We're continuing this afternoon what we started with this morning, looking at a number of biblical principles, trying to seek a foundation to think about times like these and to consider what's happening all around us and to apply the word of God to it. So this afternoon, we're going to read from Romans chapter three, Romans chapter three, and we'll read verses 10 through 18. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. In the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And then Luke chapter 10 verse 30, what's known as the parable of the good Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, a certain man that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a certain priest came down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on wine and oil, and set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him, On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, take care of him. Whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you. So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? And he said, he who showed mercy on him. Then Jesus said to him, go and do likewise. Let's now take a moment for prayer, that the Lord would bless his word and that he would give wisdom as we think about the applications of it. Let us pray. Dear Lord God, Father in heaven, we come before you and we come with praise and with thanksgiving. We thank you that you have kept us in your care throughout another week. You've given many blessings. We pray, especially as we set time aside to worship together as families on this day, that you would bless that worship that you would guide your people, but we also pray especially that you would bring us back together again soon, that we would be guided to worship you with heart, soul, mind, and strength. We also pray for much wisdom, wisdom for those in government, but also especially for those in leadership in the churches, that you would guide us in the way we should go. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. This morning we began to look at truths to cling to in these times. We focused on two basic foundational truths. The first one is that God is sovereign. He is in control. Neither a virus that is in some way spreading around this world, nor the actions of governments, nor what's happening with the economy, none of those things are out of his control. That's the first main principle that we as Reformed Christians ought to cling to in these times. This world is not out of control. And then the biggest issue that we have to also cling to as far as us as people is, is not coronaviruses. It's not the economy. And we need to keep our focus. We saw this morning that the biggest issue is rebellion against God. And that may sound simplistic, but that's a very important thing to cling to because we need to keep that foundation as we consider how to react and how others react to things like this. And that we need to constantly go back to God's word and search the scriptures and think through how we respond. because we also are inclined to evil, to slip into doing things wrongly. And now today, we're going to look at two more main principles, especially for applications, as we begin to think about how we, from scripture, think about the truth about coronavirus and then also the virus itself and lies about it. And so first we're going to look at the difficulty of knowing and discerning the truth. The difficulty of knowing and discerning the truth. And then second, the need to keep a good Christian witness in times like these. Now first, we need to be aware that it's hard to know the truth often. And even in difficult times like this, there really is a lot of uncertainty. And a time like this should teach us that all over again. We are not omniscient. You may like to think that you know all the truth about what's really happening with coronavirus or with the government or whatever it is, but only God is all-knowing. Psalm 147 verse 5. His understanding is infinite. And we even have to understand that at times God does confuse people. He does humble us. And when you even think of something like the Tower of Babel, what an illustration of that, that God confused the languages of the people of the earth and He scattered them. And we can see that happening more on the way people think and the way people get along or don't get along and different worldviews at this times. God does confuse people and He does humble us at times. Through that, Isaiah 29, 14, the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of the prudent men shall be hidden. So when we go through a situation like this, we're really learning how little we know. You can think about some of the changes, things that were probably proposed or said by experts with maybe good intentions, things like you don't need a mask or Coronavirus has a 10% death rate, and millions will die in the next few months, and perhaps the virus has mutated since then. Maybe it was more serious overseas, or perhaps different populations, different things are happening. We simply don't know. But there's many indications that we really don't know. You can even think of how in the early reports, the coronavirus was supposed to be incredibly hard on smokers. And now you read the studies that are coming out, nicotine is mysteriously actually a benefit to have in your system, which seems very strange, but it tells us we just don't know. The experts don't know. And one of the questions... that at times we simply need to step back, be as careful as we can be, and reasonably still doing what we're called to do, but being as carefully as we, going through life as carefully as we can be, realizing that we just don't ultimately know. We've really seen the danger of being a know-it-all in these times. Be careful. And the challenge is, though, that When people pretend to know things when they don't, even experts, and when they propose things that they don't know as truth, they're actually being liars. The Bible does tell us that people in general, by nature, are liars. and lying actually is. And even white lies, well-intentioned lies, are still lies. And even saying something that people maybe thought was for a good intention, like, we were told this just changed in the last day, we see how quickly things change, how little man really knows, we were just told, well, People without symptoms now we're told they can't spread the coronavirus, and just a few weeks ago we were told they can, and it goes back and forth, back and forth. Well, somebody's lying in the end, or somebody's exaggerating, somebody's putting things out there that's not true, and that should not surprise us as Christians. We don't even know which one sometimes is telling the truth, but we do know from Romans 3 verse 13 About all people, it says there, their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips." Apostle Paul, he lumps everybody into that category. From Romans 3 verse 9, Jews and Gentiles, and he says, we are no better than they. All kinds of people are under sin. All kinds of people very easily, too easily, lie. Anyone who's brought up young children knows this, especially with some little characters that they go through that certain stage, you certainly don't have to teach them how to lie. Because they will look you right in the eye with the most innocent eyes, and they will deny something they just did right in front of you. And you have to teach them and shape them and mold them and teach them of the danger of lying. But now we live in a society that about 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you started to read in the parenting books that Children were being encouraged to lie even. And that lying is a good way to defend yourself. This horrible teaching was brought in and now perhaps we're reaping what has been sown as a society. And I'm not encouraging unhealthy paranoia here where you cannot trust anybody anymore or point to conspiracies all around. No, that's not the point. But as a Christian, we need to have a realistic understanding that many, many people default to lies. And sadly, governments do as well, and politicians do. And when we see them contradict their own actions, or their own words with their own actions, and things going around and around in circles, we need to step back, and we need to be careful. And it's a reminder, in the end, Jesus Christ alone is the one who is called the truth. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And when we live in an age of so much confusion and so much deception, and we go through this phase of confusion and deception, it should cause us to cling to Jesus Christ even more, to think and meditate on who He is and how God's Word is truth, and how much we need Him. He was tempted in all points, as we are, yet without sin, without even a single lie. And what we should really do when we see all these lies around us is also examine our own examine our lives as Christians, examine our words, our white lies, and our small deceptions. So small at times, seeming, and yet big before a holy God. And we should see how much we need Jesus Christ and the great hope and glory in knowing Him who is the truth, Jesus Christ, who's always reliable. And so I hope these times turn you to look to Jesus, to treasure Him, to trust Him as the King of kings who rules over all things perfectly and truly. Now we can add to this reality of lying that the Bible does teach us that we even live in an end time where there's worsening deception. and even worsening deception within religion and within the church. 2 Timothy 3 verse 13, the apostle Paul, he warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. And there's other warnings to Timothy as well as to the Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 2 teaches there there'll be increasing lies, even delusions in the last day. And even so much so that those that have pleasure in unrighteousness And those that give themselves over to lying, they slip further and further into the pit, and they'll begin to fully believe the lies. And so the picture is this, that at some point, God sees so much lying that he just lets people go into that. He darkens their minds. He lets them drown in their lies, lies about God, lies about creation. lies about this earth and they lose their minds. You can read about that in Romans 1 again. And here we're seeing what happens to a culture and even a civilization that's embraced lying, is allowed for lying, has given up on him who's the way, the truth, and the life. And the sad reality is many of those lies are centered in those passages on false religion. I don't want you to think all the lying's out there, it's all just the government, and it's all just the bad people or something. Certainly there are honest people in government, there are people who are trying to do their best in government, and there are very false people in the church, even hypocrites. Lies creep in. The church is not immune to these things. And when we think about truth and lies, don't think that this is just to point fingers. We should be humbly examining what falsehoods have I slipped into. In this time of increasing lies, what do we as Christians need to do to maybe step back a few steps? What have we believed or promoted? What's the way to get back to the truth? It's to return to the Word of God. It's to read the Bible for yourself. day after day. Go back to the ultimate source and to use it as the measuring stick through which to think about what's going on in this world. We live in a time where Christians really have an opportunity to shine as truth tellers. And this situation is proving this. We just said somebody must be lying. There's all these different studies, these different sides, and we're left uncertain. That means the father of lies is at work, and undoubtedly he's at work in the media, in the government, on the Facebook, in the social media. He's at work even in the opinions of many Christians who take radically different positions on these things. Perhaps the most dangerous thing we need to think about is the potential to spread lies as Christians. Looking back over the last few months, we need to start being more careful about what we might want to share on the internet. God's command is, we shall not bear false witness. Part of the word bearing there not even paying attention to falsehoods, not even countenancing them, not even letting them enter our minds, much less spreading them. And so as a Christian, we need to be doubly careful, even about what we read. And very, very careful about spreading false reports or conspiracy theories, and especially careful about any kind of conspiracy theory that slanders somebody. Many of the videos that have been posted online in the last couple weeks, I don't know, I honestly don't know if anybody in our particular local church has been posting them, but I've seen some of them online. They might have some truth behind them. We don't know. They have a lot of insinuations in them. A lot of slander. To step back from the conspiracy theories, really this is how they work. Now this is a rough illustration, but if somebody with a white pickup truck robbed a bank in Toronto on Friday, and I knew you happened to drive through Toronto with a white pickup truck on Friday. Does that make you a bank robber? Should I cast shade upon you, even make the insinuation that you're a bank robber? Would you be angry if I accused you of that wrongly? We have to be very, very careful as Christians with these conspiracy theories. Just because we don't know the target of them, the particular government official or whoever it is, sometimes lumping in various ones, they never quite close the loop on the evidence. Well, not never. I'm sure there's probably some of these videos out there that are worth considering or some of these writings that maybe there's truth to some of them, but often they don't close the loop. They make a group of insinuations and they seem to be able to point the finger right well, but they never Get right down to the actual evidence. And the problem with the internet now is you can't fact-check anymore. You might think so, but you can't even trust video evidence anymore. How do we know what's real? Recognize. It may be God's plan to intentionally confuse, to thwart, or to stymie, to scatter the nations, to confuse them, and ask yourself, you believe an idea or promote it, do you know this is true? Now, I'm not making God the author of lies. There is a point, though, where he lets off his hand of restraint, and we now live in a society that's being overrun with lies. And as Christians, we need to ask, do I know this is true, or do I just want to believe it's true? And just as God confused the languages at the Tower of Babel and scattered the nations, it seems the same thing has happened with the internet and the information age. It's become, to some degree, a misinformation age. People seem to more often than not simply go there and find what they want to hear. It's like an echo chamber. Really, the internet mainly projects the filth and the lies that people already have the seeds of in their own mind, and they go out and find them, and it's reflected back to them. So how do we handle that? Well, we need to be of a sound mind. Being of a sound mind means we can know truth. We can know from two or three reliable witnesses that when we look at the whole picture, We talk to friends in some of the churches and in other places, and I've done this, some in the Netherlands and other places in America, greater New York City area. There's a serious concern for the elderly in this. We can't reject and call it all a conspiracy, and we We have to be careful that showing love to the elderly and even our respect for life. We who are Christians, who cry out against abortion and against euthanasia, we should also have a very concern, a strong concern and a real concern for the elderly. And we should want to preserve their lives and do what's best and what's necessary. I've personally known people who have been very sick. There are churches I know of where people have died. And so we should be careful not to call Christians liars or ignore that there are people suffering or who have lost loved ones. We need to be careful. We need to be patient. But then we also need to accept it's, again, not our place to know everything. There's a certain pride in having to know. David says, Lord, my heart is not haughty. nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me." Psalm 131. There's a place of accepting we don't fully know how big or how small the problem is. We're not omniscient. We don't know, at least I don't know, the best response. We can have some ideas. No one on earth, in reality, fully understands a virus. and how it all works. And so, knowing what we do know, there is a way to act responsibly, to live in love for our neighbors, and that's going to be applied in different ways by different Christians. But we need to be intentional about maintaining our witness in these times, maintaining a witness, making sure that others see our love for them. Now, many have asked the question, how do we prioritize, though, our worship of God in times like this? How do we love and serve others as Christians when it is at the time for civil disobedience? Should we, in Christian fearlessness, as we spoke about this morning, should we gather regardless of danger or the decrees of government in a time like this? Those are not bad questions to ask. They're not foolish questions. I'd be more concerned about people who don't want those questions asked or don't dare to ask those questions. They, in many cases, are questions that come from a heart that loves to worship the Lord, and they come from the heart of one that lacks a fear of death. I was talking to another pastor about an elderly member he has in his church. This is in a state where they're allowed small gatherings still. And this man, he knows the coronavirus could very likely kill him. but he has a number of conditions. He's not the healthiest, he's elderly, and so he quite happily goes to church, and he's careful about going out. But the church is high enough on his priority list that he goes anyways. Their hospital in their town is completely empty. He realizes that's not a big concern, that he'd be overwhelming the hospital. Maybe you could say in the middle of the heat of a pandemic, an elderly person would be doing wrong. to still insist on going somewhere like that, maybe, or these are hard questions of Christian liberty, but he goes. And we should see that as a responsible and as a good reaction of a bold Christian man. He's ready to go. He's not being a burden on his neighbors in any way, and he's going to worship. And yet another Christian with health problems or with loved ones that are weak, or out of concern for the elderly more broadly, they might feel that it's foolhardy to go to church and that it lacks love for their neighbors. And the reality is, there is no Bible verse that says thou shalt not go to church in the time of a pandemic, and neither is there, as we'll look at in a moment, one that says you must go. And so different Christians in different cities and different places at different times will make different decisions. And that's actually acceptable, as long as these are prayerful, and wise decisions. But now we're going to try to reconcile the two and just briefly go through what Scripture says. We're going to look at basically the question, should a church ever shut down in a time of pandemic if the government tells them to? And the answer would be, yes, there are times to shut down, to listen to the government, to preserve life. We know this from the Old Testament. Communicable diseases were taken seriously under the law of God, and people who could spread a disease that could kill others, Leviticus 13, verse 46, lepers, were not allowed in worship, much less even in the city. and once a person was diagnosed, it was their responsibility to keep a distance. Now that's clearly the reverse in some sense of what we've done with this pandemic, but based on that principle, churches throughout history have, in times of genuine pandemic, they have withdrawn and they have had very, very small worship services or no worship services. That has happened again and again around the medieval times, times of Reformation, the Puritan times. Other times there have been churches that obeyed the government, stopped worshiping for a time, based on the biblical principle of quarantine. Quarantine, you could say, started with the Bible. We also know from the law of God, it's wrong to unnecessarily risk the life of your neighbor. Exodus 21 verse 39, you can't allow a dangerous animal to roam. If you have an ox that's thrusted even at somebody in the past, that's been very aggressive, and if it roams, you really become responsible for killing somebody. Or if you don't take prudent safety measures, Deuteronomy 22 verse eight, you don't put up a railing around a high platform, you're taking other people's lives in your name or in your own hands. And so the Bible teaches us that we should act in ways and be careful to restrain even our own life and restrain our own property, in a sense, for the safety and the well-being of others. Then the Bible also teaches us to obey government, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, and specifically act in ways That include, we need to walk in wisdom towards those who are outside, Colossians 4 verse 5. And so another side comes into it, the side of obedience to government, but then also that if we were to have, in the middle of an epidemic, a worship service against the will of government, and if we willfully spread a contagious disease and endangered life, and we are disobedient to authorities, we would actually be disobeying multiple commandments. could think of it this way, we read the parable of the Good Samaritan, that if you were to be on your way to church and you saw somebody lying on the side of the road needing help, you don't just drive by them to get to church. It would be a horrible testimony. It would be such a sad thing to do to somebody. Their life is precious. We would save them, just as firefighters and policemen and others need to work on the Lord's Day. And so the same thing has happened in this case, that having a virus come, which we were uncertain how bad it was, especially when it was in China, there was some evidence it may have killed far more people. It was good and right. to stop having church services in a situation like this. It's an important thing to do. We don't ignore our neighbor's predicament. We respect the life of the elderly. And even as things have progressed, and we've seen so many pass away in nursing homes, we should be concerned. And we should be careful about something like going to church. As much as we wish we could, which is a good desire, and as much as Christians don't have the same fear as others, if we were in such a rush to get back to church, we could actually end up being a terrible witness, or even, sadly, we could end up spreading disease in a way that we shouldn't. But the reality is is that developments over time make people ask questions, and we should ask questions. Now the government has begun to relax restrictions, and they've begun to send messages, even from government and others, that it's either going much better than they expected, or it's not as serious as it must have been expected. And all these things are under God's sovereign control, but things are changing. A few weeks ago, The line was basically food and shelter, essential things. The intent was you're only supposed to focus on buying food or get the things you needed to keep your home running, and non-essentials such as sports-related things, golf courses and campgrounds, were closed, and even clothing stores. But now we see them being allowed to open in a limited way. And there's some place to disagree on this, but that's a real problem. when something like a golf course or a campground or sports-related things are seen as more essential than a church. And maybe there's all kinds of gray areas over the past few months where some would say, well, what about this and what about that? And there's arguments on both sides, but now it's, sadly, it's becoming more clear that churches are a lower priority in our government's mind. than sports or recreation. And that's a real problem. We have to be reasonable. We recognize that packing a room to capacity and everyone singing, that's not a good and loving testimony still. And maybe there are urban centers where it could still be unwise to meet at all. If you talk to areas, people in churches in the areas that were hard hit, they wouldn't dream of opening right away, yet we're not in a large city. things are opening up and it's not a good message. It really does show the government has different priorities than we do as Christians. If it's okay to go golfing or it's okay to play sports, or if it's okay to go to a park, then we should be able to safely have an outdoor service with distancing, or if it's okay to be in a clothing store or a sports store, if that's been ruled by those in authority over us as okay, that should mean that the threat has passed enough and it's okay, carefully spread out, to have some kind of meeting. Sadly, we're to some degree subject to the whim of government. Maybe they're overconscious, or overcautious. Maybe the church is not a high enough priority for them. And until now, that's been largely their responsibility. But now, the difficult thing is, is that as Christians, we have to discuss these things and we're beginning to appeal to government and to speak to a multitude of counselors. And the hard question comes after showing patience and care, at what point do we obey God and not men? And that's something I'd encourage you to pray about. At what point do we obey God and not men? And at what point does God want us to obey government? Some may have quite knee-jerk reactions to that question and want to run off too quickly, and others slow, but we need to pray about these things, seek God's wisdom, and we need to be earnest in prayer that worship would be restored one way or another soon. So covet your prayers on this matter. Let us now pray that the Lord would give. Dear Lord God, our Father in heaven, We thank you and we praise you that you are merciful and gracious, that you are yet patient, that today is the day of salvation. We know, O Lord, that we as churches, we've accepted too many lies. We don't even know how many lies we've accepted on this matter. We don't know everything. But we know, looking back over our lives, that too often we have spread and spoken lies and we pray that you would be merciful to us sinners and we pray in the name of Jesus Christ who is the way the truth and the life that you would be merciful to us we also ask that you would guide us this coming week help us to have much wisdom and thoughts and decisions that are made and we pray that you would guide your church we also pray that we would be able to meet again soon and we pray this in Jesus name amen