David Chanski

The Coronavirus and the Church: Our Response, Part 1

I’d like us to begin this morning by turning back to the book of Psalms; and I want to read part of Psalm 137. Here’s an Old Testament situation that has at least a parallel to our present situation here in our country, and here in our world, for many of God’s people (I’m certain) on this Lord’s Day.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it, for there those who carried us away captive required of us a song, and those who plundered us required of us mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!

If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy.

Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it, raze it, to its very foundation!”

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer once again, and ask for His help, as we come to the preaching of His Word this morning.

Father in heaven, we thank You that You are enabling us, in a sense, to meet together, though not physically together in one place. We thank You that Your people have the ability to use these means to proclaim Your Word and to hear Your Word; and, so, for that, we bless You.

We are grieved that we are not able to meet together as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in one place; but we ask that You would help us to think in a biblical way about the things we hear today; and about the things that are going on around us in the world; and the things that we are personally experiencing—and even more, greater, inconveniences and suffering that are experienced by those who are not far from us here in northern New Jersey.

And, Father, we do thank You that, as it was in the case of the apostle Paul, when He was under house arrest in Rome, nevertheless he was able to preach the kingdom of God with all confidence, no one forbidding him; and we thank You that, although though we cannot gather together, no one is forbidding us from preaching and hearing Your Word; and we thank You, as well, that, when he was imprisoned, he said that he was troubled, suffering trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the Word of God was not chained.

Father, we thank You for that, and ask that You would bless the preaching of the Word here from this pulpit this morning, and from every mouth and every place where it is proclaimed on this earth on this Lord’s Day; and that You would manifest that the voice of the Lord is powerful; and that the voice of the Lord is full of majesty; and that it can never be chained; and we ask this in Jesus Christ, Your Son’s name.

Amen.

I read the text I read because (as I said) of the similarity of our situation and the situation of the people of God as they were being taken away to Babylon. We don’t know the exact circumstances of this particular instance when this Psalm was written; but we know that they were not able to meet in God’s appointed place, which was the temple in Jerusalem.

Perhaps by that moment, when they were experiencing this, the temple had already been razed—the city of Jerusalem—to its very foundation, as it says in verse 7; but the people were grieved because they were not able to meet together; and they said, It’s hard for us to sing, even though our captors are demanding that we sing. In that sense they were being tormented by their captors.

We bless God that we are not being tormented here today, in that the people who have told us not to meet are not mocking us. They’re not asking us not to do things that are unseemly to us.

It should be difficult for all of God’s people to be told you cannot meet together with the church of the Lord Jesus Christ; but that is our situation today; and it’s that situation that I want to address.

I’m not going to preach this Psalm. Perhaps, if this goes on much longer (that we have to keep meeting this way), maybe that’ll be a good text that we’ll hear from this pulpit; but what I want to do today is to begin by giving an explanation, basically, of why what we’re doing what we’re doing as Trinity Baptist Church.

What we’re doing is simply meeting together online, and not physically in our church building. I am in our church building. This isn’t just a set that has been produced by our deacons in my study; but this is actually Trinity Baptist Church; and there are only four of us in this huge auditorium. It’s different and it’s difficult; but I want to give an explanation of why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Why are we meeting like this?

Different people view the subject of public gatherings at this point in time in our nation in different ways. There are probably two ends of the spectrum. One end is that we should avoid all public gatherings whatsoever. The other end of the spectrum has people on it who say, We don’t need to take such drastic measures as this: it’s only a virus. We’re not all going to die.

Both of those groups could say (perhaps), We’ve got to stop meeting like this.

The first group was ready to say two weeks ago, regarding our regular services: We’ve got to stop meeting like this: we’ll infect one another.

The second group would say it now: We’ve got to stop meeting like this, meaning, in these virtual meetings. It’s not God’s will. He says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together.”

I want to explain why we first made that decision we did last week to meet in this way, rather than our usual way; and why we are continuing this week to do that, and perhaps will be for the foreseeable future.

We pastors have made this decision through much discussion; much thinking; much reading; much listening to what’s going on and what is being advised, especially by people in places of authority. We’ve thought through all that, prayed together, discussed it with one another and come to our conclusion.

Now, I’m doing this [i.e., explaining], because we want to be sure that we are thinking biblically—not just we pastors: I mean all of us.

We don’t want to simply be following what the government says, without searching the Scriptures to see whether these things are right for us. We need to be sure—all of us do—not just the pastors, the people of God, as well—that we are truly obeying God as Scripture says and not men.

So, the first point under this explanation is this: we are obeying our authorities.

I have a number of subheadings. The first one is this: we have obligations to God, our ultimate authority. God is our ultimate authority.

Clearly meeting with God’s people on God’s day is part of our moral obligation. We believe that the ten commandments are God’s moral law: they apply to all people at all times in every place in the history of this world till Christ comes again.

We believe that that fourth commandment, that we should keep God’s day holy, applies to us. In the Old Testament, there are eight times in Leviticus chapter 23 where it speaks about a Sabbath day; and it says it is a day for solemn rest. We rest from our labors; but it’s solemn rest: it’s for a holy purpose; and we have a holy convocation.

Those two things summarize for us what the Sabbath day is about. It’s a day for God. It’s holy; it’s solemn; and it’s a day for rest from our regular labors, but also a holy convocation, coming together as the people of God. That’s our moral obligation before God; and that’s what He has given us this day for.

So, we have obligations to God, our ultimate authority. I alluded to it earlier. In Hebrews 10:25, the writer to the Hebrews says we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some; but, also under this point of our having obligations to God, Who is our ultimate authority, God nevertheless gives us exceptions to this.

We recognize that on a regular basis as a church, when we say, If you are providentially hindered, you you shouldn’t feel obliged to come to the house of God. We tell people that who have sickness, either because they’re not able to gather, or because we don’t want them to infect the rest of us.

That phenomenon did actually exist before the past month here. Sometimes people are in such a condition [that] we don’t want them breathing on us, coughing on us, sneezing on us, wiping their mouth or face and then putting out their hand to us, let alone kissing us. That’s something that has existed for a long time.

Sometimes there are genuine emergencies that require people to be somewhere other than in God’s house on the Lord’s Day.

If we want to look at it from a scriptural perspective, certainly persecution can be one of those things that exempts someone from a moral obligation to be with God’s people.

Think of Paul’s lengthy imprisonment in Palestine and Rome. He could preach the Gospel; but he couldn’t gather with Christ’s church there in Rome; or think of what we read about in Hebrews chapter 13, and verse 4, where we’re told to remember those who are imprisoned for the gospel’s sake. There are some people who are in prison right now in this world because they’re Christians; or they’re kept in their house, not able to gather with people. Those people are not able to gather with people. Those people are not guilty of sin because they aren’t gathering with God’s people on this Lord’s Day or any other Lord’s Day. The Bible recognizes that reality.

Also, the Bible tells us that sometimes the health and well-being of our fellow men—or perhaps our fellow creatures even, or at least our property, can be a legitimate reason for our not gathering together. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12. He said, I desire mercy and not sacrifice; and then He went on to explain how that might even mean mercy for one’s animals.

[In] fact, let’s look at Mark 3, which is a parallel passage. Mark, chapter 3, verses 1 through 6. Here we have this instance in which Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath day; and it says that He entered the synagogue again.

[A] man was there who had a withered hand; and they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.

Then He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward”; and He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill?”

But they kept silent. So when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand”; and he stretched it out; and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.

Now, it’s interesting that, on this occasion, both the Pharisees and Jesus were angry. They were angry with Him; and He was angry with them (as we’re told in verse 5, He had looked around at them with anger); but certainly only Jesus’s anger was righteous anger; and I, personally, do not have a lot of sympathy for the sentiment that would say, We’d like to contribute to this present effort to save lives; but we can’t, because we need to do something more important: go to church and gather together with God’s people.

I do agree with their sentiment that that is a very important thing, even more important, ultimately, than, perhaps, saving an individual life; but you see Jesus’s point here: He desires mercy and not sacrifice.

That idea at this point in time under our circumstances sounds too much like the Pharisees to me, and not like Jesus.

The Pharisees prided themselves that they, and I mean, they alone, were concerned about what God was concerned about. That’s what they thought. They were concerned about His worship; but Jesus tells them that they were entirely missing what God’s program (if you will, His program of salvation) was all about. It is about saving people.

We are in the midst of an unprecedented situation. I think it is fair to say that such circumstances (what I mean by that is, world-wide, extreme measures like we are experiencing right now)—such circumstances have never been seen before.

Well, you might say—well, not on this scale.

That is what I’m saying: not on this scale. There have been plagues. There have been troubles that have been stretched across different nations together, but not across the entire world at once. Life did not stop the way it has stopped (in a sense) now, in all the world at the same time. That’s what I’m saying.

We’re not talking about a steady-state situation; we’re not talking about this going on for the rest of our lives (unless we die soon); and we’re not talking about persecution of Christians, or government outlawing biblical worship because they hate it. That’s not we’re talking about here.

So, my first point, is: we’re obeying our authorities; the first one is God. Whatever we do, we need to be certain we’re obeying God; but, then, also, we have obligations under this heading: we’re obeying our earthly authorities. We have obligations to them.

Firstly, let me say, our obligation to our earthly authorities is to submit to them. We know that from Romans chapter 13, the first four verses especially. (Again, it’s a passage I won’t take the time to turn to and read; but most of you are familiar with it.) We are to submit to the powers that be: they are ministers of God. They are here to commend the good and to punish the evil.

In our present situation, it is not just because the civil authorities have told us not to meet that we are not meeting; but that is part of it. Further, what the Scripture says about the rulers does not simply apply to godly rulers. In other words, you need to submit to your civil authorities if they’re godly men or godly women—that’s not what the Bible says, nor that we only submit to the laws that we believe are biblical and/or wise.

As many have pointed out on this text of Romans 13, it was written when Nero was emperor, as far as we know; and he was neither a godly man nor did he govern in a godly, wise way.

Turn with me to Jeremiah 27, verses 5 and 6. Speaking of the days of Babylon and ungodly rulers, notice God’s words here (and remember that we heard about Jeremiah in our adult class this morning, our Bible class). Remember that one of the big issues there in the book of Jeremiah and in the time of Jeremiah was that God was telling the nation, I’m sending you away to Babylon, You need to submit to that yoke; and the more you do, the better it will go for you. That runs throughout the entire book, and comes to a crescendo at the very end, when an insubordinate group runs off to Egypt, and takes Jeremiah with them.

Notice here how God says you need to approach this subject. It was anathema to the Jews to obey this ungodly authority, especially when they were the ones who were exercising (in a sense they were the instrument of ) God’s wrath upon the nation.

We even saw in the adult class that Jeremiah himself was complaining about them and praying against them, as if God didn’t understand. God did understand; and here’s what he says in Jeremiah chapter 27, verses 5 and 6.

He says, I have made the earth, the man, and the beasts that are on the ground by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me; and now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field I have also given him to serve him.

In other words, he had a universal reign that was given to him by God. (That wicked man?!) God knew it; [in] fact, God did it.

We have to say that about ourselves [i.e., our circumstances]. However much we like or dislike our current president, vice president, the people that are advising him, our current governor and the people that are advising him, this is what we have to reckon with; and we need to receive that for what it is, the will of our God.

But, also, under this heading (we have obligations to men, our earthly authorities), a third thing: the reality still is that we must obey God rather than men—that is, if those two are at odds at any point.

As the apostle said, in Acts 4:19, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. It’s not a question, but it is completely rhetorical, so I won’t answer it. We know the answer.

Or, again, in Acts 5, verse 29, the apostle says,We ought to obey God rather than men, as he’s speaking to the human authorities that arrested him. They were requiring him to [not] do something that God said he must do, so he couldn’t obey the human authority; but he submitted to their rule in whatever punishment they would give.

Sometimes (thankfully for us, most times) you can obey both the civil authority and God; and I believe we can at this point in time. So that’s the first thing that we want to notice. We’ve made this decision—we’re doing what we’re doing, because we are obeying our authorities, both God and men.

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