As Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread and fear consumes the world, what can we do? Where is God in all this? The Bible has given us the essentials to survive, even thrive in difficult times. Watch and listen as Pastor Mark Finley presents another message of hope and how you can thrive in life’s toughest times.

<p>As Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread and fear consumes the world, what can we do? Where is God in all this? The Bible has given us the essentials to survive, even thrive in difficult times. Watch and listen as Pastor Mark Finley presents another message of hope and how you can thrive in life’s toughest times.</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>

HopeLives365

Mark Finley

How to Thrive in Crisis

In spite of the coronavirus that is raging in epidemic proportions around the world, There is a God that is still in control and we're going to talk about that this morning.

We're going to take a look at this virus and its widespread nature.

We're going to raise some very difficult and very tough questions.

Questions like, where is God in all of this?

We're going to look at this virus in the prophetic sense.

What does it indicate to us from the eyes of Bible prophecy?

How is pestilence, the word pestilence, used in the Bible?

And then how can we deal with fear at this time?

The virus is spreading rapidly, but in my thinking, fear is spreading more rapidly.

So how do you deal with the fear and how do you help other people in the context of that fear?

So we're going to look at some of those big questions.

So let's bow our heads and pray and then we'll study the Word of God together.

Father in heaven, we are thankful that in the midst of a crisis that you've not forgotten this world, that you're there.

Give to us a sense of the prophetic scenario.

Help us see things, not through the eyes of the news media, but through the eyes of the prophetic Word of God.

Enable us to sense a God that is in control, a God that's not caught by surprise, a God that's big enough to handle these things, situations, but a God that's small enough to live in our hearts and give us strength.

The world is in a crisis of epidemic proportions.

Fast moving virus is speeding with breakneck speed around the world.

It's very difficult to keep up with the statistics.

As clear as we can tell, up to this moment, over 250, 000 people have been infected with the virus, and at least 18, 000 have died.

But yet, even those numbers are incomplete because we do not have adequate test results back.

Things are developing so rapidly with COVID-19 that it really is difficult to keep pace.

The numbers are expected to rapidly increase in the next few weeks.

We are seeing life changed as we know it.

Now the COVID-19 is a strain of the virus that we haven't seen before.

Presently there are no vaccines for it that are currently on the market and there are no scientifically tested remedies.

There are a few things that have surfaced this week that may show some promise but really no tested remedies yet.

Schools have been shut down and students are now on online.

Some 250 million students in the United States of America affected, other countries affected as well.

Movie theaters, amusement parks, entertainment venues, all shut down.

Businesses have mandated their workers in many instances to work from home.

Restaurants and centers of social entertainment closed.

When you look at really what's taking place, and when you look at really what's happening in our society today, it is unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented, in our society.

Now the economic ramifications are significant.

There are many people that predict that unemployment levels have been quite low, will rise dramatically.

In fact, the Secretary of the Treasury indicated that they may rise as high, and some economists don't think it's gonna be this high, as 20% if this keeps raging as it is.

Reports of the coronavirus in the news media create fear for tens of thousands of people.

So here's the question, how can we be filled with hope and not fear?

Are these judgments of God or are they just random, accidental happenings?

What does the Bible actually say about pestilences and pandemics?

How can we overcome fear and be filled with hope in times of crisis?

And lastly, is this a sign of the end of the world?

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

I'd like you to take your Bible and go back to the beginnings because we will never understand the endings unless we go back to the book of beginnings.

In the book of Genesis, God created the world and after God creates the world in 6 literal days, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1.

And if we never, if we don't understand something about a larger controversy between good and evil, if we don't frame the disasters, the pestilences, the earthquakes, famines, fire, flood, If we don't frame all of these catastrophes in the larger context of a great controversy in the universe, we end up confused.

We end up not clearly understanding what's going on.

So let's go back to the book of beginnings, the book of Genesis, and later we'll go to the book of Matthew and Jesus end time prophecies and Luke.

We'll go to the book of Revelation, but we begin in the book of Genesis.

God has created the world and at the end of the 6 days of creation, verse 31, Genesis 1, God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good.

So the evening and the morning were the 6 day.

So at the end of creation, no sickness, no suffering, no death, no heartache, no sorrow.

God looks out over the world and God says, it is very good.

So the world that God created was not a world where pestilence is raged.

It was not a world where pandemics took the lives of people.

It's not a world where human beings had fever, vomiting, sickness.

It was a world that God said was very good.

Sickness was not part of God's original plan.

His plan was for earth to be populated with people who were happy, healthy and holy.

Sin was an intruder, and it came to our world introduced by Lucifer, a fallen angel.

When God created beings of vast intelligence, beings of dazzling brightness, angelic beings, he gave them the power of choice.

Because to take away the power of choice is to make mere Ottomans, mere robots.

To take away the power of choice is to take away the capacity to love, because love must come from choice.

1 of those angels, a rebel angel rebelled against God.

That rebel angel came to earth that was created perfect by God with no sickness, suffering, heartache or death, that evil angel led Adam and Eve into sin and to disobedience to God.

He claimed that God was unfair, God was unjust, that God was a vindictive tyrant, that God did not have their best interest in view.

When Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible says sin is separation from God.

And as the result of that, they opened a door that God wanted forever shut.

The door of sickness, suffering, heartache and death.

Because separated from God, we are separated from the source of life, the source of goodness, the source of joy, the source of health.

But when Adam and Eve sinned, God promised that he would send the Messiah.

You see, Satan uses, now don't miss this, Satan uses sickness, suffering, disease, pestilence, natural disasters, as weapons to discredit God.

So when disaster comes, when pestilence comes, when earthquake comes, when heartache and famine comes, what do people do?

They say, if God is all-powerful, why doesn't he stop this?

If God is love, why doesn't he deal with this?

And so Satan uses those weapons to discredit God.

So in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, God made promise them.

He said a Messiah will come and this Messiah will reveal what God is like.

He will reveal for a waiting world and a watching universe what God is like.

So, 2, 000 years go by, 3, 000 years go by, 4, 000 years go by and the Messiah comes and Christ tabernacles in human flesh.

The Bible says in Luke 19 verse 10, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.

Every time Jesus touches blind eyes and they're opened.

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How to Thrive in Crisis

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