This is a special Coronavirus edition of Ask Pastor Mark Live. Pastor Mark will have a 20 minute Bible study on pestilence, Coronavirus and health prevention followed by a live question and answer session.

<p>This is a special Coronavirus edition of Ask Pastor Mark Live. Pastor Mark will have a 20 minute Bible study on pestilence, Coronavirus and health prevention followed by a live question and answer session.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

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Mark Finley

Ask Pastor Mark Live | Coronavirus Edition

Well, Pastor Mark, we're here and it's not very often that we're actually doing this next to each other.

Normally we're, you know, in 4 different places far apart.

And we want to welcome our viewers to Ask Pastor Mark Live.

This is a special edition of Ask Pastor Mark Live.

And today we're going to be talking about the coronavirus.

Pastor Mark is going to have a short Bible study on the coronavirus, pestilence, how to stay healthy in this world amid a crisis that's happening right now.

And we wanna encourage you to comment below as you're watching.

And after Pastor Mark is done with the Bible study, I'll take some of the questions and we'll ask Pastor Mark and we'll take some time at answering them.

So, Pastor Mark, are you ready for your Bible study?

So I'll let you do the Bible study and I'll be back for questions at the end.

The coronavirus or better known as coronavirus 19, because there have been many coronaviruses, but this particular 1 is a version that we haven't seen before.

It's a version that we don't have any at all any vaccines for at the present moment.

It is spread rapidly, beginning in China, spreading to various Asian, European countries, the United States.

It's difficult really to quantify how many people have the virus because we don't know whether they have all been tested.

Obviously, they have been not all tested.

Some of the numbers we're getting as of today are 140, 000, 150, 000, but that number is shooting up quite dramatically.

Some 2400 deaths in the world, but yet we don't know where this is leading.

And 1 of the questions that we ask is, where is God in all this?

In this program I'd like to look at 3 things.

First, what does the Bible say about pestilences?

Then I'd like to take a look at the hope we have as Christians, the assurance we have in times of crisis.

I really want to talk very practically of how to build your immune system, how to build a sense of immunity, not so that we can guarantee that you'll never get a virus like this, because there's no guarantee of that in the world, but we can reduce the risk of getting the virus.

There are things we can do to increase the risk of getting the virus.

What are those things we can do to reduce the risk and increase the risk.

If you build a strong immune system, have a strong immunity, not only do you reduce the risk, but if you do get it the symptoms will tend to be much less and the duration, the time you have it will be less.

And then we want to conclude with is this really a sign of the end?

Let me assure you, God is not the author of sickness, God is not the author of suffering or disease.

When you look back to the book of Genesis, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1 that God looked out over the world and he said, behold it's very good.

Sickness is not very good, as you well know.

And so God created a world in which He desired to have beings live that were happy, they were holy, and they were healthy.

Sin is an intruder that came into our world.

Isaiah 59, verse 1 and 2 says, your sins have separated you from God.

So when the human race sinned, we opened a door that God wanted forever shut.

A door of sickness, suffering, and disease.

We live in a broken world, a world in rebellion against God.

The reason why Christ came was to restore us back to God's image.

He came, as the Bible says in Luke 19 verse 10, Scripture puts it, the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

So in the eyes of the Bible our world was a lost world, a world engulfed in sin, suffering and disease, and Christ came to redeem this world.

His death on the cross provides salvation for all mankind.

But Jesus came also to be an example to model the abundant life.

John 10 verse 10 says, I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.

So God is not the 1 behind sickness, He's not the 1 behind suffering, He's not the 1 behind disease.

Now the Bible uses the word pestilence 81 different times.

Now there may be more times in different translations, but if you look at the King James Version, pestilence or a variety of it in the New King James, about 81 times.

When the Bible uses the word pestilence, it uses it in 4 ways.

So you can't narrowly limit the use of the word pestilence in the Bible.

1 way the word pestilence is used is pestilences occur sometimes as the result of being in a world of sin.

When you look for example at the book of Job, Did Job sin to beget the pestilences that afflicted his body from head to toe?

So Satan is behind all suffering and disease.

Pathogens, viruses, germs grow in this broken world.

And Satan, as Ellen White says, studies the laboratories of nature and is always coming up with varying new sicknesses or diseases or viruses or variants of that.

So 1 way pestilence is used in the Bible is that sinful world, Satan's behind it.

There's a second way that pestilence is used in the Bible and that is God brings pestilence upon the wicked.

Now you're saying, that's rather strange.

Were the plagues of Egypt, anciently, simply natural disasters, or were they direct acts of God to deliver God's people?

The Bible doesn't say God just withdrew His power.

But there is a third area of these pestilences and that is when God does withdraw His power.

There are times that God withdraws his power and he allows the natural result to take place.

That's another way pestilence is used in the Bible.

Another way pestilence is used is very fascinating.

Now Let me read that to you and then we want to talk a little bit about 2 extremes in this coronavirus.

1 extreme is the fanaticism that says the coronavirus is here, Jesus must be coming next week or some fanciful time setting.

That's certainly not what Jesus is saying and certainly not what we're saying.

In Luke chapter 21, the Bible says, verse 25 and 26, And there'll be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.

And on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and waves roaring.

Men's hearts failing them for fear and for the expectation of those things coming on the earth.

So the Bible talks about men's hearts failing them for fear in the last days of verse history.

In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus again is talking about these end time signs.

In Matthew 24, Jesus says, for nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.

There'll be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various or different places.

So Jesus lists war, rumors of war, the rise of nations and kingdoms fighting against kingdoms, the rise of crime and violence.

He lists natural disasters, earthquakes and famines.

And then he lists as well shaky morality in our country and around the world and immorality.

He lists the word famines, lists the word pestilences.

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Ask Pastor Mark Live | Coronavirus Edition

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