Dear Grace, I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We come now in our liturgy to the ministry of the Word, so I invite you this morning to take your Bibles and turn in them to 1 Chronicles 12, and we're gonna look at verse 32 in just a moment, but I'm gonna give you some time to find that, as I know that that is something of an obscure place in Scripture. 1 Chronicles 12, 32. Oftentimes I'll have people come to me, whether it's in this church or in other churches in the past where I've been and ministered, and they will share basically their hobby horses with me. They'll share what they're passionate about. Maybe that's evangelism, maybe that's making their presence known in the public square, maybe it's politics, maybe it's sexual purity, whatever the case may be. And really what their intention is, is that they want it to be my hobby horse, and particularly in the ministry of the Word. They want to hear more about this topic. And what I often tell them is what I'm going to tell you right now. There's really two different ways that I think about what I declare in the pulpit. And the first way, which you're very familiar with, is that we are an expositional church when it comes to the ministry of the Word. which means that we're going to take a book, and by and large, we're going to work through that book, verse by verse, section by section, chapter by chapter, and whether or not whatever is in that particular passage on that particular Sunday morning on the surface seems relevant to us, we're going to preach it anyway, because that's what we believe makes up for a balanced and healthy diet of biblical intake when it comes to the local church. But there's a second way I think about what I bring to the pulpit on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, and it's this. If there is something that has greatly affected the congregation, maybe a large swath of the congregation or maybe the whole congregation, or maybe even, zooming out from there, something that has affected Virginia Beach or something that has affected our nation or something that has affected even the whole world such that Christians are asking questions like, How do I respond to this? How do I react to it? How am I to think about this? Is there a place within the Christian worldview for thinking about this? Does the Bible have something to say about that? When somebody has all these questions, it's incumbent upon a minister to speak into that void, as it were, with an answer from the Word of God. You see, as we saw in 2 Peter 1, We believe, as verse three says, that God's divine power has granted us everything we need for life and godliness. That may mean that there's something in the scripture that directly addresses this topic, or it may mean that there's a broader principle in the word of God that generically touches this topic. But whether it is specifically or generically, we have in the word of God the raw materials that we need to deal with just about everything in life. I cannot think of a better example in my own lifetime of this latter category than the pandemic that is now known as the COVID-19 outbreak. There have been similar things in the past. I can think of 9-11. I can think of a handful of other things. But the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic is such that it is global. Not only that, but I think that another reason we are all so shaken by this is that there are so many unknown factors to this all. And so I think it's important in a time like this that ministers step in and say, yes, there is something in the Word of God. In fact, there's a lot of revelation in the Word of God that speaks to this topic, and we want to declare it to you. Before we go any further, I just want to bring everybody up to speed. I know that some of you will already know this, and so I just ask that you bear with me. But I just want to bring you up to speed on where we're at with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. And granted, I am recording this on Friday, March 27th, for you to view on March 29th. So even by then, there may be some new developments. But about 10 days ago, The federal government came in and President Trump declared that for the next 15 days, it is the desire of the federal government that we stop the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak. And he gave a number of directions for how we could do that. At the same time, Governor Northam indicated that he was putting a ban on meetings of people of more than 100. Since then, as of Wednesday, March 24th of last week, two significant things took place that affect us as a church. Number one, Governor Northam has put forth what, for all intents and purposes, is an edict for the state of Virginia that he is banning any meetings of 10 people or more. And not only is there a ban on meetings of 10 people or more, but there's also consequences if people were to break that ban. And the consequence is a misdemeanor. In other words, it is going to be enforced. This ban is in effect until April 23rd. And so this is what we have to anticipate and expect for close to the next month. Now that being said, the elders are going to meet a Friday of this week. And we are going to think through and pray through what that means for us, what that means for our meetings, whether they're going to be public, whether they're going to be online. You're going to get a sense in this message of the trajectory of where we're going. But please just be on the lookout in your email boxes on the Listserv where we will be communicating with you concerning that. The second thing that has transpired on Wednesday of last week, is that as of Wednesday or Thursday last week, the USA has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. So these are very unprecedented times. You probably heard a lot of people saying that this is unprecedented, this is unprecedented. What does that mean? When somebody says that something is unprecedented, what they're saying is, We've never really had to deal with something like this before. And there's a sense in which that is very much true. The specific iteration of the COVID-19 outbreak, it's not the flu. It's something different than the flu. There are many unknowns. We don't have a vaccine. We're trying to, on the one hand, save the economy, but more importantly, on the other hand, save people. And it's hard to do these two things at the same time. And in the midst of all of that, there is widespread panic. and pandemonium, which is contributing to the challenges that come with dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. So in that sense, the specific iteration of the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed unprecedented. But I would like to add this as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's another sense in which there is much precedent for what we're dealing with, not specific precedent, but biblically speaking and speaking along the lines of church history, The people of God in generations past, in decades past, in century past, in millennia past, have had to deal with situations that have been of global proportions. And they have rocked the way in which the people of God worship God. They have rocked the way in which the people of God live. They have radically changed things such that the people of God have had to go back to the drawing board and kind of, in some sense, recreate themselves. I'm thinking, of course, as many of you know, about 100 years ago of the Spanish flu of 1918. When the Spanish flu broke out, there were different localities where different restrictions were put in place, but in many localities and states and counties throughout the United States, the government was doing then what they're doing now, which is they were banning public meetings of more than X amount of people, and that included churches. And I've been doing some reading this week of ministers, both Baptist ministers and Presbyterian ministers, and even some Methodist ministers who, in the time of the Spanish flu, complied with the government because they saw the severity of this challenge and of this threat against humanity, and they wanted to contribute to bringing a solution to it. And as I've said, and as the elders have said since the beginning, when we get in these uncharted waters, though we do have precedent, and we're going to talk about that in a moment, In the sense that this is unprecedented, we do have Christian liberty for figuring out questions like, do we cancel service? Do we do live stream? You know, all those questions. It's not as if the Bible gives us clear, uncontested, no exceptions advice and revelation and even imperatives about what to do. which means that the decision, for example, to cancel service or not, becomes a Christian liberty issue. And I've said churches have freedom to figure out how to respond, but let me say this, and this is very important. Just because we have freedom doesn't mean that any given exercise of that freedom is necessarily the wisest thing. You know, in Christian liberty, there's good and there's better and there's best. And we say, as I've already said before, the Bible is sufficient for all things pertaining to life and godliness. But that means that even in the area of Christian liberty, while we may not have clear, black and white, precise analogies from which to draw, we do have some significant principles which need to be fleshed out and applied. Now that's what I'd like to do. I'd like to do that in the ministry of the Word, not only this Sunday, but for a number of Sundays, and that's why we are going to step out of the book of 2 Peter, and we're going to spend some time in the ministry of the Word thinking through life as the people of God during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not a time for escapism. This is not a time for sloppy thinking. This is not a time for laziness. This is a time. This is a clarion call to action for the people of God, not only to maintain life within our own communions as the people of God, but more importantly, to look outside the walls, figuratively speaking, of the church and see how we, according to Paul in Philippians 4, can be a light to the people in the world. Because I'm going to tell you right now, and I'll come back to this in a moment, people in the world are asking questions. They want to know what in the world is going on. And we'll come back to that in a moment. So this morning, as we begin this new series on thinking through the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, how do we think about corporate worship amidst the COVID-19 pandemic? How do we think about corporate worship amidst the COVID-19 pandemic? The elders have been talking both face-to-face in meetings and virtually and on text and even at some points on phone calls about this very question. And we have some answers that we believe are the better part of wisdom. And there's many ways in which we can relay those to you. I could just write you an email and send it out on the listserv. But I think it's better to really ground these answers in the Word of God in the ministry of the Word. So that's what we're going to do. So for the next few Sundays, I wanna spend some time thinking about the question, how are we to think about worship amidst the COVID-19 pandemic? And this morning, I'd like to give you two precedents that will help us to get handles on how to think about it, okay? So two precedents on how we ought to think about worship and the COVID-19 pandemic. To be able even, dare I say, to take full advantage of something like the coronavirus, to not let the coronavirus come and go and see us as Christians hiding in the rocks and the holes, waiting for it to pass. There's a place for quarantine. In fact, we have to right now. But there's also a place for service. There's also a place for declaration. There's also a place for making known the gospel of Jesus Christ when the world is most vulnerable and perhaps most ready in our generation, in our time, to hear such a message. So that brings me to the first precedent this morning. First precedent for thinking through the COVID-19 outbreak, and it is this, number one, we need the wisdom of the sons of Issachar. Look at 1 Chronicles 12, 32. I'm just gonna read the first part of the verse. Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. Now, what is the context of this text? This is 1 Chronicles, this is where basically the chronicler is giving an account of the men, David's mighty men, who followed, who banded around him in the wilderness while he was fleeing from Saul. And then they stayed with him throughout his monarchy. throughout his reign, they protected him, they flanked him as he went into war. These were men that could be trusted. And as the chronicler is going through and giving this list of men and naming them, every once in a while he'll give a little brief blip, a little description of these men and why, for example, they were included in this list. And what we read here of the men of Ishakar the sons of Bishakar, is that they had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. Now why was that important back then? Well, let me remind you of the context. David had been anointed by Samuel to be king, but there was already a king in place. Saul was king. And guess who anointed that guy? Samuel! You talk about a sticky situation. You talk about an exceedingly challenging context where you've got to make heads or tails of that. If you were in that time, Who would you follow? Now, before you answer, let me just say, they did not have the advantage then that you have now. They didn't have the Bible. They didn't get to see the rest of the story and see that David won. They didn't get to see that he was the one that typified Jesus Christ. They didn't get to see any of that. They were in the moment, and here's what they knew. Saul is king, to whom we must give our obedience and submission. But then this Samuel, this crazy prophet guy named Samuel, he anointed David and David's supposed to be king. So who do we follow? Well, it's for this reason that David was pursued by men who had understanding of the times and they knew what Israel ought to do. You see, the word understanding could also be rendered wisdom or insight or discernment. You know, the older I get, the less knowledge I want and the more wisdom I crave. You see, wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. Knowledge can tell me what a copy machine is, but wisdom can tell me how to use it. And so also it is here. You see, it is not enough in the context of this COVID-19 outbreak to know what the Bible says. We also need to understand the particular times in which we live. the challenges we face. We need to understand how sin manifests itself in a variety of different ways and know how to apply the Bible to these scenarios. If I could put it this way, we need to exegete or interpret the times just as much as we need to exegete or interpret the Bible to understand how to respond to those times. Such wisdom marked the sons of Ishakar. And we, in this time, for such a time as this, as the book of Esther says, need to likewise be marked by a similar wisdom so that we can respond in a meaningful and a wise way that is biblically faithful and yet not as blockheadish. Now that's the first precedent is we need to have the wisdom of the sons of Ishakar to understand the times and to know what we as the people of God ought to do. But secondly, a second precedent for responding to the COVID-19 outbreak is this. Worship must be modified in exile. Worship must be modified in exile. Now what do I mean by this? If you were to go to an ultra-Orthodox Jew today and ask them very simply, in the history of all your people, what was the most psychologically and emotionally devastating time? There's probably at least two answers that they're gonna give. The one that comes to most of our minds is obviously the Holocaust that happened in the last century that was devastating for the people of the Jews. Some six million, probably more, were murdered. But you know what other answer they would give you? They would say the time of the exile. You see, for hundreds of years, the people of Israel had been promised a land, and they came into a land, and they were established in a land, and the Lord built a temple for them through Solomon. And it was through that temple in Jerusalem that they were to offer sacrifices, and they were there for a number of years, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, really it wasn't out of nowhere, God had been telling them through prophets for many, many years, but at least in their minds, out of nowhere, Babylon came in in 587, 86 BC, and devastated the temple, completely destroyed it, and took captive the majority of the kingdom of Judah. Now here's the thing. For 70 years, they were exiled in a foreign land. For 70 years, they could not, listen to me, they could not worship the way God commanded that they worship. What do I mean by that? Well, God said that they were to worship via sacrifice, okay? You say, well, they could make a sacrifice in Babylon, could they? You see, it's not just that they were to sacrifice an animal, it's that that animal had to be sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem. To sacrifice it anywhere else was a practice in idolatry, even if you were to give it to Yahweh. You see, that's what the kings, for example, Rehoboam in the north did early on in the divided monarchy. The divided kingdom, they set up a temple for sacrifice at Dan in the north. so that people wouldn't have to travel all the way down to Jerusalem. They wanted like a multi-campus site or something like that. And God said, no, no multi-campus site. There's one campus, it's the temple, it's Mount Zion, it's Jerusalem. That's where you are to make your sacrifices. So now the Jews are not able to carry out God's command to worship in the particular way that God wanted them to worship. And that was devastating to them. What did they have to do? They had to adjust. They had to recreate themselves. And as many of you know, it was during the time of the exile, those 70 years that they were captive in Babylon, that they developed this concept of the synagogue. And the synagogue was the place where the Jews would come together and they would pray, they would sing psalms, they would read from Torah, they would hear a message from their rabbi, they would encourage one another. I mean, really, the model for synagogue worship meetings is where we got, as Christians, our model for worshipping God as Christians. So it was in the exile that they had to modify how they worshipped. Now, Isaiah chapter 14, verses 1 and 2, the prophet says this, Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. take with you words and return to the Lord and say to him, take away all iniquity, accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips." What the Jews did basically, they said, well, we can't offer literal bulls anymore. But what the prophet is saying here is that there's another way in which we can repent and in our worship pay bulls metaphorically by the fruit of our lips, the vows of our lips. That is our prayers. That is our worship. And that's why even today, if you go to Jerusalem, what will you find? You will find Jews at the Temple Mount. The Temple's gone. The Temple's destroyed. But they are at what is called the Western Wall, which is the Mount of the Temple. And what are they doing? They're bobbing back and forth, and they're praying. they're giving a sacrifice of their lips. That form of worship, that is a modified form of worship, continues with the Jews to this day. Now what does that have to do with all of us? Well, beloved, we're very simply, we're not exiled as far as our land goes. I mean, we're, most of us are Americans. Many, not all, but many of us were born here. This is our land. This is our fatherland. There is a sense in which heaven is our true home. We're pilgrims and we're just passing through. But I will say this, this is where this applies to us. in this time when we are not able to meet together corporately as the people of God, we are spiritually in exile. We are spiritually in exile. And it's during those times that, like the Jews, we need to modify our worship for a temporary time, hopefully, in order to continue to carry out God's command as much as we can, even though it's not the exact command of God. So that's what we need to do. And now is not a time for denial. It's a time for action. It's a time for action. We need to be sons of Ishaqar. We need to understand the times. We need to know what Israel ought to do. You know, people often talk about the seven stages of grief that folks pass through after the loss of a friend or a loved one. Well, it's not just the seven stages of grief that you pass through when you lose a loved one. It's also when you lose things like a sense of normalcy. And I'm just going to tell you right now, I'm not trying to depress you. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. But the world we live in today is radically different than the world we lived in four weeks ago. I mean, just think about it. Four weeks ago, maybe five weeks ago, you saw somebody, what'd you do? First thing you did is you shook their hand. You're not shaking anybody's hand now. Or maybe you gave them a hug. You're not hugging anybody right now. I mean, now, when you hear somebody sneeze, it's like a gunshot went off and everybody's reaching in their purses and their pockets for hand sanitizer. I mean, it's just a different world. I know there's a few germphobes out there who are like, I've been doing that since 1978. I know, but not everybody's that way. But it's a different world. It's a different world that we live in. And I think that because that sense of normalcy has been taken away, we likewise may pass through these seven stages of grief. And you know what the first stage is? Shock and denial. Shock and denial. Let me tell you something. There are people out there that are saying, it's not a big deal. People are overreacting. Can I speak to that for a moment? I think that if we were to get down into a conversation into the weeds about what you mean when you say people are overreacting, I'd probably agree with you. Are there people that are overreacting? Yes. But in the same way that people may be overreacting, there's also people on the other spectrum that are underreacting. Wisdom does not deny the seriousness that our nation finds itself in right now, and being the epicenter of a global pandemic. This is a time where we need to stop and be honest with ourselves and recognize that this is serious business. There were actually prophets in the time of Jeremiah, who while the Lord had revealed to Jeremiah that the Babylonians were coming, and you needed to be ready, and it was a serious crisis. There were other prophets or contemporaries with Jeremiah, they were saying, Oh, peace, peace. That's where we get the phrase. Peace, peace, where there is no peace. That's what Jeremiah said then. Paul said it too in his time. He applied the same thing. I'm not trying to scare anybody. As Christians, we should be more hopeful and more prepared and more balanced and more realistic than anybody on the face of this earth. But it starts with recognizing, yes, there's a serious problem here. I think the time has come for us to take this thing seriously and start productively thinking through how we are to adapt to this new world. Let me just close this morning by saying this. The Lord is doing something in our country. I know you know that. I hope you sense that. The Lord is doing something in our country. He's doing something globally. It's in this time that we need to make the most of our witness. You know, people are going to be looking for answers that they will, and they're likely going to find themselves coming to church soon to find those answers. Whether that means virtually coming to church, or when this thing blows over and we're able to meet again corporately, they're going to physically find themselves in church. Why are people looking for answers? I'm going to tell you why. Because the answers that they're looking for, there's materialists and humanists and secularists out there who are giving answers to those questions. Questions like, why is this happening? Why are we suffering? Why is there an outbreak of this virus that is killing people? What's going on? And you know what the humanist and secularist answer is to that? It just is. There's no rhyme or reason, there's no purpose to it because there's no purpose in life. And you know what? People inherently sense that that is hogwash. People inherently sense that there's gotta be something more to all of this than what the naked eye sees. You wanna know what that is? That's the image of God within them saying and whispering, there's something more. There's something more. There's someone more. You see, there is someone more. And we as Christians have the message to declare who that someone is. To live as Christ and to die as gain. And Jesus said this, and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. You see, beloved, here's our message to the watching world. There is something much greater to fear than the coronavirus, and it is a God whose demands have not been met. But Christians have no fear of the virus. Christians have no fear of man who can only kill the body. Christians have fear of neither. Man cannot hurt us. The virus cannot take away our eternal inheritance. And the one who can harm us, well, he's our Father. And He placed the pain and suffering and anguish on His Son so that we would never have to experience it. You see, beloved, this is what gives us confidence to go out and live as lights in the world. Would you be reminded this morning of that hope? Would you, on the one hand, while you are sobered up to the reality of what we're facing, on the other hand, be reminded of the hope that is in your bosom through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? Let us pray. Father God, I thank you for the hope of the gospel, especially in these trying times. And I pray, Father, that as the days and the months and even the years move forward, and we find ourselves living and adapting and adjusting to this new world, that you would help us, Father, to make the most of it, to take advantage of it, that we would not waste it, but that, Father, we would take every opportunity to make known the majesty, the glory, and the splendor your son Jesus Christ, making him known to the lost so that they might be found, just like us, and might join us with the throng in heaven. We ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. People of God, I now leave you with the benediction of our King. May the God who ordains that which is right, though dark the road and sorrow, need or pain be your lot, grant you sweet comfort to fill your heart, and be content in what he has sent, knowing that His hand can turn your griefs away. Amen. Go out in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.