Leviticus break into it and talk about dealing with fear dealing with anxiety how the gospel gives us everlasting inheritance that can't be taken away deal with those things a good doctrine you can do it and I guess the other

I would add is this we need to be prepared for the experience of acts 2 and acts 4 when people shared their goods with one another each one as he had need that was not an enforced communism it was not an enforced socialism yes and I'm sick of hearing people who are left wing who don't even really care about the scriptures who bring that up often and trying to shame those who do believe in the inerrancy of scripture

I mean the best you can say is that's an ignorant use of scripture these were Christians who lived out of their radical commitment this is my brother this is my sister

I'm going to minister to them and of course we're called to help as well those not of a household of faith but we've got to be prepared to do what we have not had to do previously we give sacrificially to help out the needs of our brothers and sisters whose businesses have shut down who are unemployed who are having to be at home with their children and they don't know what to do all of these things so those would just be some of my thoughts as a pastor not only the individuals and families but the churches okay we're going to our final break it's going to be a lot more brief than the last one and if you do have a question for Pastor Bill send it in immediately because we'll be over before you know it but in fact let me give the email address chrisarnsen at gmail dot com c h r i s a r n z e n at gmail dot com please as always give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

USA only remain anonymous if your question is of a personal and private matter but we do have

I'll read you the question and you can answer it when we return Richard in Raleigh North Carolina says

Bill there has been much talk about whether the coronavirus is a judgment of God would you comment if so on whom is the judgment being visited that's

Richard from Raleigh North Carolina and don't go away because God willing we're going to be right back with Bill Shishko right after these messages from our sponsors

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Welcome back, and Pastor Bill Shishko, as you may recall, we had

Richard in Raleigh, North Carolina say, there has been much talk about whether the coronavirus is a judgment of God.

Would you comment, if so, on whom is the judgment being visited? I appreciate the question,

Chris, in light of your ads, which I very much appreciate, especially the one about reading that Charles Spurgeon mentioned.

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United Reformed Churches of North America. People can get that from greatcommissionpublications .org,

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Yeah, and it's a shame that many churches exclude the psalms from their hymns. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because you're singing the

Word of God, and because so many of those psalms were written for times of distress, singing them.

I've found that, my daily devotions, to be an unparalleled time of blessing. Well, I appreciate

Richard's question, and I think distance ourselves for a minute. It's kind of like when people said, well, it aids a judgment of God for homosexuality.

Well, the biblical answer from Romans 1 is no, homosexuality itself is a judgment of God, because God gave people up to those kinds of things, and God giving people up,

His restraining, His grace, and those things, that's a judgment of God, too. Is the coronavirus a judgment of God?

I think from what the book of Revelation says, verses, chapters, basically chapters 6 through 20, the heart of the book,

Old Testament illustrations, I think you have to say absolutely yes, but don't try to connect that with specific sins.

I'm tempted to do it in New York. Last year, when our gleaming governor to a standing ovation signed legislation that legalized infanticide in our state, my temptation is to say one of the reasons why it's hit so hard in New York is because of this, but biblically, we can't make those associations.

Right, especially since Christians are affected in New York State as well. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly right, so be careful, and what

I would say is even judgments of God, you have to look at from a biblical perspective. The curse of all of God's judgments is taken away for the

Lord's people. One of the prophets uses the phrase, there's no wrath in you, at least according to some of the translations.

There is no wrath to the Christian, or there's no condemnation to us. I call that the bright side of the cross, to those who have rested in Christ.

Now, for others who are outside of Christ, yes, this is, it's a judgment, it's a punishment, and it should cause them, it should not make us be angry with them, but pity them, and call them to find their refuge in Christ.

So, let's be careful, yes, the answer is yes, it's a judgment of God, but again, put that in a biblical perspective, and call people to, this is a preview of a coming attraction of the wrath to come, and call people to flee the wrath to come.

Amen. And Johnny from Queens, New York, just as a word of encouragement, thank you

Pastor Bill for speaking to this crisis, and giving us some historical and biblical reflections.

You've already answered my questions. We have John in Bangor, Maine, another John. John in Bangor, Maine says, although I agree with you that we are to obey the authorities over us, how long are we to wait before reuniting in public worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ?

This could go on for a year or more, hopefully not, but it could, and how long are we supposed to obey the authorities on this earth when they are trying to ban us from obeying

Christ by not forsaking the assembling of the brethren? Yeah, I appreciate

John's question, and I do need to give this caveat. Whenever anyone in authority over us would actually ask us to sin, there we must practice a respectful disobedience.

But the Bible says don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, and in the early church during times of persecution, for example, there was

Christians would gather in homes. I think we can see similar things here. It's another way of saying there's many ways to skin the cat, but I think it's very important to keep in mind this is not, at least at this point, and I hope it will never be this, this is not the government saying you can't meet because you're

Christians. It's a way of saying we're not to have large groups so that we can contain the spread of what is a very, very contagious virus.

And I think we see this as a call to love our neighbors as ourselves, for churches to come up with constructive alternatives.

How long, I think they're, thank the Lord that Christians of all different communions are communicating about this and working through these issues together.

We just have to pray that the Lord give wisdom to us. Should there come a time there must be respectful disobedience.

But for right now, this really is an aspect of the of the Fifth Commandment, not to kill, to not gather in ways that would bring danger to our brothers and sisters.

Now, I'm assuming by something that you just said, you would believe that if the federal government or local governments began after this crisis, perhaps even after it's come and gone, if they were to say, you know, this has been a good idea to ban public gatherings, including worship services.

Let's, in order to prevent a crisis like this again, ban all worship services that exceed ten people gathering in public.

I mean, I'm assuming that you would be opposed to that. Correct. Yeah, that's capricious. And of course, it would apply in areas other than churches, but yeah, that would have to be, there would have to be respectful disobedience in that case.

Okay, we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks,

I heard you earlier addressing the sacraments and ordinances of the church.

What would prevent elders of a church visiting different church home groups that have been gathering in ten or less numbers, and then bringing them the

Lord's Supper, or if somebody in their midst requests baptism, baptizing them? I see no biblical prohibition for that kind of distribution of the ordinances.

Yeah, that's an excellent question. I thought about that myself, at least within Presbyterian standards, and then

I think there are biblical ones. So long as there are representatives of the church present for the

Lord's Supper when you come together as a church. I mean, baptism, that's a person that is being marked out as part of the body of Christ, and usually there's vows connected with it.

So yeah, it would be analogous, I would say, with the Lord's Supper to administering the Lord's Supper to someone in a hospital.

We would do that. We always have representatives of the church present and administer the Lord's Supper then.

I think that's not only permitted, but I think it's going to be warranted down the line. We're all looking at these things, they're kind of de novo to us.

But yes, I think in the weeks ahead, if this is going to continue, I mean, as one who believes in weekly communion,

I believe that we should be doing everything we can to have the Lord's Supper brought to the Lord's people, and they need that encouragement at this time.

The same with baptism. So long as representatives of the church are there, to have baptism in a home or whatever is certainly permissible.

Just please keep the records that you need to do for your church life. We have an anonymous listener.

I'm not sure why this person is remaining anonymous, but they actually, this individual read my mind to a degree, because I'm wondering if there's going to be another baby boom nine months from now.

But the listener asks, shouldn't married couples use this time to rekindle marital intimacy?

Absolutely. Again, see, this is why we look at this as a judgment.

In a real sense, for the Lord's people, these things are transmuted, I'll use the word again, into blessings, and all these things were more than conquerors through us.

More than a conqueror, in glory we're conquerors, there's no more evil. More than a conqueror means that what is evil in the world is turned to make us more like Christ.

And we know that family disciplines, marital intimacy on every level, raising of our children, family worship, these things have gone by the boards in our culture.

What an opportunity to rekindle that. Great point. RJ in White Plains, New York, says that although I agree that we should obey the leaders that God has ordained over us in the governments in secular society, at the same time, very often people seem to undermine the fact that there are people who are losing their livelihoods who are being forced to shut down their businesses.

What do you have to say about this? That's a massive question. It is one that I would hope and pray, it's one of the areas where we need to pray for our government officials.

They are between a rock and a hard place on this, because you can see the argument for people not being gathered in larger groups, we get that.

The other side of it is, if all the means of production and business are taken away, we will destroy ourselves economically.

And whether people are Democrats or Republicans or liberals and conservatives, I think they all get that.

So we simply need to pray for wisdom for them, and trust that the powers that be are going to make their voices heard in that matter.

I think a practical thing for us is please support, particularly small businesses that are very much in danger.

They can't get the big loans if they need them. They may not be able to pay them back, and they're living on a shoestring already.

And if you're a landlord and there's some way that you can lower that rent a bit so that you could still be able to pay your bills, do it.

But we're all in this thing together, and it's a good point. We need to be working on this day by day.

And I remind people again, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

What are the evil things today that we need to deal with, and then tomorrow will take care of itself?

But it's a good point, good question. We have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York. And CJ is asking something that actually touches on what we were discussing earlier in response to a different listener question about bringing the ordinances to home groups.

He is asking, CJ is asking, wouldn't it be a good idea to urge churches to have household gatherings of 10 or less?

That way they can keep in obedience to the government as well as not disobeying

Christ's command to not forsake the assembling of the brethren. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's the direction.

I know we'll be moving in that direction with the Haven. I mean, it was just as of Saturday night that we were

Sunday night, actually, that we had this prohibition of groups that were more than 10. We actually had a wedding that we did for families on Friday night.

We wanted to get that done before we knew this ban was going to come. But now we work with this, and essentially small group ministries have paved the way.

Just be sure that they're under proper oversight by the elders and the pastors of the churches.

By the way, CJ, I don't know if you are a member of a good, solid, local

Bible believing church, but if you're not, thehavenli .com is the website for the church where our guest today,

Pastor Bill Oshishko, serves as under shepherd. That's thehavenli .com,

right in Deer Park, which is not far from Lyndon Hearst, Long Island. Well, I would like you, before we run out of time, to have about five minutes or so to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Chris. I'm hoping that perhaps as other questions come in, and there will be more of them, maybe you could have some of your pastors on.

I'd love to do this myself, where we can field more of the questions. I won't have time to get to the one, could this bring revival?

Is this the end of time? Yeah, and I appreciate that. I'd say a couple things as we wrap it up.

First, folks, I'll use a flying analogy, okay? Rise above 35 ,000 feet so you can see the sun shining in the blue sky, and look down on the gray clouds and the gloom and so on.

That's really what we're called to do when we're called to strengthen ourselves in the

Lord. And there, I just preached a message based on what David Paulusen said, although it was for many years

Director of Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. Nothing really has changed.

He said this after he got his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Jesus still reigns.

We still have forgiveness of sins in Him. We have everlasting life. We are more than conquerors in Him.

And that's what I mean, come above 35 ,000 feet. There's a beautiful statement from a

Wuhan pastor who was right in the midst of the coronavirus at the beginning, and he said,

Christ has already given us His peace, but His peace is not to remove us from disaster and death, but rather to have peace in the midst of disaster and death, because Christ has already overcome these things.

So that's the first thing I'd say. Cling to the promises, Hosea 6 .1. Come, let us return to the

Lord, for He has torn us, that He may heal us. He has struck us down, but He will bind us up.

That's number one. And the second is, this may be the greatest opportunity for gospel witness in our lifetimes, to be light in the world, to be outposts of heaven, to be aromas of Christ, according to Dionysius, who was speaking about Christians in the midst of the epidemic in the third century.

He said, far from being a time of distress, this is a time of unimaginable joy.

That wasn't joy in the death that was going on around him, or the evil, but for Christians, they were living as a family, they were growing in godliness, they were showing

Christ to others, people who were seeing that were being converted, and that's a right way to look at it.

Count it all joy when you fall into various trials and temptations, the exhortation in James, rejoicing in tribulation, all of these things.

Not being callous, but being God -centered. So those would be the two things, Chris, that I'd remind people of at the end.

Well, did you want to comment on that revival question? Sure. Could this bring revival?

I think there's two messages in Scripture. One, Isaiah 26 and verse 9, when your judgments are in the earth, its inhabitants will learn righteousness.

Here you've got King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 32, he was sick unto death and he sought the

Lord, but you have Esau who had a disease in his feet, he was a king and he didn't seek the

Lord, that's 2 Chronicles 16, 12, and Revelation 9 and verses 20 and 21, and Revelation 16, 9, and 11, there's plagues in the earth, but there isn't repentance.

So how do you put those two things together? Judgments in themselves, like a coronavirus, they do not bring change in people.

People are angry with God, and you'll see this, and you'll hear, why did God do this, okay?

So judgments in themselves don't bring change, but you pray for the softening of hearts, and when people begin to honestly deal with themselves in the midst of judgment, that also historically has been the way that the

Christian Church throughout the centuries has responded. Self -examination, plucking beams out of our own eyes,

Jesus. Luke 13, there's national judgments, and he, rather than pointing at the judgments, he says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

That was the response, for example, of the church to the bubonic plague and the Black Death.

People thought about the brevity of life, and they got serious about eternity. So I would say, as far as the

Revival goes, let's think more in terms of how we respond with Christian service.

The former pastor of the church you attend, Chris, Walt Chantry, said in one of his books, if people knew what true

Revival meant, they wouldn't pray for it so hard. Now, why did he say that?

Well, the precursor to the gospel changing the hearts of the lost, by many or by few, is the gospel changing the lives of God's people.

And in this pandemic, that change is meant to form

Christians who show the gospel to others as well as speak it. So I would prefer to think in terms of that, and then pray that that becomes, as it was in the early church, a precursor to many coming to faith in Christ.

Amen. And we don't have time for you to fully answer this, but I know your answer because I know you're a post -millennialist.

Joe from Massapequa, Long Island, asks, is this a sign of the end times? So, obviously, the answer is no.

Well, no, I mean, we need to be careful. The Bible says, in these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son, so the whole period from Christ's coming until His return is the last day.

But existentially, if I could use that phrase, this is Peter's language, the end of all things is at hand, we need to live every day as if it's the last day, being really serious about Christ and serving

Him right now. Amen. And the website, again, for The Haven and Deer Park, Long Island, New York, is thehavenli .com,

thehavenli .com. Thank you so much, Pastor Bill, please hang on the line, I want to give you a proper goodbye off the air, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater