[Mark Welch] My wife Barbara just got home from a trip to Alaska to visit our daughter and her family. We have two grandsons and she's quarantining herself for a while just to make sure. I think she's fine. You know how it is, anytime you have a sniffle, or a cough, or an ache, you wonder, you know, "Could I be coming down with this virus?" Isn't that what many of us are thinking? You know, I'm sure I'm not speaking just for myself. I find myself, even as I was sitting there singing, and listening, and standing, and touching the phone, touching the hymnal, thinking, "Well, if I had it, then this hymnal's probably polluted."

So it's amazing just what kind of an impact all of this is having on all of us, on our thinking, just everything that we do these days, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that's normal. I think it's typical that we would think that way. Of course, we shouldn't become paranoid about things either. So we have to be careful about how we allow our thoughts to go.

This novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, as it's also known, has the world running scared. People have been stockpiling toilet paper. Took me four trips to the grocery store to finally get some toilet paper. Thankfully, I already had some so never ran out. But there's shelves that are missing: no cleansers, little meat at times, canned goods are gone, even ramen noodles. Many shelves at the grocery store are just empty and they've been so for a few weeks now. We hear of massive unemployment and no wonder because so many businesses are shut down, at least for the moment. We've seen plummeting in stock prices. The world's on edge. There's no question about it. There's no doubt about it. And yet, the God who is so awesome and wonderful is on His throne and we have nothing to fear.

Because of the danger of spreading COVID-19, however, we haven't been meeting physically for church services, as we all know. It's been a number of weeks now. As God-fearing members of the Body of Christ, God's Word instructs us to be subject to the governing authorities where we live. In most cases, we've been directed to stay home as much as possible to help stop the spread of this deadly virus. As good citizens of both the Kingdom of God and the physical location in which we live, we are obeying God's instruction and our government's directives. We're showing our love for one another by attempting to keep the virus from spreading. And that's a good thing. You know, we should continue to do that, to do our best, to have that physical distancing, and just be careful how we clean up after ourselves, how we wash up, and all those things. Very important. So we are showing love by not spreading this virus to others.

However, at the same time, even though we're not meeting physically, we have been given opportunity to assemble together with all this wonderful technology with the webcast, with thousands of people around the world assembling together, not forsaking the assembling of themselves together, but truly meeting together today on this Sabbath day. And it's wonderful that God has allowed this technology to help us at such times as this.

Sure, we would rather meet in person, right? We would all much prefer meeting in person. And that's what God had in mind when He inspired Paul, who refers to not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together in the book of Hebrews. And as soon as we can get back, let's all get back together, and let's love each other even more. And as we are isolated, I think that love will grow and we'll appreciate, even more, the opportunity to get back together again. So I'm looking forward to that day and may that day come soon.

Certainly, there are prudent things that we should practice. There is a certain amount of quarantine. It is a biblical principle and so, we've applied that. And I've been very encouraged by the home office, the employees, Mr. Kubik, everyone coming together to do the right thing. Also, the brethren being very supportive, the ministry, being very supportive. As operation manager, I've sent a number of letters to our ministry, advising them on certain things and everyone has been cooperating so well. It's just a tremendous blessing. I believe we are becoming more and more united. Remember, all things do work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. So we need to always remember that during these difficult times.

One of the phrases we're hearing a lot lately is we have to stop the spread. We really need to slow down the spread of the Coronavirus. Well, brethren, with Passover now less than two weeks away, it behooves us to consider some spiritual lessons that we may learn from battling this unseen physical enemy, this COVID-19. What does Passover have to do with stopping the spread of sin and death in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ? That's good question that we should all ask ourselves right now. Adam and Eve set humankind on a course of sin and death nearly 6,000 years ago. With a tremendous amount of love and mercy, God is largely allowing humankind to pay the consequences of their sin and rebellion. Even though He's been very, very gracious, and merciful over all these years, He still is allowing us to pay at least some of the consequences of our sin and rebellion.

God does allow death and plagues to come upon humankind. This isn't the first pandemic. A hundred years ago, there was an influenza epidemic that took 40 million lives, I believe, from what I understand. So this isn't altogether new, this pandemic of global proportions. Now, I wasn't around 100 years ago. Almost, but not quite. But our response as a world does seem better than it was back then. We are perhaps a little bit better prepared for this type of thing. And I've been impressed at the unprecedented measures taken around the world to try to combat this. So I've actually been encouraged by at least some of what I've seen in regard to this enemy that we're all facing. We have no clue what the final death toll will be from this Coronavirus. It's scary and it's very humbling to contemplate for each and every one of us. At the same time, we know that God does hear the prayers of His children who turn to Him in love and repentance. And that does make a huge difference.

There was certainly a very clear difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians that first Passover. Let's go to Exodus 11 and let's consider a few verses here. Beginning in verse 6, Exodus 11:6, "Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again." So an unprecedented time, “But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move,” the dog won't even bark “its tongue,” it's talking about. And dogs do quite a bit of barking, but “a dog will not move his tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptian and Israel.”

So God did make a huge difference between the Egyptians and Israel back at that time. God was bringing His children out of bondage. He was bringing them out of slavery. Pharaoh is not listening. Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he was not cooperating. He was not going along and God was going to show His awesome power and His awesome might. And we know there were 10 plagues that God poured out. We know that the first number of plagues affected both Israel and it affected the Egyptians. But the last several plagues were only upon the Egyptians and God was protecting the children of Israel.

In Exodus 12:12, the Bible says, "For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night." This is God speaking. "I'm going to pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast." So it wasn't just mankind. It wasn't just humankind. It wasn't just the firstborn of man, it was also of the animals and that had a huge impact as well on the land of Egypt. "And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment." See, that was a judgment that God called down upon the Egyptians. Again, they had taken His children into bondage and into slavery, and God did not take that lightly. And God said He would visit, once again, the children of Israel.

So, brethren, it's important that we understand what the Bible says in its entirety as we look at these issues that we face today. We can't just pick one part out and just go with that. We have to look at all the Bible and consider all of it. In verse 13, it says, "Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."

So this is the context of the first Passover. It's fitting that we consider this. And before long, we'll be keeping the Night to be Much Observed, a night to be remembered. I would say that this night will probably be remembered above all others. You know, this would be what? Forty-five years, I think now in the church of God, keeping the night to be much remembered. Then I'm thinking this is probably going to be the most memorable because it will be my wife and I keeping the night to be much remembered together for the first time ever. So that's something to contemplate and to consider as well. This will be a very meaningful evening for all of us. And we should go before God and just rejoice in the fact that God is delivering us out of Egypt. He's bringing us out of sin, out of slavery, out of bondage. There's true liberty in God's ways. And we're so blessed to know His truth.

So, brethren, I'd like to share with you five steps, five principles that we can all implement this Passover season as we go forward toward God's Kingdom. We all need to do our best to learn these spiritual lessons and stop the spread. We all must do our part to stop the spread of sin and death. We're preparing now for Christ's return. We're preparing now for His glorious Kingdom. This is a wakeup call. May we all wake up and realize that Christ is coming back soon. We don't know exactly when, but sooner than ever before, Christ is returning and who knows where this will all lead? None of us know. I don't know. I can't pretend to know. I know that we're getting ever closer to the return of Christ and it is somewhat sobering to consider where this pandemic could lead us.

So let's talk about five principles. Number one, obedience help stop the spread of sin and death. Obedience to God's laws, His commandments, that helps stop the spread of sin and death. Obedience to His command stop the spread of death from going into the Land of Goshen. God protected those who obeyed Him on the first Passover night. They had to obey Him. You know, they had to put the blood on their lintels and on their doorposts in the Land of Goshen, otherwise, there would have been death in those homes. Christ had to die to pay the penalty for sin. We know that. Christ had to die for us. Sin is disobedience. It's transgression of God's holy and righteous law. Paul says it's a holy, just, and good law. There's no problem with God's law. God is the lawgiver. God is perfect. His ways are perfect.

Had one Israelite disobeyed that fateful first Passover evening, death would no doubt have come upon that home. Now, whether it would have spread from there, you know, we don't know. As far as we know, everyone was faithful. Everyone obeyed, and there was no death in the land of Israel, you know, that evening. Certainly not. So in the land of Egypt, where they were in rebellion, and Egypt is actually symbolic of sin, symbolic of leaven, of putting the leaven out. God wants us to put the leaven out. Get that sin out of our lives. So it is very important that we consider these things as we lead up to the Passover. It's important to yield to God. It's important to learn to obey Him implicitly, to trust Him, to have faith in Him

Brethren, if you want to stop the spread of sin, be more obedient, be more faithful, be closer to God than ever before, and help each other draw nearer to God. Set a good example for one another and let us pull together and let us be united as we go forward, pleasing God in ways that we've never done before. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ made it clear that He did not come to do away with God's law. Christ said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." If you love me, if you love God, if you love Christ, then you're going to strive to keep His commandments. They're going to be very, very important to you.

Just read Psalm 119 again before the Passover. "How I loveth Thy law,” it should always be with us to guide us, to direct us." Obedience to God's commandments are vital to stopping the spread of sin in our own lives and also to stop death because death is the payment for our sins. The wages of sin is death. So obedience help stop the spread of sin and death. And, brethren, can we all become more faithful in obeying God and serving Him?

Secondly, another principle. Quarantining oneself and one's family stop the spread of sin and death that first Passover. We also need to distance ourselves from sinful ways, don't we? We need to have that distance between us and sinful ways. Mr. Kubik pointed out that they quarantined themselves on the night of Passover. They stayed in, they stayed together alone, following… They stayed in their homes. They quarantined themselves from one another and from others because that was God's command. That's what He told them to do. Obedience, in this case, it didn't mean quarantine, complete quarantine for the children of Israel. They were not allowed to go out of their homes that first Passover evening. When we follow God's instructions and His word to quarantine or isolate ourselves from sinful ways, we help stop the spread of sin and death.

The Bible makes it clear that we're not to be of the world. Even though we cannot come completely out of the world in a physical sense, we all understand that we realize that, the Bible teaches that. In fact, God so loved the world. And we'll talk more about that. Before we end this sermon, we must still live in this world. And so, we're going to rub shoulders with people in the world. We're going to rub shoulders with one another. We're not rubbing a lot of shoulders… well, maybe we are rubbing shoulders, but we're not shaking a lot of hands these days.

So, brethren, we are to love the people of the world. Certainly, God does love the world, doesn't He? He showed it very clearly. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but should have everlasting life." And that is where all people will need to come one day. They'll all need to repent of their sin. They will all need to come to that point where they accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. No, He sent His Son into the world to save the world, not just the firstfruits, but all mankind.

Anyone who will turn to Jesus Christ shall be saved. God is an awesome, loving God. He loves all people. We're all created in His image. We're all created in His likeness. You know, we're told to love one another, and that includes the people of this world. We are to love them, to reach out to them, to help them in ways that we were capable of doing so and we're not to allow the world's sinful ways to influence us, however.

We must not allow the sinful ways of the world to spread to us. We all have to realize that we are indeed fighting a spiritual battle in 2 Corinthians 10, 2 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul talks about this battle. He says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." In other words, God will help us overcome any sin if we will yield to Him. If we will surrender to Him, there's nothing too great for our God.

Maybe you've been battling the same sin for years, 20, 30 years. Never give up, keep fighting the good fight. Keep improving, because remember, the Scripture says, "To he who overcomes." And that means to be improving, to growing. It doesn't mean you're going to reach perfection in this life, but it does mean you need to be growing and overcoming, and putting sin out of your life.

So we can pull down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So we're told that we are to bring every thought captive, to put it behind bars. If it's evil, if it's wrong, if it's ungodly, if it's not helpful, and if it's hurtful, then we are to imprison it. Not allow it to go on, not allow it to continue. In James 1, it talks about a thought, how sin begins with just a thought. We know that scripture, I believe. In fact, maybe let's turn there. Didn't have this one in my notes, but I think it is something that would be an excellent reference at this point.

So in James 1:12, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone." God would not tempt a person to sin. Satan is the great tempter. “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and when he's enticed.” Now, God will allow us to be tested. He allows Satan to test us, but He does not tempt us to sin. And it's our own desires, our own evil desires that will entice us. “Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

So it starts with a thought, a wrong thought, an evil thought that we don't imprison. It becomes a greater desire and we dwell on it and then we act upon it. And if we don't repent of it, and if we keep doing it, and we don't overcome it, and we don't put it out of our lives and we don't grow in grace, and in knowledge, and in putting those sins out of our lives, then we're in deep trouble. We're in jeopardy. So, brethren, "Do not be deceived," it says. Sin, when it's full-grown, it brings forth death. It will spread and bring forth death. "Don't be deceived, my beloved brethren.”

In 1 Corinthians 5, you know, it does talk about coming out of the world here or actually putting someone out of the Church. In this case, in 1 Corinthians 5, no doubt you remember the incident where a man was sending with his own stepmother, there was sexual immorality that was not even named among the Gentiles, things going on that were perverse in this situation and it was being allowed. We're not to allow that type of sin, you know, within our congregations. We're to put that out. Put the person out so that he can repent. He needs to understand what he's doing to himself.

And in verse 6 of 1 Corinthians 5, "Your glorying is not good." These people were thinking that… and I guess they thought they were more righteous than God. They were allowing things to go on here, thinking they were doing God a service when it was not God's will at all. So he says, "Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" Just a little leaven and this was a lot of leaven, frankly, that was going on in there, but just a little leaven will leaven the whole lump. “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast.”

And, brethren, we are going to continue to keep the Feast just like Paul was keeping the Feast way back then in the church at Corinth. A gentile church was keeping the Feast because these are God's Holy Days. They're in His word and they're there to be kept. “Let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” You know, God wants us to be sincere, genuine, truthful, and honest, and that's becoming unleavened. So, brethren, we are to put the sin out. The sinful person should be put out if he isn't repentant. We cannot allow someone who's blatantly sinning. This was a blatant sin. Of course, none of us are perfect. We all fall short, but obviously, there are degrees. And in some cases, a person does need to be disfellowshipped for the sake of everyone else and for his own sake.

So, brethren, if Scripture tells us to flee sin of all sorts, it tells us to learn to hate sin. It tells us to withdraw from sin and it in principle tells us that we should quarantine ourselves from sin and sinful ways. So that's the second principle.

The third principle is accepting the blood of the lamb as a sacrifice for them personally and collectively. That's what saved the children of Israel that night. That's what stopped the spread of sin and death to the children of Israel. It was accepting the blood of the lamb, putting it on their lintels, and on their doorposts. That's what saved them that first Passover night. And accepting Christ as our Savior will also save us. Repenting of our sins and accepting Christ as our personal Savior, that's what we talk about when we're baptized, have you repented of your sins? Which is the transgression of God's Holy and righteous and perfect law? And have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, your Lord, your master, your High Priest, your soon-coming King? That's what we were asked before we go under the waters of baptism.

So we get together and we celebrate every Passover in a sense that wonderful sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a memorial of the death of our Savior, which was necessary because we're all sinners and we need a perfect sacrifice. Christ is that perfect sacrifice for us, so we renew our baptismal commitment each year, as we observe the Passover. Again, that is why we restrict the taking of the symbols of the Passover to those who are baptized, those who have made the commitment, those who have dedicated themselves, and have received the Spirit of God that dwells in them to help them grow and overcome.

And, obviously, we want that for all people. You know, those of us who are baptized, we want that for all people, because we realize how wonderful that relationship is. Once we've made that commitment, once we're no longer battling fear, but we're willing to be immersed completely in the ways of God. That's to our great benefit. So, brethren, it is our faith in Jesus Christ. It is His faith in us through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us that Christ will give us victory over sin and death. We will have complete victory over sin and death in a final analysis if we allow Christ, and God the Father to live in us by the power of the Spirit of God.

Faith is also contagious. That's something to remember too. This virus is contagious, very contagious, but faith is also contagious. And we need to spread the faith, especially right now. This time of year under this present distress, we need to spread the faith and realize that with God on our side, there's nothing that can hurt us. Nothing of lasting value that can hurt us if we turn to Christ and to the Father. We must move forward in faith, trusting God for His blessing, trusting Him for His protection. We must not be ruled and led by fear, but we need to be ruled by faith. Allow faith to spread. Again, encourage one another, lift each other up. Let people know that you're praying for them, that you really do love them.

It's likely that we may have at least one case in the United States that I'm aware of, of someone who has the COVID-19. The person's doing well. They're recovering, they're improving. They weren't tested because it wasn't so bad that they needed to be tested, but it is a reality. God may allow some of this to come upon us. You know, we have to understand that and realize that God's will is perfect. We should never doubt God in any of this. God will never leave us. God will never forsake us.

So, brethren, we renew our baptismal commitment each year, and so, it's so important that we all come together in faith. In Revelation 21:7, it says, "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son." Verse 8, "But the cowardly…" And notice it mentions the unbelieving. Those who lack faith. You know, lacking some faith is not the unpardonable sin by any means, and we all lack faith to some degree, but we need to, again, turn to God and place our faith and trust in God and in Christ. It says the “unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

So God is a God of justice. God is a God of love, and mercy, and equity. He wants all people to repent. He's not willing that any should perish. That's not God's desire, that any should perish, but that all should come to repent of their sins. So that third principle, brethren, was to accept the blood of Jesus Christ as your sacrifice. That will stop the spread of sin. That will stop the spread of death. Death will not come upon you if you've truly accepted Christ as your Savior and you place your faith and trust in that sacrifice.

A fourth principle, cleansing oneself and others on a continual basis will help stop the spread of sin and death going forward. Cleansing ourselves and helping cleanse one another will help us stop the spread of sin and death. It's interesting how many physical analogies can be made between this virus. And we have to make sure we're keeping things clean, right? We're washing things down. We're doing our best to kill those germs that could infect us. But we also need to cleanse ourselves spiritually on a continual basis. Jesus Christ showed the importance of helping one another in the spiritual cleansing process. He washed the disciples' feet. He washed their feet, that Passover evening. He knelt before them. Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Son of God knelt before man and washed their feet. He was showing how important it is that we become clean.

Peter understood that to some degree but not fully, right? Peter was lacking in understanding, but he had a zeal, for sure, which I'm sure, you know, Christ appreciated. But the point is, it's symbolic of cleansing oneself. You know, we wash other people's feet too. We don't wash our own feet. So that's symbolic of helping others, cleansing others, serving others, laying our lives down, becoming living sacrifices for one another. Jesus Christ died for us. We are to live for him, and we do that by serving his people. Matthew 25, very clear. You know, "If you've done it unto Me, you've done it unto the least of these… My brethren.” This is what Christ said. So we should be our brother's keeper to a large degree. Cain was to be Abel's keeper. He certainly was not to be his killer, his murderer. He was to be his keeper. He was to look after his brother. And were to look after one another.

You know, we should love each other enough, to care enough, to get involved, and to help each other, and to follow Matthew 18 faithfully. Matthew 18 does work, but it does need to be followed faithfully every step of the way. We don't have time to go into exactly what that is. You know, that's its own sermon. But Matthew 18, we’ll, look, if we have a right attitude when we go to our brother who has sinned and we see that a person has sinned and he's in jeopardy, his life is in jeopardy because he sinned. And we go to him alone to help him because we love him and we want to help him. We don't go to him to accuse him. We go there to help him, to support him, to help him understand that we know that we aren't perfect either. You know, that we have to get the plank out of our own eye so we can go before our brother to help him.

So if we go humbly before our brother in Matthew 18, and that's one of the main principles that's often violated, is we don't go humbly. We don't go in love. So we go humbly and in love. And hopefully, our brother will receive us when he sees our true intent. When he sees our heart. Of course, he has to be repentant too, doesn't he? He has to admit that he's a sinner. He has to take ownership for what he's done. He has to ask for forgiveness first to God, but also perhaps to others who he's offended. So Matthew 18 is extraordinary and it does work. And it is powerful.

In James 4:6, it shows that God gives us grace. James 4:6. Let's read this together. "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’" Verse 7, "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." So that's paramount. We have to resist Satan. We have to resist his temptation. He will flee from us if we truly do that. And we may have to do that time after time because he'll be coming back, but we have to be persistent and we do need to persevere. "Resist the devil, he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands." Okay. That's the point we're talking about, cleansing ourselves. Cleanse your hands. With our hands, we do much dirty work.

We must cleanse our hands, all of us. "Cleanse our hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts… purify your hearts, you double-minded." We need to be single-minded in our service to God, completely surrendered to Him, and that is a lifelong process. That's something that I have not mastered. I am not completely surrendered. I want to be completely surrendered. I have surrendered. You know, God is in me. Christ is in me. The Spirit of God is in me. God guides and directs me. He gives me strength. He gives me power. He gives me faith, but I'm not perfect. And none of us are perfect. We all fall short. And we may struggle with things for years and years because the flesh is weak. The flesh is very, very weak.

Paul says that "The law of sin dwells in my members, the things that I don't want to do, I find myself doing. The things I should do, I don't always do." Okay. We're all in this together. We have the same dilemma. We're flesh, but we do need to rise above the flesh and we do need to learn to walk in the Spirit because “with God all things are possible,” and “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” So this is not to be used as an excuse for sin. We should not. We must not use it as an excuse to sin. Yes, the law of sin dwells in us, but we can make tremendous strides with God's help with His power.

So, brethren, let's yield to the Spirit of God, and let's grow and overcome as we've never done before. Lament, and mourn, and weep. Verse 9, it says, "Lament, mourn, weep!” Yes. Be passionate. All of us should be very, very passionate. This is your way of life. It's my way of life. We should be passionate. Humble yourselves. It says, "Let your laughter be turned to mourning, your joy to gloom." There's some of that now, isn't there? It's a sobering time in which we live and it may become a lot more sobering. And someone texted me the other day about… she was watching TV and she was seeing the people dying, and the crying, and everything that was going on in the world. And it was frightening to her. It was scary. So let's consider who might be hurting among us, who might be alone, who might be frightened, and let's give them a call, and let's try to help them through this difficult time.

Lament, mourn, weep, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. That's a promise, that He will lift you up. God is with us. He will lift us up. He will strengthen us. And then in Psalm 51, the Psalm of repentance that we, I hope, always read before Passover… I'm not going to read all of it, but I'm going to read a few verses. Verse 2 of Psalm 51, David says, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity." David finally came to admit his sin. He finally saw that he was the man. He was the sinner that had to repent of what he had done. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin… Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." That's what David desired. He was a man after God's own heart because he wanted to please God. He wanted to obey Him. He wanted to serve Him. He fell far short, like all of us do.

He said in verse 10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Create in me a clean heart, a pure heart. “Renew a steadfast spirit." That's what we all need, isn't it? A steadfast spirit. God's Spirit is not the spirit of fear. It's a spirit of power, and of love, and a sound mind. It's steadfast. And if we will yield to the Spirit, we will walk in the Spirit. We will produce the fruit of God's Holy Spirit. We will be loving to each other. We will be kind to one another. We'll be joyful. You know, we're going to be patient, long-suffering, able to go through trials and suffering without losing faith.

You know, we're going to be good as we strive to be like God. God is good. There's goodness. That's one of the fruits of God's Spirit, meekness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness. These other fruits of God's Holy Spirit, and that's how we should be known. So and so is a person of faith, of love, of joy, of peace, of patients, of kindness, goodness, gentleness. That's how we should all be known. So, brethren, the fourth principle in helping stop the spread of sin and death is to cleanse oneself and also help each other be cleansed by faithfully following Matthew 18, by faithfully praying for one another, by drawing near to God, through fasting and doing our part to become more like God.

And then the fifth, the final one that I'll share with you today, another principle is continuing on a chorus of spiritual diligence and vigilance. That's number five. That's the principle. We need to continue on a course of spiritual diligence and vigilance, known as repentance. That's real repentance, a course of spiritual diligence and vigilance. That shows our repentance. It shows our repentance when we're walking in faith and we're trusting in God and we're diligent in our spiritual walk with God and we're vigilant and we're growing and we're overcoming. That's going to help us stop the spread of sin and death. So, brethren, don't be deceived by Satan. Don't be deceived by the insidious nature and the deceptiveness of sin. If you want to stop the spread, you must stay diligent. You must be vigilant. You have to strive against sin and have a repentant heart and mind.

So, brethren, in conclusion, it's going to be a long conclusion. Sin contaminates everything in its path, just like the Coronavirus. It contaminates everything in its path. There is no known cure or vaccine for COVID-19 at this point. But there is powerful vaccine against sin and death. That cure, that solution, how has it symbolized? What is it symbolized by? Do you know the cure for sin and death? It's the Passover. That's the cure for sin and death, observing the Passover. Keeping the Passover, doing it in a worthy manner. God will deem us worthy even though all of us are unworthy to a point, but He will deem us worthy if we will humble ourselves. If we'll follow these five principles, we will stop the spread of sin in our own lives and we'll help others stop the spread of sin and ultimately death. So Passover is the cure for sin and death. That's the cure. Passover will soon be here.

The Coronavirus, it's invisible. It's insidious, it's deceptive. We don't know where it is, we don't know where it's been, and we don't know where it's going. If someone would come and show exactly where the Coronavirus was, wouldn't you be grateful? If you had x-ray eyes and could see it, is there any in this room? Is there any in that homes in which I'm broadcasting or we're broadcasting. I'm not doing much broadcast thing, okay? But we can't see it. We don't know. We can't be sure. But we would be grateful if we could know that, wouldn't we? If we knew where we could walk, where we could sit, where we could touch, where we could be safe, wouldn't that be invaluable? Wouldn't it be priceless? If someone would come and clean away all traces of the virus, wouldn't we be so grateful, so thankful? And we should pray for this, that God will do this. The God will intervene. God has the power. God could stamp it out in a moment.

Let's all turn to God in faith, asking Him to stamp this thing out for the good of all mankind. God is not willing that any should perish. Who knows what God could do? If we have enough faith, if we all believe in Him enough, if we go to Him, and if it's His will, perhaps He would stamp it out and things would get back to some normalcy. That may not be God's plan right now, but it's our job to go to God, to get on our knees today, to pray to Him as a united body, as a people and pour out our hearts, our minds to God, and ask Him to stop this plague. Stop this plague in its tracks. Do it now, God, we know you can do it. We believe you can do it. We have faith you can do it. We know you're all-powerful. We know you're almighty.

So, brethren, let's go to God because He can see all traces of the virus and He can wipe out every single trace. We are washed in the blood of Christ. We're washed in the waters of baptism. We're washed in living waters of the Spirit of God. No spiritual Coronavirus can live in that environment. We know how to stop the spread of spiritual disease. We know how to be inoculated. We know how to kill the virus of sin and death because God has revealed it to us. God has given us His truth about the Passover and what it means, what it pictures, and the power of Passover. There is already a cure. There's already a vaccination. There's already an instruction manual. There's already an antiviral cleanser. It's the Passover.

When we keep the Passover this year, we're going to take a little bread, which is symbolic of the unleavened bread, the broken body of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Christ who died for us, who came sent by the Father to live among mankind and to show His love throughout the ages for man. He's the unleavened bread that God sent from heaven. He's that manna that's to live in us and give us strength, to give us courage and faith. He's also the wine, His shed blood of His body. We take that wine. It's symbolic of His shed blood. Blood spilled for us that we might be forgiven our sin.

So, brethren, should we not forgive one another? We're going to be forgiven in the same manner that we forgive others. We need to let go of the hatred, the animosity that we have toward our brothers and sisters in Christ and toward all mankind. We need to learn to forgive and we need to wash each other's feet. We need to cleanse ourselves and if we're married, we'll get to wash our wife's or our husband's feet. That will be very meaningful. I think that happened once when Barbara wasn't able to go to the Passover that I washed her feet, she washed my feet. It's very meaningful time.

God gives us instructions on how and what we can do to help stop the spread of the enemy, the disease of sin, and death. God's Word gives us God's powerful plan of how He's in the process of eradicating this deadly virus that we call sin and death. Again, Christ died once for all. He's the perfect sacrifice. He now lives at the right hand of the Father. God and Christ both live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit of the Most High God, God the Father, and Jesus Christ, composed of the same Holy Spirit. And they've given us an earnest, a downpayment. The Spirit dwells in us. The most important thing we need to focus on upon now is our wonderful Passover sacrifice, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of the Father, the Lamb of God. If we're pleasing to God the Father, and Christ, we have absolutely nothing to fear. Our future is secure in the hands of God almighty. God has promised to never leave us, to never forsake us. Remember, all things work together for good and we do not need to fear if we have a proper love and respect for God.

Brethren, let's continue to look to both members of the God's family, but let's look to God, the Father, and Jesus Christ. Let's praise them. Let's please them. Let's put our faith in them this Passover season. Remember, this is the cure. The Passover is the cure. We have the cure. God's true Church victorious shall be the Church at rest.

[Steve Myers] When you think about being a church without walls, certainly, this virus has changed things, hasn't it? As this virus spreads, life has become a little bit different. We've seen some interesting things happening over the last couple of weeks. The stock market has been totally unstable, stock markets around the world for that matter going up, going down, all kinds of things happening. We've had school closings here in Ohio and many other areas. Large gatherings of people are banned. It's affected the entertainment industry as well. So Broadway has shut down even Disney World and concert events. Those are all being canceled.

Sporting events around the world as well are being canceled, so whether it's the NBA or the National Hockey League or March Madness as well all being suspended or postponed, the golf with the Masters Tournament, all of those things. As a national emergency, all of these things are being put on hold. And one thing that hasn't been put on hold is anxiety. There was a poll that came out yesterday that polled people in the United States, and it found that two-thirds of Americans are concerned that they or someone they know will be infected with the coronavirus. I mean, when you consider that, what do we do? What do we do? How do we face a challenge like this? What do we do? Is there a way that we can have the strength to stand up? And not only to this adversity, but how do you stand up to any or every adversity?

I was just thinking about this over the last few days. One word came to mind, Ziklag. Now, it's probably not the word that came to your mind, but that was a word that I couldn't get off my mind. What does it have to do with…? Well, back in 1 Samuel 27, it begins with the story of David, and David has been on the run. And it starts with David thinking all the wrong things. He's come to a point in his life that he's thinking exactly opposite of what God has in mind, opposite of what God promised him. David's on a whole different wavelength because now he's thinking that King Saul will actually succeed in killing him. He's forgotten God's promises.

You know, imagine that situation. Obviously, Saul was pursuing David. No doubt about that. He barely escaped several times where Saul tried to assassinate him. He had to spend a lot of time running around in the wilderness and hiding. No doubt about those kinds of things. But when we get to 1 Samuel 27, here he's at a particular point of weakness. Perhaps he's down and discouraged, maybe even depressed because no doubt servants of God, members of God's Church can fall into a deep depression. But ironically, do you know what David does? He seeks refuge in the city of Gath, Gath. Oh, yeah, remember that guy, Goliath of Gath, the one that… the giant that David conquered and beat? Yeah, that's the Gath.

And so he goes to Gath, a Philistine city, and meets with the king, King Achish, and he pretends to make a treaty with him. And by doing that, he didn't just go by himself. He went with his wives. He went with his mighty men. He went with his whole entourage. So he's got 600 mighty men that are with him plus all of their wives, all of their families. In total, probably well over 1,000 people going to Gath with David. And so he pretends to have this treaty with Achish the king, and by doing that, David can go out and attack other enemies of Israel and make it look like he's in alliance with the Philistines. So he could do as he wants. Now, as time went on, the King started to trust David, and so eventually, he gives him his own city. And do you know what the name of that city was? Ziklag, Ziklag.

So Achish gives Ziklag to David. Now David can even go out and fight his enemies, the enemies of Israel even more fully. And Achish doesn't know the better. Now, the interesting part, as time goes on, Achish is gathering all of his forces to battle the Israelites, to battle Saul. Now, that's something David doesn't want to do. But I think in part he's hoping he'd go along so that he could help protect the Israelites, but do you know what happens? Achish says, "David, you can't come." The rest of the Philistines were kind of nervous. They weren't really trusting David. So, what does Achish do? He sends David home to Ziklag, and that's where the story begins to get interesting.

If you look at 1 Samuel 30, here we find David coming back to Ziklag. What do they find? What do they find when David kind of gets back home? He's not really home, but that's where home is for the moment. Well, what they find is the Amalekites have attacked Ziklag while David and all the mighty men were gone, and they burned that city to the ground. And worse than that, they kidnapped all the women, all the children. All the families are gone. Everything lost. What happened to them? They don't know. They don't know. David and his men are beside themselves.

I mean, can you imagine what was going through his mind. I mean, everything. On your watch, David, our families are gone. Where do they go? What have they done with them? Did they kill them in the desert? Did they burn our children in this fire that took down the city? What happened to them? I mean, the people couldn't help but think it's got to be David's fault. I mean, he should have known. He's a military man. You'll always leave a guard behind. You never leave the children and the women to defend themselves. So it must be David's fault. All these people could be dead because of his bad judgment. So it's about as painful as you might think it could get.

So in verse 4, the obvious happens. It says, "David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep." I mean, at this point, David has no one to support him. No one in Israel could help him. Philistines didn't want anything to do with. His family was gone. All that he owned gone, everything. Every support he had was gone except one, except one. Now, you would think this must be the absolute worst position anyone could be in. Verse 6, look at what happens. “David was greatly distressed,” no wonder. It says, "The people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people were grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters.” And David wept.

And you might think, "Well, why did David weep?" Of course, it's not only because his family, his wives are gone. Everyone has lost everything. But it wasn't just weeping because of that. It wasn't just weeping because now even his mighty men are turning against him. I think part of why he's weeping is he knows he's mainly responsible for this. He feels it's his fault, and so he is deeply saddened. He is down and discouraged and anxious and depressed and just about panicking. What would you do? He's got to be feeling hopeless. He's got to be feeling like, "I am just about over the edge." What else could happen next? And you consider where David was. I mean, many people today are right at that very point. He's about as low as you could go.

I mean, just consider this. I mean, actually think about what was going on. These mighty men, these valiant men, men of valor, fighting men, soldiers weeping like babies, pouring out their emotions, and then they're cursing and they're cussing, and they're accusing David, thinking about killing him and revolting against him. But over there, David's over there. He's by himself. He's sitting there probably in the dust in the dirt crying with tears streaming down his face. What does he do? End of verse 6, "But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." Just a few short little words but so much meaning here. David had been thinking all the wrong thoughts before. He lost track of God and His promises.

Should he become distressed, depressed? Should he be hopeless? Should he feel like all is lost? Maybe he should become defensive and tell those mighty men that they better not rebel against him. What is he going to do? He doesn't do any of those things. He turns to God. It says he “strengthened himself.” That Hebrew word strengthens means to become strong, to become courageous, to prevail, or to strengthen. But could David do that on his own? That's something that he could accomplish all by himself. I mean, how is it for us? How can we strengthen ourselves in the Lord? I mean, look what it took for David to come to this place. Here he is. Here he is. And what is he recognizing? He's recognizing the fact that God alone is his strength. That's it.

And this David… remember this man. This is the man with fears. This is the man who was worried. This is an anxious man that man who had done some amazing things, miraculous things by the power of God. But yet on the other hand, yeah, he's that guy that made a lot of mistakes. He's that man that often got off course. He was that wayward David. He was that man that often made mistakes. But he began to realize the only hope that would be possible would be to seek God. And, of course, you think about David, you think about his circumstances, you think about the things that he did, you think about what was going on just before this that is just thinking wrong in every way. I mean, why would God strengthen him? Why would He? Why would God bother? David, you were all off track. What were you thinking? I mean, why would God strengthen us? Why would God bother to strengthen us?

When we step back from the story, we recognize who God is. God is a God of mercy. We have a God of grace. God loves us because He loves us. God favors us. He is a graceful God who loves us because that's who He is, and He's called us to be His people. And you think of David, you think of us, what did we do to deserve that? I mean, is there anything we can do? I mean, sometimes we may fall into that kind of thinking, "There's something I need to do to achieve God's love. There's something I need to do to earn God's grace. There's something I need to do to warrant God's blessings in that way that He would love me." Is that the case?

You see, God would strengthen David because He is a God of grace because He is a God of mercy and because David is humbly turning to God. In a way, God brought him to this point so that David would humbly and readily submit himself to God and submit himself to God's way. I mean, imagine before this. David's going out, and he's conquering all these different enemies. He's got Achish the king fooled. He's got everything under control, right? Sometimes we feel that way in life. We got it all under control. A little bit before this, David wasn't feeling too weak. I'm sure he didn't have a thought that he was actually suffering from weakness. But after coming home to a burned down, abandoned wifeless ghost town, yeah, he recognized weakness. It changed everything.

I mean, could he have seen that…? He didn't see it coming. Well, think about that for a moment. A couple of months ago, did the world seem like a weak place? Just a month ago or so, did America seem like a weak nation, a vulnerable country? What about God's Church? What about our vulnerability? You see, David came to see something absolutely vital. He's weak, and the only way to have strength is to turn to God. God is his only hope, his only hope. And as you consider this amazing story, it in a way it's kind of a Passover kind of story because David had to look at himself and recognize his need. And we do too. We have to do the same thing. In fact, the great heroes of the Bible, men and women, all had to come to that point in their life to rely solely on God and His guidance and His strength and His mercy and His grace.

The apostle Paul had to do the same thing. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul suffered. Paul recognized he was weak. And when he petitioned God to heal him physically, do you remember what God told him? 2 Corinthians 12:9. God says to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you." God favors us. He cares for us. He goes on and says, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." So Paul says like David coming to realize the same thing, "Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." I mean, powerful words. Yes, physically, he was on the short end of the stick. Physically, he was weak David. Those mighty men were going to help him a bit. So, he had to turn to God. He had to become strong spiritually. Paul had to stay strong spiritually through the power of God.

And so what did David do? David knew none of these other people are going to strengthen him. He didn't wait for somebody else to give him strength. He didn't sit around waiting and thinking, "Well, the CDC will find the cure." No, he wasn't doing that sort of thing. He didn't think, "The World Health Organization, they'll find a way, and I'll just kind of hang in there until they do." No. You see, David recognized that God's strength was there for everyone who looks to Him. In fact, God's strength was there all along. He should have been relying on that strength all along. But now David comes to that point in his life that he sees it. He understands it, and he seeks that strength that can only come through God. And, in fact, as David did this, we've got to put it in the right perspective because this is not some kind of a, you know, self-help seminar.

This is not a rah-rah, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and let's go positive thinking hocus pocus everything's going to be fine. It wasn't that at all. What we find David doing, what we found Paul doing. This is strength that is from the living God. That's the strength. David had to understand that and make that real in his life. He had to recognize that very fact and realize he was hurting. He was fearful. He was worried. That's his state of mind. So he needed God's strength. He needed God's guidance, and that's the kind of strength that leads to repentance. That's the kind of strength that brings an answer to weakness. It's strength for brokenness, strength for anxiety, strength for stress, strength so we can be determined to look back to God in all cases at all times and to win back what the enemy has stolen. That's where David found himself. He found himself in that very condition.

And even for us, I mean, think, "What has the enemy stolen from us? What's been taken?" Is the real adversary the coronavirus? It's not. There are times of stress and anxiety. Certainly, fears will come in this life, discouragement, but we cannot allow that to swallow us up. So how can I be strengthened in the Lord? How can I strengthen myself like David did? In fact, when we read through this story, there's not a lot of specifics here. We have to look to many of things that David wrote to find his mindset and what he actually did in this particular situation, what he must have done because the Bible doesn't exactly say. But one thing we know for sure, he connected with God. We have to be sure we connect with God. If we're to strengthen ourselves in the Lord, there has to be that unbreakable connection turning to God from despair so He can lead us to confidence.

You know, I'm sure David socially distanced himself and cried unbelievable tears, tears and agony to God. And he began to pray, and he began to worship, and he waited on God. He wept and he praised, and he probably sang to God. He lifted his voice because he knew if he kept seeking if he kept praying, if he kept petitioning God, there was no doubt God would answer, no doubt. So instead of making plans… I mean, the city was burned down. Where were the families? Are they all dead? Instead of just rushing off, instead of focusing on his circumstances, instead of running out to buy 10 cases of toilet paper, he didn't do that. That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing in our town. Is that our perspective? You know, do we rely on our own resources? Is that going to save us? Was that going to save David just, "Oh, I better take action immediately and do something. I better stock up on alcohol"? Is that really going to save us? David didn't do that. That's what's so interesting. Precious time was elapsing.

You know the scenarios when it comes to kidnappings. You know, if somebody's kidnapped, they normally don't keep their victims alive for very long. So I'm sure his mighty men were looking at David like, "What are you doing? Why are you wasting time?" But David kept seeking God. He knew, he knew he humanly speaking could not think clearly. He couldn't clearly evaluate the situation. He really didn't understand what was going on. There was only One that could. If David made the wrong choice, if he ran off just to do something, it could have been the wrong thing, and even more, people might die.

You see, he realized he needed God's mindset. He needed his attitude to shift away from his own way of thinking. He needed his heart to be in a whole different place. It had to be shifted from doing his own will to doing God's will. David realized that. And when he truly submitted to God, it changed his whole perspective. That's when David began to receive strength, strength from God to keep on going, to regain confidence. Not confidence in himself but confidence in God. God gave him the insight into this entire situation. And it wasn't that David found a strategy to get back at the Amalekites. No, God gave him the strategy, the best approach. And you see, if we're going to have the best approach, we have to make sure we are connecting with God. We have to be sure we are devoting time in His Word. And not just when scary circumstances come around.

How can we fill our minds with hopefulness? How do we fill our hearts with truth? How can I be sure my mind has a loving approach? Always when I examine myself, and I have to recognize I need to come to the right conclusions. I need to make sure I'm looking at things in the right perspective. How can I discern the truth for my life? How can I determine who I really am? Am I a real Christian, or am I a pretender? You see, we can't do that if we neglect the Word of God. We can't. God's Word is probably the biggest coping mechanism of all time. We've heard the predictions. I mean, the predictions that are out there. They range, I mean, just wildly. Some have come up with models that show this virus will totally overwhelm the United States, overwhelm the world.

But I read across an interesting quote from a lady named Lauren Gardner. She's an associate professor at John Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and she's one of the scientists that models epidemics. Do you know what she said? She said, "When people change their behavior, those model parameters are no longer applicable." Think about that in David's case. The model was everything is lost. There is no hope. But David strengthened himself in the Lord. The model changed. Changing behavior changes outcomes, and that's a biblical principle. That's a godly principle. That's a Passover principle, isn't it? That I need to change my human nature, and I need to model God's nature. I need to model the character of Jesus Christ.

We know that passage that James wrote about this very thing. It is a biblical principle. James 4:7. Let's remind ourselves of this very model. Change our thinking, we change our direction. We need to connect with God so we have a whole different model than that human way of looking at things. James 4:7, "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." That's the biblical model. Verse 8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." Is that what David did at Ziklag? Absolutely. James goes on, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you double-minded."

You see, David lost track of God's promises. He had kind of two frames of mind, and it got out of sorts. He had to line himself back up with God. Verse 9, "Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." I'm sure that happened when all the men came back to Ziklag, and it was burned to the ground. I mean, we see this kind of attitude around us today, people lamenting and mourning and weeping because of circumstances. But it doesn't have to be that way for us. We lament and mourn and weep because we haven't been close to God. And in drawing near to God, submitting ourselves to God as James writes, it doesn't keep us in that depressed state of lamenting and mourning and weeping.

We see in verse 10, when we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, what does He promise to do? The same thing He did for David at Ziklag. He promises He will lift you up. That's a promise. We can write that one down. There is no doubt. When we connect with God, when we study His Word, when we draw close to Him, we can write an equal sign. Submit to God. Draw near to Him. And what does He promise to do? Draw near to us. He promises to be there. And it is an amazing story when you think of the many events in David's life. In fact, it might be a good idea to study through the Psalms. As you study through the Psalms, they certainly tell the story of David's life. They talk about his great triumphs, but they also talk about his shortcomings. We can connect with those stories because we see his anxiety. We see his stress. But on the other hand, we see his courageousness.

Yeah. We see times when David is in full panic mode, but we see God's power exhibited. Yes, we see David's weakness, but we can identify God's strength. A good example of this is found over in Psalm 56. In Psalm 56, it seems like it would have been one of those written about this time at Ziklag. It wasn't most likely, but it sure applies at this time in David's life because it begins with him petitioning connecting with God.
It starts, "Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up," or for purposes today, this virus could swallow me up. It says, "Fighting all day he oppresses me." In fact, verse 3 it says, "Whenever I'm afraid," what should I do? David says, "I will trust in You. In God, (I will praise His Word), in God I put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?" You see, God's in charge. God's in charge.

In fact, just a couple of pages over in another Psalm, Psalm 59, David reiterates the same thought in verse 16. Psalm 59:16, "I will sing of Your power. Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning; for You've been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. To You, O my Strength, I will sing praises; for God is my defense, my God of mercy." I mean, this is an amazing recognition. David recognizes the fear. He recognizes his shortcomings. He recognizes the pain. He recognizes life brings trials and difficulties and fear and anxiety. But what does he do with it? He connects with God. He brings it before the almighty throne of the Creator of the universe. He petitions God, not only with the immediate problem but even the situation of what everybody else is doing. You see because the things everybody else is doing affects us too, doesn't it?

I mean, if people are panicking out there over this, yeah, it can have an impact on us as well. And what did David do? He worshiped, and he prayed, and he praised God and honored Him so he could connect so closely together with God so close. It's the same thing we need to do. We need to connect with God so closely and so constantly that it changes our perspective. It changes our thinking. It transforms our minds. And it only happens when we connect with God, and we can connect with God because He's giving us His Word. He talks to us through the inspired Word that we have before us. And so what an amazing blessing that when we meditate on His Word, and we read that word and it becomes a part of our thinking. When we praise and honor Him, it changes everything. It changes everything.

In fact, we think of this time of the year and the difficulties seem that often come at this time of the year over the years, Passover time. That was something that reminded me of Jesus's example itself. What a powerful example when you think of Christ. Did Christ do this sort of thing? I mean, he did it all the time, didn't he? Didn't He continually distance Himself from others and go off into a deserted place and connect with God, get close to His Father? He was always it seems getting close to God, spending time with God.

He said in the book of John, "I can do nothing of Myself." John 5:30 reminds us of that. He said, "I do not seek my own but the will of the Father who sent Me." That was Christ's perspective. That needs to be our perspective. And even at the very end, that's what He did facing the greatest trial of all time, giving His life for mankind, facing the crucifixion. That night He was betrayed, what did He do? He went off alone and petitioned God, and He prayed to God. He connected with God, and He said, "Father, if it's your will, take this cup away from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine will be done." You see, that was Christ's perspective. What an amazing, unbreakable powerful connection He had with God the Father.

And He exhibited the fact that that's what we can have too. We can have that kind of a connection, and so we need to pray like that. We need to connect to God like that. We need to study His Word, and we need to pray, "God, help me to learn to see you. You are my source. You are the source of my energy. You are the source of my strength. You are the source of my power. You are the source of my perspective. You're the only true source. Help me and guide me so that your power and your direction becomes my power and my direction." That's what David did. That's what Ziklag was all about. He aligned himself with God and asked God to direct him and guide him. And so making that connection with God, it moved David I think to do another thing that is so important for all of us.

Not only did he connect to God through prayer and worship and praise and the study of His Word, but he had to take a serious look at himself. David had to examine himself. He knew if he had to find a way to walk in confidence, if he was going to find the fullness of God's direction, then it was going to require him to depend fully on God. He had to turn things around and renew that commitment, that connection, that confidence, that covenant with God. He had to renew that. He had to fully depend on God. Well, am I there? Am I fully dependent on God? Well, I better look at myself. I need to look at myself because, when I look at myself, I've got to look at the reality of who I am. I've got to in a sense have a conversation with myself about my own spiritual state.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, "Some of the best talks in the world are those which a man has with himself. He who speaks to everybody except himself is a great fool." And so David had to strengthen himself in the Lord. And if he was going to do that, what had to happen? Yes, he had to examine himself by recognizing how he was thinking. He had to look at his thinking because, when you really get down to it, the fear and the anxiety, the depression, the discouragement that he was feeling, the only way to overcome that is to recognize the true thoughts he should have when it comes to all of those things.

What does the Word of God say when it comes to fear? What do I do when my thinking, when my thoughts don't align with God's thoughts, with God's ideas and His instructions and His Commandments? David had to fight that. We've got to fight that. We've got to fight the anxiety and the discouragement and the fear and the panic. How do we do that? We can't fight fear. In fact, we cannot only fight it. God has given us the means to overwhelm fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 is such a great reminder of that. We fight fear with the Spirit of God because Paul reminded Timothy, "God has not given us the spirit of fear." That is not what we're about. And sometimes I got to change my thinking and remind myself, "No, that is not what I'm about" when that stress and that worry comes. It's what you do with it.

When it does come in, we got to kick those thoughts immediately out and recognize the fact God's given us a spirit of power. It's a spirit of love. It's a spirit of a sound mind, healthy thinking, wholesome thinking. That's what a sound mind is, right spiritual thinking. That's the kind of spirit God's given to us. Don't forget that. David let that slip. If we find ourselves slipping, we got to get right back here and determine, "Boy, by the power of God's Spirit, He's given me the authority over my thinking, over the fear, over the anxiety, over the stress. So I don't have to worry like everyone else in the world worries because God can bring an amazing peace of mind." Yet sometimes, boy, that thought comes that, "Well, you know, it just doesn't seem like I'm even worthy to stand before God and bring these things to Him. I don't think I measure up." And those thoughts come at times.

Do you know who else thought that way? David. David thought that way. In fact, notice what he says in Psalm 40. Psalm 40:17. David certainly felt this way at times in his life, and Psalm 40:17 is such a beautiful capstone. When we feel this way, we could think of Psalm 40:17. I mean, we could certainly think of 2 Timothy 1:7. No doubt we fight fear with the power of God's Spirit and healthy thinking, a healthy frame of mind. Sound mindedness is a characteristic of the Spirit of God, and we can petition God to give us that right kind of thinking. But when we don't feel like we measure up, we don't feel like we're worthy, David wrote Psalm 40:17, "But I am poor and needy." I'm not good enough to come before God in a way is what he's saying.

But look what he wrote next, "Yet the Lord thinks upon me." I mean, after all, who of us is worthy? I mean, we all fall short of the grace of God, but the Lord thinks about you, about all of us. If you were to read this in the Living Bible, look back at verse 17, the Living Bible says, "I'm poor and weak, yet the Lord is thinking about me right now. O my God, you are my helper. You're my Savior. Come quickly and save me. Please don't delay." And I love this passage because it not only says He's thinking about you, we're on God's mind. That's an amazing thought. We're on God's mind, but even more than that, He wants the best for us. And He knows what I'm thinking. He knows what I'm thinking. He's thinking about me.

And when I begin to align my thinking to His, when I analyze my own thoughts and I reject the negative ones, I get rid of those sinful thoughts, what has to happen to the enemy. It'll be defeated because we have the authority from Almighty God to use His Spirit and His Word to pull down strongholds, to pull down even thoughts and ideas that go against God's Way so that we can ultimately be victorious over Satan the devil in his way of thinking. We don't have to be conformed to this world. That's what Romans 12:2 talks about. Instead, we know what it tells us. Instead of being locked up in the ways of the world and thinking the way that they're thinking reacting to difficulties and circumstances the way that they do, our thinking has to be brought under the power of God's Spirit so that it's transformed.

Romans 2:2 says, "Transformed by the renewing of your mind, the changing of your thinking." In fact, if you turned over to Romans 12:2, the "New Living Bible" puts it a little differently. Romans 12:2. It says, "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think then you'll learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." That's what David wanted. That's what we all want. We want that. We all then have to change the way that we think and refocus the way that we think so that we look to God. We change our thinking to God's thinking. We focus on His Word. We can find out what's on the mind of God by looking at His Word. And so it's not my solution. It's not my direction. It's God's solutions to the problems that we're facing, and so we trust God to be God. And, you know, He's promised to do what He said He would do.

So we can't allow our thoughts or anyone else's thoughts impact us to break that focus off of God Himself. Because we know there's no doubt life is going to bring problems. Do we focus on the problem? Should that be our mindset? No. God tells us, "Focus on the solution." Focus on the solution, especially at this time of the year. As we look at ourselves and we examine ourselves, don't get caught up and focus on sin. That's the problem. Yes, we identify it, we recognize it, but that's not the focus. The focus has to be, it must be on the solution. The solution is Jesus Christ our Savior who died for us. God the Father gave His only Son so that we have a solution, so we can bring every thought into the captivity of the obedience of Christ by recognizing and focusing on that solution so that His thoughts are my thoughts.

And so we spend time with God. We spend time in His Word, and we recognize that's not only a temporary fix. That's not a temporary inoculation. This is a permanent solution to the problems that we face. That's what David did at Ziklag. But it didn't end there. It didn't end there. Because what did he do next? He didn't stay at Ziklag. After doing these things, it was time to go forward. It was time to move forward in faith. It was time to move forward in faith. So after petitioning God, God had some instructions for David to get going. And we have to move forward in faith, I mean, even as we think about what may lie ahead. What if we get sick? What if we get sick? Don't panic. We know what we're to do.

James 5:14 is such a great reminder. It's one of those things that help us turn our mind and connect with God. We know what James wrote. He said, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call on the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." We turned to God. We petitioned God. And what's the promise? Verse 15, “The prayer of faith will save the sick. The Lord will raise him up, and if he's committed sins, he will be forgiven.” Now, when we consider that, we know that not every sickness will be healed. We're not going to live forever. We know that. We know that. But will there be ultimate healing? Absolutely. The Lord will raise him up. And if he doesn't immediately heal us, it may take a little time, and He'll heal us. He might not heal us in this life, but the prayer of faith will save the sick.

Turning to God, aligning our thoughts with His thoughts, moving forward in faith, not losing faith, we recognize the absolute fact. It's undoubtable. The Lord will raise us up. He can raise us up physically, but He will certainly raise us up at the resurrection because we know ultimately that's where our hope lies. The hope is in the resurrection, isn't it? What if our hope is only like right now? Is this our hope right now?
I mean, it's an amazing thing if you look at the resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15. The apostle Paul zeroed in on it when he said, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." We are in such a sorry state if this is all we're looking at. We've got to look beyond this life. We can change those anxious thoughts. We can change the way we think, and when we change the way we think, it will change the outcome. Those anxious thoughts can be thoughts of confidence. Those worrisome thoughts can be thoughts of trust.

When we can erase the doubt and walk forward in faith, God can give us the courage, and that anxiety can become assurance because we've been given the promises of God. He's called us, and He's promised to never leave us or forsake us. In fact, if you turned over to chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about that great hope that we all have. We all have this great hope. Verse 51, the end of the resurrection chapter, Paul says, "Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” That's the ultimate hope, the resurrection. And so he says “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” And he says, verse 55, "Death, where is your sting? Grave, Hades, where is your victory?" Is that the end of the story? He says, Absolutely not. “The sting of death is sin. The strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

And so Paul writes these encouraging words, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." And so Paul gives us such a fantastic reminder. God will make those promises happen. There's no doubt about it. And we can have faith, we can have confidence that God will deliver us. He can change that worrisome perspective, and we can be different. In fact, I can't help but thinking maybe Psalm 34 is what David had in mind at Ziklag. Look at Psalm 34:4. It's kind of a summary passage of this whole concept of Ziklag and the coronavirus or any trial or persecution or trouble that might come. Psalm 34:4. It says, "I sought the Lord, and He heard me, not only did He hear me, but He delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” So Ziklag really changed everything.

David with a changed perspective by connecting to God by examining himself and trusting God, now it was time for David to do something about it, take that strength from God, and walk forward in faith. And so God told him. "Go, go to the Amalekites. Attack them and you will overcome them. Face the enemy head-on, and I'll be with you." David and his men did just that. They went into battle. We know the rest of the story. He overwhelmed the Amalekites, and not only that, he recovered the women and the children. The families could finally be together again, and what an amazing end to that story. By the strength of God, David was able to win back all that was lost. And when you read the story, even more, even more than what was lost. It can be the same for us. It can be the same for us.

Colossians 1:9 is another passage that I think summarizes this thought so well because it puts it all in the context. And that's such an important reminder for all of us to recognize God's context. Because we know difficulties will come. We know those things that it says in Luke 21 and Matthew 24, how it talks about difficulties. It talks about earthquakes. It talks about diseases. It talks about wars. There's difficult times ahead. I don't think we're quite there yet. This may be a precursor to those things, but we know those things are coming. They shouldn't take us by surprise. And so when those things come and as they do, here's the perspective that we need to have.

Colossians 1:9. Paul wrote to Colossi, he says, "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, we don't cease to pray for you," and we need to pray for one another, no doubt, no doubt, "to ask that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;” he tells them to pray that way "so that we may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who's qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of sins."

God has such blessings in store. It'll be a great time just to look through the Bible and do a study on these amazing promises of God. There are so many. There is no doubt. When you recognize those promises and rehearse those promises, we recognize there is absolutely no doubt God promises to help all those who put their trust in Him. So when we feel like giving up, we're just worn out. We're tired. We're discouraged. We're fearful. We think, "Wow, I don't know if I'm going to make it." Well, like David, we can. We can connect with God. We can study His Word. We can go to God and praise and worship Him. We can draw even closer to God. We can do that by examining ourselves, looking at our life, changing our thinking, and recognizing the power that God's given us through His Holy Spirit.

And we can change our focus. We can change from focusing on the problem to focusing on His solution. And by doing that, we can go forward in faith. We don't have to panic. We can have faith go viral. Let faith go viral. Let's make sure faith takes the day and determine to have faith take us beyond our own human limitations. Remember those promises of God. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. So as we face the challenges of life, they'll certainly come, but let's always be determined to strengthen ourselves in the Lord our God.

[Steve Myers] Well, the question of the week is probably, what in the world is going on? Did that come to mind to you this week? I think the other phrase is chaos at the Capitol. We've seen that. We've seen violence in our streets before, but a pretty shocking scene to see that right at the Capitol Building. Of course, you add that to things that have happened over the last few months with violence, and rioting, and racism, and injustice, it almost seems overwhelming. And perhaps that passage in 2 Timothy 3 came to your mind. You know it, it says, "In the last days, perilous times will come." Perilous times, horrible times, difficult times, times that wear on us with many troubles and tribulations. And it goes on in Timothy to list those character traits of being unloving, and unforgiving, and no self-control, words that describe the things that have been happening over the last several months. And those are things we want nothing to do with that. We don't want to come near any of those things. Perhaps the Coronavirus protocols were getting us ready for some of this because we don't want to be close to any of this. We better keep our distance.

And so that's been I think the word of the day, that we don't want to come near it or touch any of those types of things because these tumultuous times that we're living in, certainly show, this is an uncertain world. And so as we watch these things unfold before us, what should our perspective be? As a Christian, what about our viewpoint? How should we face the challenges of violence, and racism, and partisanship? How do we deal with those things that just seem to surround us? I thought it might be helpful this afternoon, to take a look at that basic spiritual principle that God gives us, that should guide our viewpoint, that should really help us to have the proper focus. And not only that in these difficult times, to really give us some encouragement, as we face the challenges that lie ahead of us. There are three basic Biblical passages that I think can help us to do that. And so I've, kind of, organized the sermon by those three specific passages that can help us to face those challenges and give us that guidance, give us that perspective that we need, as we face the days ahead.

The first one is found in 2 Corinthians 6:17 if you'll turn there with me. You could even say, this is the theme Scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 6:17. Now, of course, in this particular section of Scripture, Paul's writing to Corinth, and they have so many issues and so many problems. The Church was a divided church. And they were dealing with the issues of partnering with the world. And Paul talked about, "Don't be unequally yoked." He said, "What fellowship does light have with darkness? What communion does Belial have with Christ? What part does the temple of God have with idols?" And he's dealing with much of the same issues that we're facing today. What agreement is there between these things? And as a result, he comes to the conclusion in chapter 6 verse 17 of what we and what the Corinthians had to do. What do we have to do about these things? Well, verse 17 says, "Come out from among them and be separate," says the Lord. "Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you." And so a pretty short, concise, simple direction that God inspired Paul to give us.

He starts by saying, "Come out." Now, if you were to look that up in a Greek dictionary, a word dictionary, the definition would be pretty straightforward. Yeah, it means to come out but it gets to the point of departing or even takes it to the level of escaping. If we're going to come out, we've got to escape from the pulls and the draws of this world. He just got down telling us the influence of unbelievers, the influence of wrong ways of thinking, the wrong ways of idolatry has to be something we escape from, we depart from. We get away from this. And then He emphasizes that fact by saying, "Be separate. Be separate." And the connotation of that Greek word means we've got to set a limit. There has to be a limit to the contact that we allow this outside influence to affect us. In fact, the word has a sense of making a boundary. This is as far as I go. And there is a boundary between my thinking and the influence of culture and society around me, and that effect it might have on me. And so, it has this sense of, keep your distance, keep your distance.

And, of course, we should be good at this right now, since we've been social distancing for a while. Do we recognize that? So we don't contract the illness of sin of this society, set a boundary, get away from it, sever yourself from that influence. That's what that word for separate really gets down to, that corrupting influence of society, the corrupting influence of government, the corrupting influence of politics, and entertainment, and the world around us. We've got to be set apart from it. We've got to make that choice ourselves. To the extent, Paul says here, "Don't even touch it. Don't touch it. Don't touch." And, of course, when you think of this word for touching, what does that imply? Well, what do we do when we come into services these days? Okay. We, kind of, stopped touching and now maybe we do a, you know, elbow bump or something like that. But normally, when you love people, you hug them, and you hold them, and you touch them. Why? Because we care. Because we care. And I'm attached to these people so I show it by touching.

Now, on the other hand, what we find here, it says, "Don't touch. Don't attach yourself to this world's way." Don't have a relationship because that's an implied relationship, really what it's getting at here. So, you don't stick to this vain world. You don't attach yourself to this pollution of society that we're surrounded by. Don't have close connection. He just got done saying, "Don't have fellowship. Don't have koinonia. Don't have a partnership. Don't have a communion with those that are ungodly, those that are false worshipers. Those that are in the dark." He tells us don't have that kind of a relationship. We've got to stay detached from that. And don't let society stick to you because after all, we're a part of the Ecclesia. We are the Church of God. We are a separate community of believers. So we don't touch immorality. We don't touch the impurities of this world. And so he reminds us that this world is just that. It is unclean. So, don't touch what is unclean. We're reminded of that. It's impure. Literally, that's what the word means. It's foul. It's nothing you want to come near.

So we cannot attach ourselves to the same things that culture, society, and this world attaches itself to. Our priorities, they have to be different. They have to be different choices. And so, what do we see all around us? I mean, all we see around us is division. We see division over the coronavirus. "Oh, it's all a fake. It's all a phony. It isn't real." "Well, no, it's killing people. Thousands and Thousands are dying." "A mask? You don't have to wear a mask. That doesn't help." "Oh boy, you better wear a mask because it's what's going to save you." And so we see the divide. And that spills over to so many areas. We've seen it with injustice and racial tensions, rioting, chaos at the Capitol, all of those things. All of those things are indications of the impurities of the world that we live in. Those impurities have infected the society around us. Now, in contrast, we as God's people, our life is to represent something totally different. Our life is to picture and symbolize a time when the world will be severed from unclean and unrighteous actions and ideas. And our lives should reflect that right now.

So as God's people, we condemn violence in all of its forms. We condemn rioting. We condemn lawlessness in whatever form it takes. And we stand against the political systems of this world. We must. We must. And so we recognize that the governments of this world, governments of man, are not the governments of God. They're not. They're not. And so it should cause us to ask ourselves, "How attached am I to this world?" I mean, what did our Savior say? What did Christ say? When confronted with that concept, He said, "My Kingdom is not of this world. It's not of this world, otherwise, my servants would fight," is what He said. But that's not what He was all about. He said, "My Kingdom is not from here." You see, He had an entirely different perspective. And as we try to live our lives, we recognize this culture, the society around us, continues to push us further and further away from God. And these events that we recognize, show this continuous spiral downhill. And so it's absolutely critical that we as Christians, not follow that downward slope. We can't get caught up into that. We are to be citizens of the Kingdom of God.

That is our calling. That is our citizenship. And so, we are told… In fact, as we look at 2 Corinthians 6:17, God doesn't say, "Well, it would be a nice idea if you did this." I mean, He doesn't say, "Well, I'd like to request this of you or just ask that you consider." No, what does He say? He gives us a command. He commands us to come out of the world and be separate, to be different. And so our calling as Christians, as God's people, it's not just to be a little bit better than the world. Is that what God's called us to? Well, just try to be a little better. No, He says, get out of it. Get away from it. Escape it. In fact, if you were to think about it, when Christ returns, what is He going to do? Well, oftentimes, we might think, well, the systems of man, they're horrible. When Christ returns, He's going to get rid of communism. Totalitarianism is awful, right? Totalitarianism? It's unacceptable. And of course, socialism. That is an obvious evil.

And so when Christ comes, He'll fix democracy? Is that what He's going to do? No, He said, come out of the world. When Christ returns, is He going to be a political conservative? Is He going to be a political liberal? Is that what He's going to be? I don't think so. When you recognize what Daniel 2:44 says, it makes it very plain. When Christ comes and establishes the Kingdom of God, we're told “it will break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, all these kingdoms.” And that word for break there is absolutely crush. And so it doesn't matter what the system of man is. It's going to be totally annihilated when Jesus Christ comes to set up God's Kingdom. And that should begin to give us a much clearer perspective on what we need to do. Because not only are we told it once, here in 2 Corinthians 6, this is actually a quotation from Isaiah 52. So, a second passage. Let's take a look at Isaiah 52. And here we'll find the section of Scripture that the apostle Paul is quoting. He's quoting and summarizing some of the thoughts that are mentioned in Isaiah 52. And it is a powerful section of Scripture. Of course, Isaiah was prophesying to Judah. Israel, the northern kingdom was already in captivity, and God sends Isaiah to prophesy to Judah.

And it's interesting, as this chapter begins, look at the words of Isaiah that were inspired by God. Isaiah tells them, “Awake, awake!” Wake up, in other words, he says, "Put on your strength, O Zion." Of course, Zion being Jerusalem, representative of God's people, the Jews at that time. Of course, think about Zion today. Who is Zion today? Well, it's us. It's the true Church of God. It is the Church of God. So, imagine God calling out to us as His people, "Wake up, Wake up! And put on your strength." And so, Paul quotes this. And in fact, a little bit more specifically, down in verse 11, Isaiah says, “Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her." And so, here's Isaiah, under God's inspiration, telling us exactly what needs to do if we're going to wake up if we're going to strive to be godly people. If we truly are God's Church and putting on the strength that only comes from God, we've got to get out of here. We can't let the influence of this world infect us.

And, of course, this section of Scripture has multiple implications here because you can think back in time, was there ever a time for God's people before this that they had to get out and maybe wander a while in the wilderness? Yeah. God's people had to get out of Egypt. That represented satanic rulership, the rulership of Pharaoh, and the satanic culture of Egypt. It represented sin. They have to get out of there. And, of course, moving forward just a little bit. What about the other representations that this could have? Well, we could think back even to another. Another one back in time, of course, was Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. He had to depart. He had to get out. He had to escape. Could they hang on to things and touch things or even look back? No, you can't be doing that. This has implications certainly for today, like the apostle Paul was quoting, and encouraging, and trying to convict us all in that way. Most scholars feel it probably most is connected to Babylon. Because here's Isaiah, warning the people of Judah that if they don't change, if they don't disconnect from the idolatrous world around them, they're going to end up in captivity, under Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

And so if you can imagine that, this call to depart from Babylon, "Wake up and get out of there." Now, that would have been probably pretty simple, right? I mean, the captivity in Babylon would it last like a couple years or so, maybe 5, 10? Oh, no, it was decades. How long was that captivity for Judah in Babylon? Seventy years, 70 years. So think about 70 years. That's a long time. Many of us in this room haven't been around for 70 years. That is a long time. So what happened to God's people as they're in Babylon, year after year, decade after decade after decade? You think some of them might have become a little attached to the idea of living there? You think that they might not have wanted to return to Jerusalem? I mean, think about that. Most of the captives that were brought to Babylon initially, would have died by now before the release. It's the children, the ones who were born in Babylon, who would be the ones to return.

Now, for them, well, they'd only heard about Jerusalem. They'd only heard about what it was like to actually have a godly community and what the temple might have been like, right in the midst of them, the Promised Land? That is so far away. That's in this distant land. How could you ever think of going back there? Because Babylon, it's our home. We've lived here. Going there, that's a long, long perilous journey. In fact, you have to cross the desert to get to Zion. I mean, we've been born here. This is our home. And so you can imagine the kind of thinking that would have been very difficult to overcome. I mean, some of them had jobs, some of them had good jobs. We read about guys that were advisors to the king, Jews that had prominent positions in Babylon. Yeah, there were a bunch of them. Daniel, for one. How about the three guys that got thrown in the furnace? Yeah, we've got some connections there where they had profitable positions. And no doubt, many of the Jews had property and had lands.

So do you think they might have been a little reluctant to get out, a little reluctant to leave? I mean, undoubtedly, some improper connections, some wrong attachments had been made. And some didn't want to give them up. So when the decree finally came, what happened? Cyrus makes the decree that you can return to Jerusalem. So they all went back. Right? They all went back to… No. No. Read history. It shows, a pretty small number of the Jews actually ever left Babylon to go back to Zion. But Babylon was supposed to be temporary. That wasn't supposed to be real life. That wasn't supposed to be your home. Jerusalem, Zion was your home. And I'm sure it must have been pretty difficult, especially when family or friends decided, "I'm not going." To still make that choice to return. Well, it sure brings home the lesson. It doesn't matter what somebody else decides to do, you better do what's right. You better depart. You better awake. You better come out. And you better separate yourselves and don't touch anything to bring that filth along with you.

And so, that lesson just rang so true today, doesn't it? That we have to separate ourselves completely from the values of this world. Because face it, we live in an idolatrous nation. Sadly, that's the way our country has become. And God says, preserve yourself, pure. Separate from the wrong influence of culture and society. Don't forget as God's people, as Christians, we're pilgrims. We're like those captives in Babylon. This isn't home. We're not residents. We're supposed to be aliens. We're sojourners. We are on a journey. We are on a journey to Zion. We are looking for the Kingdom of God. And so, we can never forget this. This world around us is just temporary. Life is temporary. Physical life is temporary. So instead of being attached to it, we have to consciously detach ourselves. Detach ourselves from everything that looks like it's real, seems like it's real. We have to detach from the visible, from the scene, and separate ourselves from all that is around us, what's present. Because when we recognize that, we cannot allow ourselves to be polluted and become drug into society and its ways.

We have to be like those in Hebrews 11, that looked for Zion, looked for the city, looked for the Kingdom of God. And so, the way we see things, the way we live our life, there has to be that stark difference between the lifestyle of a true Christian and those who attach themselves to this life. And that's the challenge. I mean, no doubt, there's uncertainty all around us. I mean, no doubt the political situation in America has been a volatile issue. It has been an uproar, hasn't it? But what about us? You see, we've got to make sure we are separate. We should never equate our faith with a political party. We can't do it. I mean, think about how Christ got things done. How did He do things? Did He do things and get things done by manipulating the political process? He worked with the Romans and then He worked with the Sanhedrin? He worked with the Pharisees so that they could accomplish? No. What did Christ do? He washed feet. That's what Christ did. You know, how do you defeat principalities? How do you defeat the powers that come against us? Do we do that by the force of man's law? It's not going to happen. Christ did it by a sacrifice, by sacrificing, ultimately giving His life.

And that's how He subverted this world's modus operandi. He was not about to participate in any way because human governments cannot properly administer sound, beneficial, spiritual governance that works for everyone, for good. Man just can't do it. So that's why God the Father will send Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And that will change government forever. And as a response to the plan of God and our calling, and receiving God's Holy Spirit, we have to come out of this world's way of thinking. And it pushes us. It tries to force us its way. And it stresses us out. I mean, how can we describe the events of the last year? I mean, it's disturbing. Some of it's shocking. Some of it's depressing and discouraging. In the last program that I recorded, I cited a stress in America survey that was just done a couple of months ago. And the results that were done by the American Psychological Association were really astounding. It polled people in America and the stressors they face.

Did you know that that survey found that 77% of us felt that the future of our nation is a significant stressor in their life? Seventy-seven percent, not just a few of us, the vast majority, over three-quarters of us. A huge majority are stressed. And it doesn't matter what race they are, the poll says, but they are stressed and say that police violence toward minorities is a significant source of stress in their life. And the list goes on and on and on. In fact, 7 in 10, 71% of Americans say this is the lowest point in our nation's history. That's how stressed they feel over these things. And, of course, that stress impacts us too. Yeah, we feel the stress of these things. So, our response, what do we do? How do we handle these things? Well, a third passage that relates is found over in the book of Revelation. We looked at the first-century church and its instructions. We looked back at the instructions God gave to ancient Judah and Israel. Here in the book of Revelation, we look to the future. We look to the future.

And in Revelation 18:2, see if any of this sounds vaguely familiar because it talks about this time that a great beast power, a huge government is going to control the world. And ultimately, it's a government of man and it cannot last. And so, in verse 2, we're told an angel cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, and it's become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit,” but notice the influence, the influence of this great power, verse 3, "All the nations have drunk the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,  the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury." So, things were pretty good. Things were pretty peaceful for a while. The impact of that, it had affected culture. It affected society. It affected the people's perspective. Probably much like ancient Babylon. Are you going to get out of that? Well, this coming Babylon, notice the instructions that are given. Verse 4, "I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, lest you receive of her plagues.'"

Yeah, sounds like 2 Corinthians 6, sounds like Isaiah 52, because once again, the command is given to the people of God. As people of God, get out, escape from the influence. Don't let that overwhelm you. Set a boundary. Stay away. Sever yourself from this and don't even touch it. Don't attach yourself. Don't have a relationship, in that sense, with this evil world. It means as a Christian, for us, today, it means we cannot be a part of this corrupt world around us. That means our behavior has to be different. It means we don't post on social media about the horrors of those awful Republicans. We don't post on Facebook, "Oh, those Democrats, those liberals, they're a bunch of maniacs." We detach from this world. We don't talk about this political system that is bound to fail. We don't write about, "Oh, how righteous the Republicans are. Oh, the Conservatives are the best. How could you not support the Conservatives? The Conservative movement in the United States is what really matters." That's what we're about? Do we write about that?

You see, the whole story here is about not attaching ourselves to a side because both sides are wrong. Both sides are wrong. We have to worry about, "Oh, the possible conspiracies of the Democrats or the Republicans or that coronavirus vaccine, that's the mark of the beast. I'm going to write about that on social media." Really? How ridiculous? We come out of all of that. This is not God's government. This is not God's system. And so as we consider that, we've got to recognize, first and foremost, God's way is not about legislating better laws in man's system. It's not what it's about. God's way is not about voting in godly political leaders. Are there any? Think about that. You see, instead, it's about us. It's about us living such remarkable spiritual lives, that others feel compelled to learn about God's way. It's about us. It's about our comments, our conversations that should ultimately lead people to God. It's about our shining example. It's about utilizing and submitting to God's Holy Spirit. So that shines through in everything that we do. So I can't help but wonder, have we been sidetracked? Have we become compromised or maybe just complicit? You see, we misplace our energies and we can begin to lose our way.

And when we're really committed to God, and we recognize His system is not man's system, we recognize we don't fit in. We don't fit into any worldly system, any two-party, three-party, whatever party you want to talk about. And you see, we fail. We fail if we are not a faithful witness and an example of God's way, a living, breathing, true Christian that supports every way of God. And so, when we look at these passages, I really do think it's a wake-up call. It's a wake-up call for all of us, that we re-engage the way of Christ. In fact, our name even says that, doesn't it? We are the Church of God. We are the Ecclesia of God. Ecclesia, that means the called out ones that are brought together. We are called out by God and brought together to serve Him, to honor Him, to worship Him, to be a witness to this world, that that is a dying culture out there. And the only answer is found through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's it.

And so, we model justice. The Ecclesia live the things that make for peace. We show what true right relationships are all about. We live godly morality. In fact, our marriages are so strong and so healthy, who cares about the crazy relationships out there in the world? Because look, this way works. And we demonstrate a love, and a care, and a concern for each other. And so, we must speak, and we must teach, and we must preach, and act in a manner that shines that beacon of Jesus Christ to the world. That's our duty. That's our calling. And it must be one that inspires people. An example that truly shows we're not attached to the political systems of this world, we're not attached to worldly biases. In fact, we're not even attached to our own personal opinions. It's not about my viewpoint. It's not about my perspective. You see, we're not attached that way. We're not focused on what we think about who's right or what's right in this system of men. That's not what it's about. And so instead, we disconnect from today's perilous world. Yeah, we sigh and we cry over what's going on in our world today. It just shows forth the sin of materialism, self-centeredness, violence, cynicism, the reliance on wealth, and luxury, and pride, and self-sufficiency. That's all around us.

But it moves us to compassion and it moves us to love our neighbor. It moves us to serve our communities so we don't disconnect from people. But we demonstrate the true love of God to everyone we come in contact with because that's our God-given responsibility. That is our duty. Our duty then to recognize the difference between what's right and wrong, what's clean and unclean, between what's good and what's evil. And then take that power that God's given us to choose right. Utilize God's power to choose good. Submit to the power of God to do what's pure. Now, there is good news. I mean, the good news, it doesn't matter how uncertain the times are that we live in. That doesn't matter. We look back regardless what happened in 2020, regardless of what happened last summer, regardless of what happened in November, regardless of what happened this week. We've been given the precious promise of God's Holy Spirit. That is a phenomenal blessing. And we are the children of God. We are different. And we can confidently hold on to the precious promises that God has given us. God's in charge. He's in control. He's not going anywhere. And the Creator of this universe loves us and He cares about us.

In fact, He loves the world and can't wait for a better time to be established right here on earth. And He wants us to have the best, the best right now. And so He gives us an amazing promise. In fact, I just looked at one this afternoon, Psalms 32:8, God gives us a remarkable, really an unchangeable promise. That's a just short, succinct, right-to-the-point promise in Psalm 32:8. Notice here is God speaking. God's the one doing the talking here in Psalm 32:8. And He says something pretty special, something that can give us the confidence and assurance that we need in these difficult times. God says this, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye." You see, God says that, and in His infinite wisdom, He promises to instruct us. Do we really recognize the power of that promise? I mean, here's God Himself, God Himself guarantees to instruct us, and lead us, and teach every single one of us.

And, of course, think about God for a minute. Here's the God of infinite wisdom. He knows all. He knows everything from the beginning to the very end. And what does He say? What does He vow? He says, "I'm going to be your personal Counselor. I'm going to be your Coach. I'm going to be your Instructor. I'll be your Professor. And I've got my eye on you. I've got my eye on you." I mean, it's a promise. In fact, it's undoubted, isn't it? Notice the words that He used there verse 8, "I will." It's not a question. "No, I will instruct and teach you. I will counsel you. I will guide you."

You see, so as a loving Father, we have an amazing God, who's our advisor, our leader, the guide, that will be with us every single step of the way, every minute of the day. And He says, "You can count on it." Take it to the bank, God will never forget to lead us. He'll never forget to watch over us. In fact, He says, "Not one second is going to pass where I take my eye off of you." And so we can have that confidence, we can have that assurance. When we submit to the Spirit of God, He promises the best will resolved. And we can succeed with the watchful eye of God.

And so, let's be good students. Let's learn from God. Let's maybe even earn a Master's degree or maybe a Doctorate for that matter, so that we can truly learn to discern between good and evil so that we can train our spiritual perception and learn to view life as God would have us view it, so that it begins to show in our thoughts, which can't help but then live in our actions, that we begin to filter life through the perspective of the one true God and we allow Him then to lead us and guide us every step of the way. So we become detached from this world and attached to Him. And when that happens, then we certainly won't touch the unclean thing.