 All right, keep your place there in Exodus 32. Keep your place there in Exodus 32. Before we start the sermon today, I want to have a safety moment because of what's been going on in the world lately, especially in the news with the Komodo virus going on. I just want to let you know that there's going to be some changes around here for me personally anyway. I won't be shaking any hands today. I just want to let you know. And as a matter of fact, I would like it if everyone could keep like a five foot radius away from me. I've instructed the ushers that if anyone gets near me to just sacrifice themselves and keep people away from me. I mean, look, stop. This is serious. I'm the one that does the preaching here. I mean, people are sick. So you hear that? I'm the one that does the preaching here. If I go down, it's bad. OK? So look, that's the rule. So don't be offended. I'm telling you these things so you may not be offended. Second of all, if anyone coughs or sneezes, we're just going to have to drag you out of here. Just like that guy a couple of weeks ago, we're going to have to just drag you out of here. So just don't be offended. It's for the safety of everybody. All right. So I'm just kidding, of course. But this morning, we're going to preach on pestilence. I want to tell you, let's get some perspective on pestilence this morning and see if the Bible actually has anything to say about it. And maybe we can get some clarity on what's going on around us. So you see in Exodus 32, the Bible actually talks a lot about pestilence. It talks a lot about pestilence. So let's get a biblical perspective on what could possibly be going on in our world today, because the Bible applies to every day and age and to every person that's ever lived. So pestilence. Pestilence in the Bible. We see here in Exodus 32, this plague, this pestilence came upon the people. If you look at the last verse of Exodus 32, the Bible says, and the Lord plagued the people because they made the calf which Aaron made. If you go back to verse number 26, let's just reread a section of this story and kind of get, I want to show you a trend in the Bible. I want to show you a few examples in the Bible of pestilence and of plagues in the Bible. And let's see if we can recognize a pattern or why these things happen or what's going on and how we should react to it. Okay, so that's the whole point of the sermon this morning is so we can look at what's going on in our world and we can know how we should react to what's going on. All right, look at Exodus 32 in verse number 26, where the Bible says, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him and he said unto them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from the gate to gate, from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbor. So of course, Moses was up on the mountain getting the law from God and God told him, hey, go down there because the people have gone, you know, they've gone crazy. They're doing, they're sinning, right? Verse number 28, and the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses and their fellow the people that day about 3,000 men. So we see that people died from the sword because of this sin, that was a judgment. Verse number 29, for Moses had said, consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, every man upon his son and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day. And it came to pass on the moral that Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord, pair adventure, I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Now don't miss verse number 32. Moses says, yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place which I have spoken unto thee, behold, my angel shall go before thee, nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. And the Lord plagued the people. So the Lord sent, not only did 3,000 men die of the sword, that God also sent to plague upon the children of Israel because of this sin. All right, if you go back, there's two interesting points that I wanna point out here. First of all, we see in this plague, we see that it was God's judgment, this plague upon Israel. But one thing that we see here is that we see the man of God here in Exodus chapter 32. And the second point I wanna show you is that we see that the man of God is advocating for the people. Throughout the whole chapter of Exodus 32, if you go back to verse 11, right at the beginning before Moses even comes down from the mountain, it says in verse 11, it says, and Moses be soft the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does thou wax hot against thy people? He's already advocating for them. Moses was a great advocate in the Bible. He said, okay, that's Moses. Let's look at another example. Let's look at another example of the children of Israel. So we see the man of God turned to Numbers 25. We see that there's a man of God amongst the plague. And we see that what is that man of God doing? He is advocating for the people. He is advocating for the people. Go to Numbers 25. We'll see another example with the children of Israel. Numbers 25. Numbers 25, look at verse number one. And Israel abode in Shittim and the people began to commit Hortom with the daughters of Moab. So here the people were intermingling and they were committing fornication with the people of these heathen lands that they were going into and they called the people onto the sacrifices of their gods and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. And once again, whenever God told you not to mix with the heathen people, it's always because he knew that they would adopt their religion and start worshiping false gods. It's no different here. In verse number three. And Israel joined himself unto Baal Pior and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Skip down to verse number eight for sake of time. And he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through. This was Phineas, okay? The man of Israel, the woman through her belly, so the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. And those that died in the plague were 24,000. So God sent a plague against this and the Lord spoke unto Moses saying, Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron the priest, had turned my wrath away from the children of Israel while he was zealous for my sake among them that I consume not the children of Israel in my jealousy. So basically you had these people, they were intermingling, they were fornicating with these heathen people and they started worshiping their gods. And there were some people that were unrepentant about it. And here you had Moses there, but you had Phineas the priest who saw two of these people in the temple that were unrepentant and he kills them with a spear. He kills them. And God says that he basically, it stayed God's wrath because the man of God was advocating for the people. So you say that this was another example of the judgment of God with a plague, okay? Let's look at another example that doesn't have to do with Moses and the children of Israel in the Promised Land or before the Promised Land. Turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 21. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. I just wanna show you a pattern here that God is judging people and when God is judging people with a plague, there's a man of God there or man of God in this last case and they are doing what? They're trying to stay God's wrath from the people. They're trying to stop God's wrath. And God literally said in our last example in number 25 that because of what Phineas did, I consume not the children of Israel. He's saying I stopped because he saw the man of God advocating because he saw the right thing starting to happen, okay? Look at 1 Chronicles chapter 21. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. This is King David. We see King David here and he makes a terrible mistake, all right? King David. And the Bible says in verse number one of 1 Chronicles 21, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, go number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan and bring the number of them to me that I may know it. And Joab answered, see Joab knew that this wasn't the right thing to do. This was a common knowledge that this was not the right thing to do and I'll explain that in a minute. Joab answered, the Lord make his people in hundred times so many more as they be but my Lord the King, are they not all my Lord's servants? Why then doth my Lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem. So David decides to number the people. You say what's wrong with numbering the people? Well we just talked about last week that basically God promised the children of Israel as he promises you that God will fight your battles for you. That one man will chase how many? One man will chase a thousand. So to go out and number the men of war and number the people of Israel to know how powerful you, it's a simple lack of faith in God. It's the reason that David was in trouble here. Okay, skip down to verse number nine. And the Bible says, in the Lord spake unto Gad David see your saying, go and tell David saying, thus saith the Lord I offer thee three things, choose thee one of them that I may do it unto thee. He says I'm gonna offer you three judgments. So Gad came to David and said unto him, thus saith the Lord choose thee, either three years famine or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtake thee, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence in the land and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself, what word I shall bring again to him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait. Let me now fall into the hand of the Lord for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel and there fell of Israel 70,000 men. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it. And as he was destroying the Lord beheld and he repented him of the evil. So here we, who repented here by the way? The Lord repented here. Proving once again that repented, repent in the Bible means to simply change your mind. God did not repent from his sins here. You know, this is a modern invention, a modern redefinition of a simple Bible word here. And he repented him of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay thou nine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Orn and the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. So imagine this, the angel had already gone and spread the pestilence everywhere throughout Israel and now he's over Jerusalem. And he's about to, you know, smite Jerusalem with the same pestilence. Then David and the elders of Israel who were clothed in sackcloth fell upon their faces and said unto God, is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed. But as for these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand I pray thee, oh Lord my God, be on me and on my father's house, but not on thy people that they should be plagued. So what do we have here? We have David, we have the man of God and the elders of Israel pleading for the people, pleading for God to, it's enough, that's enough God. They're just pleading. And look, it's interesting that God can have his mind changed by repentant hearts, by people who are, you know, they were clothed in sackcloth. They were not proud. They were not, oh, you know, we don't deserve this. We haven't done this. David said it was me that did it. Leave the people alone. You know, let them, let the sheep, it's not their fault, I pray thee. He's begging God to stop the plague. Okay, so we see the man of God once again, advocating for the people. Do you notice a trend here? Do you notice a trend of number one, God using pestilence as a judgment? I mean, for sure there's a trend. God's using this pestilence as a judgment. But also there is this recognizable trend of the man of God that is intervening, that is advocating for the people. So the coronavirus, the application for coronavirus. You know, what does that mean for us, right? So as of this writing this morning, I checked there's 104,000 confirmed cases of coronaviruses and there's about 3,400 confirmed deaths of the virus. I mean, that's 3.4% or so. I mean, that's fairly serious. Okay, so what should, I mean the question is, what should our response be? Turn to Ezekiel chapter 25. Turn to Ezekiel chapter 25. You know, people are generally panicking about it. We'll get to that later. Turn to Ezekiel chapter 25. Ezekiel chapter 25. So Ezekiel is talking about, he's lived through the Babylonian captivity when the people of Judah have been taken into captivity by Babylon and he's seen the whole thing unfold. Ezekiel has. He's seen, you know, the three carrying away of Babylon, the three times he's in Babylon and he's writing the word of God from captivity. In Ezekiel 25 and verse number one, the Bible says, And the word of the Lord came again unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites and prophesy against them and say unto the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord God, thus saith the Lord God, because thou had said, Aha, against my sanctuary when it was profaned and against the land of Israel when it was desolate and against the house of Judah when they went into captivity. So here he's talking about these Ammonites who basically when Judah got taken into, the Ammonites were enemies of Judah. They were the heathen enemies and when Judah got taken into captivity by the Babylonians, the Ammonites gloried in that captivity. When the temple was profaned, they said, Aha, ha, ha on you, you're getting taken over. But now Ezekiel is proclaiming judgment on them, which is interesting. Well, verse number four, Behold therefore I will deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession that they shall set their palaces in thee and make their dwellings in thee, they shall eat thy fruit and they shall drink thy milk. And I will make Raba a stable for camels and in the Ammonites a couching place for flocks and ye shall know that I am the Lord. For thus saith the Lord God, because thou hast clapped thine hands and stamped with the feet and rejoiced in heart with all thine, despite against the land of Israel, behold therefore I will stretch out my hand upon thee and I will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen and I will cut thee off from thy people and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries. I will destroy thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Now Ezekiel 25 goes on, he goes on. It's not just the Ammonites. He goes on and he talks about the Moabites. He talks about the Edomites. He talks about all these people that gloried in the judgment of Judah. And he says, so it's really interesting how God operates because he basically used this heathen nation Babylon to judge Judah and Judah deserved it. And then you had all these other countries around, their enemies, who took advantage of, it says the Edomites, they took revenge on them, took vengeance on them, when they were going through this hard time of being carried away. The Ammonites, they clapped, they said, aha, they're glorying in the judgment of Judah and then God judges them for that. That's interesting. And even Babylon, even Babylon itself is judged by Persia later on in the Bible. Babylon is overthrown by Persia. So look, God is the perfect judge here, folks. Nobody's getting away with anything. So we look at China, we look at China. The sick map, if you look at the sick map of, I can't remember what website it's on, but there's a really nice sick map that shows red dots where everyone's getting the virus and where we need to run and dig a hole other than a place where there's a red dot kind of thing. The sick map is completely red in China. I mean, it's just like red, right? Most, I mean, like 2,900 of the 3,400 dead are in China. I mean, they're under this pestilence right now worse than anybody else, for sure, all right? So look, and let me give a disclaimer here. I'm not one to come out and declare God's judgment on anybody, okay? I'm not one to say, oh, this is God's judgment on China, but let's take for a moment and just look at the spiritual state of China, okay? From a 2019 article in The Guardian, I didn't have, you don't have to dig too deep on this stuff. There's a growing popularity in China against Christianity. All right, and as a matter of fact, a quote from an article in The Guardian just last year says this, China's Communist Party is intensifying religious persecution as Christianity's popularity, you know, is still popping up there. A new state translation of the Bible will establish a correct understanding of the text. As of 2018, the government has implemented sweeping rules on religious practices, adding more requirements for religious groups and barring unapproved organizations from engaging in any religious activity. But the campaign is not just about managing behavior. One of the goals of a government work plan for promoting Chinese Christianity between 2018 and 2022 is thought reform. The plan calls for re-translating and annotating the Bible to find commonalities with socialism and establish a correct understanding of the text. So not only is it illegal in China to have, look, you could not start a Baptist church in China. You could not do it, it's against the law. I would be immediately thrown in prison. You cannot go soul winning in China. You would be put in jail immediately. But not only that, but they are trying to establish a state type common understanding of Christianity by changing the Bible itself, okay? So look, China is an extremely spiritually dark place. I mean, everyone knows this. Like I said, I'm not here to declare God's judgment, but personally, I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of these things in the last many years are coming out of China, all right? But that being said, we should not glory in their judgment, all right? If it is the judgment of God, it is just. Number one, Ezekiel teaches us, if he teaches us anything, it's that we should not glory in the judgment of others, especially the United States, by the way. Because I got news for you, ours is coming. Ours is coming, okay? Turn to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. Let's look at the pragmatism of the pestilence. What does it mean for us and how should we actually react to it in our lives? What does it mean? Matthew chapter 24. Look at verse number three. And the Bible says, And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of the coming and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many. And he shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nations shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the what? They're the beginning of sorrows. So you notice he lists here, Jesus lists as a sign of the end times, famines, pestilences, earthquakes. This is just the start of things. So coronavirus is not going to be the last one. Guaranteed. You say, how do you know? Well, because the Bible says so. Turn to second Thessalonians chapter two. Here's how I know. And here's how you know that it's not the last one. Second Thessalonians in chapter number two. So number one, we don't have to think that this is it. This is the end. It's over in a couple of months. We don't have to think that. I can guarantee it. And here's how. Second Thessalonians chapter two. Look at verse number one, where the Bible says, Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him. Talking about when Jesus comes back to gather us together, that ye be not soon shaken in mind. Okay, so don't be shaken up in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as the day of Christ is at hand. Excuse me. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first. Okay, well, I mean that could be today, right? Because there's not too many people that want to hear Bible preaching today, all right? Oh, but look at the verse. And the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalted himself above all that is God or that is worshiped, so that he is God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Go back to Matthew 24 and look at verse number 15. This is talking about the abomination of desolation. This is talking about the antichrist of the end times. This is talking about the antichrist sitting in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Look at Matthew 24 and verse number 15. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand. So what do we know about coronavirus? We know that God uses pestilence as judgment. We know that. But we know that the end is not yet. Now look, if there had been a third temple built already and there was some world leader standing in that temple, declaring himself to be God a month ago or whatever, and then this was going on, this would be a very different sermon if we had already seen those things happen. But we also see that there's a danger in glorying in the judgment of others, okay? And then we also see that there's a pattern of times of pestilence, of times of God's plaguing the people, of a pattern of men of God advocating for the people in God's judgment, okay? So we see a recognizable pattern here and we know that this is not the end, right? We know that this is not gonna be it. So the conclusion of the whole matter is this. Turn to Mark 13 and verse number 37. Turn to Mark 13 and verse number 37. Mark 13 and verse number 37. Now look, it's not that we're to have blinders on. It's not that we're not to notice things. I mean, Jesus told us over and over and over again and look at Mark 13 and verse number 37. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch. You're saying pay attention. You're saying pay attention when you start to see these things happen. That's why he gave those details. That's why he gave those details of, you know, hey, there's gonna be wars and rumors of wars. There's gonna be famines. I mean, you know, there was like a whole thing of grasshoppers going across Africa for the last month, ate everything. I mean, we should just notice these things. We should notice these things happen. We should not be the ones with our heads buried in the sand. I mean, these things are gonna get worse and worse as the end approaches. But I probably have it. No, I'm just kidding. But some perspective, okay? Some perspective. This is not the first thing that has happened even in the last 10 or 15 years, folks. I mean, do you remember SARS from 2003? You know, I mean, do you remember MERS, M-E-R-S from 2012? Then you had the bird flu in 2013. I remember we had, I worked at a power plant in North Dakota in 2013 and we had these turkey farmers come through and they would take tours of, I mean, big turkey farmers. They had like barns of like half a million turkeys. And they were all losing their businesses and they would come through because they were major customers of the power utility, right? So they would get free tours of the plant. And I remember sitting at lunch with one of these turkey farmers and it's just a matter of time because basically what would happen, and I don't think it really came to humans in 2013, but basically what would happen is one turkey would get sick and within 24 hours, like all their turkeys would die. Like every turkey would die. So he said they're washing the trucks with bleach that come onto the farm and they're trying to, you know, bio-hazard, keep everything, you know, clean and clear. He's like, but it just takes one goose flying over and, you know, dropping something on the feedlot or whatever and he's like, it's over. He's like, it's just a matter of time. I guess that's what insurance is for, he said. He's just stressed out about it because a lot of people had that happen. You know, one bird would get sick and pretty soon the whole business is gone, just like that. I mean, so there was a major economic impact, okay? Now look, do you remember the swine flu from 2009? Let me give you some perspective here. Like 500,000 people died in the world from the swine flu in 2009. Like 60, 70 million people. So where are we at with coronavirus? We're at 100,000 people have it, 3,400 people died. 500,000 people died. You know who got the swine flu? I did. I actually got it. Look, there's no hiding from this stuff. I'm telling you, I can't even explain the type of middle of nowhere that I lived in to a normal California person. I lived 40 miles from the nearest 30,000 person town. The nearest doctor that I went to was 20 miles away. And look, I never call in sick, but I called in sick because I had the flu and I actually went to the doctor. And here's what they did by the way. They're like, they did some tests and they're like, hey, you know, you have the H1N1. You got the swine flu. And I'm like, do I get a shirt or something? They're gonna give me, you know what they gave me? Nothing. They said, go home and you're gonna feel better in a day and a half or whatever. And I mean, thank God I got better. I mean, it wasn't fun, but there's no hiding from this stuff. You know, so running and hiding and buying a farm in the middle of North Dakota is not gonna help you, is what I'm trying to say, all right? The swine flu was actually the same type of flu that the Spanish flu of 1918 was, which is interesting. Because the Spanish flu in 1918 killed 50 million people in the world. They say that a third of people on the planet got it. Got the Spanish flu of 1918. So look, what I'm trying to get you to understand is that this is really nothing new that we're seeing. Okay, and it's nothing that isn't going to continue. Look back at Matthew chapter 24. Look at our, it's our verse of the week. Look at your bulletin. Well, here's what's interesting about Matthew 24-7. The Bible says this. It says, for nations shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes where? In diverse places. Go to Daniel chapter 12. This matches perfectly with Daniel chapter 12. Go to Daniel chapter 12. In diverse places. That means it's going to be everywhere. Look, I lived in a diverse place. I was in the middle of the country, in the middle of nowhere, where there was no people. And it got me there. The swine flu, it found me there. But it will be in diverse places, these pestilences. Look at Daniel chapter 12, verse number four. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book. Even to the time of the end, many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. Now I've already talked to you about if this isn't talking about our time as far as knowledge shall be increased with the internet and the amount of actual information available to the common man, I mean, we must be at least beginning this point. And I don't know, maybe it goes on for another 1,000 years. What do I know? But knowledge shall be greatly increased. But look at the phrase before that, many shall run to and fro. There's never been a time in the history of mankind where people can just travel the world faster, cheaper, and easier than they can today. That's why there's no containing this. You watch the little red dots, it's just there's dots everywhere. Because people are going, you can get anywhere in the world in like 15 hours, anywhere. I mean, we're gonna go to the Philippines next year. It's like 12 hours and you're there on the other side of the planet. And you think about how everybody's interconnected, there's many that are running to and fro. So people have never traveled more than they have today. So you say, what's your point? Well, my point is turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1. This is my whole point right here. How should we take this? We see the perspective that it's not new that there's been these things in just recent history. 2009, the swine flu killed 500,000 people. That was 11 years ago, just over a decade ago. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and look at verse number 7, where the Bible says this. It says, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a what? A sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. I find it very interesting that after he says that, he starts talking about, you know, having a testimony for the Lord. Nor of me in this prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. And I wish we could read the rest of the chapter because it's just a great chapter. But look, the public today, the public has a spirit of fear. That's what they have. That's what you're seeing is a spirit of fear. If people are afraid of their own shadows, I'll tell you what does scare me is the general public scares me. Because the general public is generally dumb. They're panicking. I mean, you can't, we go to the grocery store. There's no water left. There's no water left. There's no hand sanitizer, but a little thing like this on Amazon is like 20 bucks now. You know, and the funny thing is you clean your hands off and then you grab the dirtiest thing that you probably own your phone. And then, you know, you pick your nose or something and you got this wine flu, just like that. I mean, the public, look, they're generally stupid. They move in herds. That's what you're seeing happen here. They panic easily. I mean, medical masks. I mean, I had this mask. Look, I've been hoarding emergency supplies for years. I'm well ahead of this. I had this in my garage. You probably can't even buy one now, for all I know. Toilet paper at Costco, gone. People are like, oh yeah, that's gonna save us, right? So, look, I mean, don't freak out because we don't have to have the spirit of fear. All right, the public has the spirit of fear. The Bible says we don't have to have the spirit of fear. I mean, it might be a decent idea after this passes to have more than five minutes of food in your house, just so when the public does freak out, you know, and then they clean out all the shelves in town in like five seconds, that you'll actually have something to eat. But I mean, don't freak out now. Just remember, I mean, I've seen several panics in my life. We were in Dallas when Hurricane Katrina hit, and most of those people came from, that came from Louisiana, came to either Houston or Dallas. We've seen people freak out. We had first hand accounts of what was going on in, you know, Louisiana when the hurricane happened. I mean, it wasn't good, but it was because of the public and what they did to each other and how they reacted in situations like that. So look, from there, here's what we need to do. Okay, from there to know that we don't have the spirit of fear, here's what we need to do. We need to pray for the people. We need to advocate for the people. I mean, guess what? Lord, Lord, give us more time to reach more people. Look, guess what? Many run to and fro, and that's why you're not gonna contain these things, right? But guess what can be spread by people running to and fro other than coronavirus? The gospel can be spread. We can run to and fro. We can go to the Philippines. We can go to Mexico. We can go wherever we want and we can spread the gospel. That's what we can do. But not if you have a spirit of fear. Not if you fear that you're gonna get on an airplane and look, we can pray that God would keep countries from passing laws like China so we can run to and fro. So we can go freely to countries and we can spread the gospel. Look, the people of China need the gospel. Whether or not their government will allow it or not, the people of China still need to be saved. I mean, how can we get it there with all these restrictions, right? With all these government restrictions, how can we get the gospel to China? We should pray that more countries don't go in that direction. We should pray for time that we can get to and fro to people. Like, thank God it's not like that everywhere. You know, thank God. So we need to watch. You know, don't be foolish and unprepared for emergencies but look, after coronavirus, there's gonna be another one. And then another one after that. And then, you know, at some point, we will see the other things happening that we saw in the Bible. Maybe we will see it, maybe we won't. I don't know. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. It is what I'm trying to get you to understand. We will go soul-winning, I will get on an airplane as long as the airplane flight is still available. And look, safeties of the Lord. We go out in these neighborhoods, safeties of the Lord, period. I wanna get killed soul-winning. I mean, what a great way to go out. Hopefully not today. But I mean, look, so we need to advocate and we need to spread the gospel is what we need to spread. And we don't have to have this panicked attitude. Look, if you use, I was wondering, you know, daylight savings time plus coronavirus, is anyone gonna come to church today? You know, but look, if you really do believe that coronavirus is a judgment from God, don't you think that you would wanna be as right with God as possible? I mean, don't you think that you would wanna be coming to church and, you know, going soul-winning as much as possible and just living for the Lord? And then, you know, God will advocate for you as you advocate for the people. All right, so it just kinda, I just wanted to give you a little bit of perspective from the Bible this morning, okay? We don't have a spirit of fear. We don't have to be afraid of anything. And look, getting sick and having coughs and sneezes, I hate to break it to you, but that's part of church life. That's part of being around people, you know what I mean? And crawling in a hole and living in the middle of nowhere is not gonna help you anyway, all right? But it's just part of being around people. There's always, you know, as the churches grow, there's always gonna be something going through the church, kids getting sick or whatever. But look, there's always a man of God in these stories in the Bible and he's always advocating for the people. And that's what we need to do. We need to be out there advocating for the people. We need to be spreading the gospel and we don't have a spirit of fear here, right? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the safety in you Lord, we thank you that we don't have to be these panicked people just running around and not knowing what to do. Or we thank you that, you know, safety is of the Lord and we know that you will take care of us and that you will help us advocate for the people, Lord. I just thank you for this church and I thank you for the people that in this church that actually go out and advocate for the people in this community and in our Judah, in our Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world, Lord. We love you, we thank you for today and we ask that you bless the soul winning today and church tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.