Social Distancing & Time Out; Where is that in the Bible? Kelly Durant
1 Peter 1:21-23 New King James Version (NKJV)
21 who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,
2. How many of you have lived in quarantine for a few weeks or months? I have! When Regina and I traveled to Brazil from Bolivia, I mysteriously came down with hepatitis one day. I had a fever so high that I sweat out gallons of water several nights and I was having vivid hallucinations. The folks in the clinic said I could have gotten it from someone on a bus (in Brazil you are usually one foot away from a person’s face) but no matter where I got it from I had a problem, I was extremely weak and my skin was bright yellow!
It was a miracle by God’s design that we had already agreed to go live on a friend’s farm that was 6 hours away from Belo Horizonte in the Amazon. We got a ride there via muddy slipper roads where no little towns were close by (4 hours by foot away) and we were at the mercy of nature and the Lord. I lived in a pup tent big enough to sit up in and my faithful wife brought me rice and beans daily, feeding me from a plate like you would feed your dog. God bless her patience! She was pregnant, I did not want her getting what I had!
That time out was a big trial but in some ways it was wonderful experience. I observed nature up close. I saw the black ants, an inch and a half long, fight with the red ants, I saw fresh water dolphins swim through the river nearby, and I saw 6 inch big around (10 feet long) boa constrictors pass by. But what made this experience good? I finally had time to read the Bible from cover to cover in 6 weeks time!
3. When a community is going through a time out as we see now, how do you think people will use their free time? Will they watch movies all day? Will they scrub clean their whole house with bleach and alcohol 10 times a day like a crazed obsessed manic? Will they talk on social media all day? Will they tremble with each news cast that claims 1 in 5 are going to die?! We shall see, but wouldn’t it be transformational if a person were to read their Bible?
Most people think they do not have time for God! They wake up and run through the day stressed in traffic, stressed at work, and then stressed at home in the evening to attend to the kids or to the house. The problem is by not taking time with God in prayer and in His Holy Scriptures, they are cheating their selves of gaining wisdom, peace, and a joy that only comes by investing in the things of the Spirit. What a relief, what a needed break, let’s spend it with God!
We learned about the benefits of having time with God many years ago, but how many people really practice it right and get to that ideal holy platform of a living a blessed life. Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
4. So lets’ compare the world’s treatment of the sick to God’s way of treating them. For one, I was very thankful to the farm owners who let us stay there allowing me to be healed without wanting a payment. That is Christian love, to support one another when we are down! We are to care for one another. 1 Peter 5:7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
It is obvious when someone has something contagious, or something that could negatively affect the majority in the community common sense tells us that we should separate them. Leviticus 13:46 He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
In God’s law we find that the sick should be separated to be in a separate city, and of course, be allowed to heal. But how is it happening in the world today? The Chinese are barricading the sick in their homes and leaving them to die and rot inside! The Italian government gave the order to just let die anyone elderly with the Coronavirus! What insane cruelty, right? People could heal, as many already have, but in our atheistic, insane world of today, murder seems to be the solution to so many problems! Satan’s specialty is executing lies and murders as he hates us, God’s creation!
metro.co.uk/2020/02/02/wuhan-woman-screams-chinese-authorities-barricade-inside-home-12162599/
5. So we conclude that the practice of ‘social distancing’ is as old as Moses! There is nothing wrong with separating the sick where they can heal, that is practical and wise. Today hospitals play the role of providing quarantined areas for the sick. All is well unless they get overwhelmed!
All that is happening in our world today is provoking either more good or more evil to augment. It is like the separating of the wheat from the weeds. In this time of being more isolated and socially distant will it create in a person (in you) a desire to hug and love others more when it is all dissipated? Or will it cause a permanent phycological damage, that the new normal will be just to remain distant and cold to everyone?
It is predicted, Matthew 24:12 ‘And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.’ Have you ever prayed, “Lord please never let me grow cold towards you or others?” I have! We all must fight Satan in our heads to go against the current of the world and to keep on loving with even more fervor! If you do not love God and life, then the default is to join the murderous and psychotically disturbed crowd who really are sick as if they have a deadly spiritual virus!
6. Now let’s look at time out. What comes to your mind? The children of Israel wandering in the desert? The time David spent in caves running form Saul? My mind goes to Jesus when He was first called to begin His ministry.
Matthew 4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
Imagine, 40 days totally alone with only sand and sun everywhere and no food at all! That is an isolation that would probably kill most of us! Some people cannot even stand to be alone one full day and for sure insanity would set in after a week! Especially without food! So Jesus gave us the example, He knew some of us on earth would have times of being alone for weeks at a time, and in our helpless loneliness we must learn to resist Satan and seek God as He did!
7. So even though the quarantined time out we are living through is generated by men, (I think their motives are in part political and financially motivated!) but we must recognize it can be a blessing from God in disguise. For one, it prevents the spreading of this contagious Corona virus, and this time of ‘time out’ can be used constructively, for example, for your spiritual growth!
Few people in life ever take a long pause from the daily busy activities and this is what drives people to madness, exhaustion, and premature aging! Unless you have been a prisoner of war, a person in a jail in solitary confinement, or a person sick and separated for quite some time, it is doubtful you have ever had a few weeks alone to bond with God. Will you use this time for Him? It will positively change you!
I think everyone should appreciate being alone at least once in their lives. It gives you time to escape an evil attack and to recharge. The Lord had several of his servants spend weeks alone over certain bad circumstances, such as in the case of Elijah escaping the evil queen Jezebel. 1 Kings 17:3-5 “Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. 4 And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan.
8. So what about you? Do you obey Jesus in this command? Matthew 6:6 But you, when you pray, go into your room (closet), and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
Job for sure was alone many days, it was for many months! Imagine, nearby enemies come and rob all his herds, a natural disaster kills his family, and then he comes down with boils all over his body! This was not just a fever, it was a horrible disease making all his skin be an open wound! He cried out to God in his anguish and loneliness! His friends could not even get close to him to console him!
But what did he do with his time? He cried out to God! He wrote down many spirit led poetic wise words! God spoke to him in an amazing way! And for more than 4,000 years his words have served as a comfort to us all. His wife, seeing his misery told him to curse God and die. But his faith was strong and what did he reply? Job 13:15 (a) Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
9. Catherine Booth, the powerful wife of the founder of The Salvation Army, was sick a s a young girl and at age 12 spent more than 12 months in a bed! And what did she do with her time? She read the entire Bible 4 times! And that paid off as she became one of the first women preachers in the 1800s converting dozens of thousands of souls to Jesus! What will you do in this time-out period? How will you use it?
So you and I would not be a member of this church had it not been for her and William Booth obeying God’s calling to serve the ‘worst of the worst’. From the beginning many thousands that we have helped have had to have a ‘time out’ period in their life, and that is in our alcohol and drug rehab centers, homeless shelters, and refugee camps, or after a disaster had destroyed everything!
So do not fear the distance of people as God is always near! Never fear isolations and ‘time outs’, as God will be working in your life to reveal to you many amazing things by His Spirit as he did with the prophets and Jesus. Take advantage of the unsolicited interruptions we face in life, as they are a ‘God send’ if used for his purposes.
10. Read your Bible & pray everyday! And quote the promises of God. Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
And on a final note repeating the verses of today, 22 ‘Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart’; We must make of this a time a time to purify ourselves: A time out away from others for doing a soul searching.
After this is passed, the outcome should be that we will love each other more than ever! Maybe we have taken for granted the presence of our brothers and sisters, so when we are finally back together in normal meeting settings, we must express our increased love for each other, and for God too, of course! Romans 8: 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
No comments:
Post a Comment