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Covid-19: Is this Pandemic God's Prophesied Judgement? · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, it's the Central Strike of the Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cstfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Our topic today is about COVID-19.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Is this pandemic God's prophesied judgment?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we're very pleased to have Dr.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Todd Mangum, who is the Clemens Professor of Missional Theology at Mystios Seminary in Philadelphia.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Todd is the longest-serving faculty member at the seminary, and he's devoted much of the last 10 years to understand the plans and purposes of God, particularly as they unfold in God's mission to call his people.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: He has published one article recently in a magazine called Christianity Today, and that article engages with some biblical themes on what God's plans and purposes might be in the current COVID pandemic.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Besides this article, Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Mangum has written a number of books as well as many articles.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: And Todd, we're thrilled to have you here on Centrally Speaking.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for inviting me.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're very glad to have you and uh glad to talk with you about this pandemic as being God's prophesied judgment.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Some Christians seem to think this this way, others don't.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us in your experience as you've thought about this, as you've talked with others, why do some Christians believe that COVID-19 is a judgment from God?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, there is a set of teachings in the Bible called prophecy, the prophetic sections of scripture, that God sends a prophet to warn his people.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually his people, sometimes it's those that are not his people, but God sends prophets to warn them that something terrible is going to happen.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Something terrible as a judgment to disable and disband and end uh what is an oppressive, displeasing to God rule or government.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a measure taken by God to discipline his people and call them to repentance.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a section of teaching in the Bible in which God sends a prophet, and usually what the prophet does is warn, and then part of that warning is predicting that something terrible, some atrocity, some catastrophe is going to happen.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's something that's in the near future, sometimes the catastrophe, the cataclysmic events are a long ways away.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so now we're in the year 2020 and we've got this global pandemic, something that happens what, once a century?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Up to now, not more frequently than that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've got a lot of Christians asking the question and going to scripture well, is there anything that would suggest that this pandemic is one of the warnings that God sent prophets to warn about?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the discussion is.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it comes out of prophetic literature and also a book like Revelation, it just uh proportionate for those uh who maybe are a little bit new to reading the Bible, uh, how much of the Bible is prophetic?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Some people spend all their time there.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's roughly 20% of the Bible, so about a fifth of the Bible is prophetic literature.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, not all of that prophecy consists of predictions.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are long treatises where the prophet is preaching against the evil that's happening, either towards those who are supposed to be God's people or those who are wickedly oppressing God's people or just acting in total rebellion against God.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that prophetic literature doesn't all consist of predictions of the future, but about 20% of the Bible, about a fifth of the Bible, is prophetic literature.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Book of Revelation, that's the last book of the Bible.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Suppose you could call it prophetic literature.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Scholars usually refer to Revelation as apocalyptic literature.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a set of visions that is portraying what culminates in the end of time.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: How much of Revelation consists of visions that have already happened, that is, that are past to us, how much of those visions are intended to point to events that are future to us?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of the discussion among Bible scholars.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So some of these prophetic passages uh were future for those who were writing at the time, but because we're reading them in the year 2020, some of them may be past from our perspective now, but still future for us today, or maybe even present.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what you're doing?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as confusing as that sounds, that's correct.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you this there's very little in even the prophecies of the Bible that are given purely for to meet our and satisfy our curiosity about events of the future.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, prophecy in the Bible is always with a message of be warned and repent.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you an example.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: This one's very familiar, but helps illustrate the way biblical prophecy works.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: God raises up 700s BC, so this is you know millennia ago.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: God raises up a prophet named Jonah to go to a pagan, unbelieving city called Nineveh.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: The prophetic message that uh that Jonah has is in 40 days, so in a month and a half, Nineveh is going to be destroyed.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the message.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not a prediction, though.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a prediction of what's going to happen, but its real intent is to warn them you are so thoroughly displeasing to God that if you persist in what you're doing, you're gonna last 40 more days.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, those familiar with the story of Jonah know what happens.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: The people of Nineveh, led by the king of Nineveh, say, But what if we repent?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe God will relent.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so they repent in sackcloth and ashes, and God in his mercy and grace does relent, much to the displeasure of the prophet Jonah, by the way.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that's how prophecy works in the Bible.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just purely predicting chronological events in the future, it consistently is designed to call the people, to call the reader.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd even say, even today, oh reader, calling people to draw near to God, who in his grace is capable of forgiving and extending his mercy and relenting from judgment, even today.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's going to lead to the question, of course, does God have any of that design in the COVID-19 pandemic?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, I guess that would be the next question, Todd.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess what you're telling me here, telling us uh as we listen is that that this is an overall framework, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that repentance is always involved with God's prediction or prophecy of the future.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And now the question is, is COVID-19 somehow written within these prophecies?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Where do some Christians look and say it is?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have some Christians that look to the visions of revelation and say this is the beginning of the end.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got that stream.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's not where I land, I'll tell you that.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got people who are seeing this as the beginning of the apocalypse, the beginning of the end.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Christ could come back at any time, or this is the plague of death.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: We've got war and we've got meteors that are coming next.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've got that out there.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, that's not what I see.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's not where I land myself, but that's a view.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Where I land, I'm not alone in this, but uh, where I land is that I don't see this particular COVID-19 virus pandemic anywhere specifically identified in scripture as an event that was prophesied a thousand years ago as well or two thousand years or five thousand years ago, one day going to happen.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: What I do see is that this pandemic fits a larger pattern that were in fact are in fact judgments from God in passages like Amos 4 and 5.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a prophet, 8th, 7th century BC, that's prophesying to God's people at that time, along with prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, who warn God's people that you in your affluence and comfort and security and prosperity are living like there is no God.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: You are oppressing people who are not so advantaged as you.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You believe that your prosperity is due to your own exceptionalism, and that you are impervious to really any need of God.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, you forget that you live under a God who's watching, and as a judgment and a call to repentance, I'm going to undermine your comfort, your security, your idolatry.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm honest, I see COVID-19.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, uh, my wife's a nurse, I'm living under the discomfort of this too.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm not speaking as one outside of it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I see the COVID-19 pandemic meeting the pattern that the prophets warn about in the Bible.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, not necessarily a specific verse that one could look to, but more of a general pattern.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: But some Christians might look to a particular verse.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you've encountered uh some.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: What verse might they look to?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You do have verses like Proverbs 21:13 that says, Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will cry out himself and not be answered.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You do have passages like Amos four and five, where yes, God does send a prophet to clarify exactly what's been happening, but by the time God sends Amos, you can almost hear his frustration because he says, Many times I have struck your vineyards, many times I have sent plagues among you, as I did Egypt.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's Amos 4, 9, and 10.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are verses that specify that sickness, disease that undermines our normal securities can in fact be uh prompted by God.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's different from the uh the revelation verses.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: What is it, Revelation 4, 5, 6 that talk about the pale horse of death, uh, you know, as being final judgments.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can't be definitive that this is definitely not that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not convinced that this is one of those, but more of a general pattern, like under Amos 4 and 5, than this specific event, like Revelation 6, 2.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure many of our listeners are interested in ways that uh the Bible predicts the future.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And as you know, as one who lives in this area, there are uh fortune tellers or psychic mediums, and sometimes people uh go to these uh places to figure out what is their personal future.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: How is uh biblical prophecy, uh like we've been talking about uh so far, different from let's say going to a psychic medium or to um to a fortune teller?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, in fact, we're told when God raises up the prophet Moses, one of the things that he says to Moses is unlike the nations around you, you are not to consult mediums or dreamers of of dreams.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you could say, well, what what on earth is the difference between what God is raising up in Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18, and these pagan dreamers of dreams and mediums and whatnot?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the fortune tellers and the mediums are those who are seeking to magically manipulate the gods or the supernatural forces.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: The way biblical prophecy works is just the reverse, it's not you seeking out a medium or a fortune teller so that you can satisfy your curiosity or so that you can know what the future is, so that then you can manipulate it to your own advantage.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: The way biblical prophecy works is God intrudes sometimes uncomfortably, often quote unquote uninvited, to say, This is what I'm doing in my universe.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's God that the one that's in control, this is how you fit in, and then often this is how you are out of alignment with my purposes.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: You need to repent and bring yourself, bring your habits, bring your attitudes in alignment with me rather than the other way around.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let me figure out a way that I can rub a lamp or offer up a magic incantation or uh divine the stars so that I can get the universe to bend around my purposes.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes those events are very specific in Old Testament prophecy, such as let's we're coming to a time of the year where we we think of the birth of the Messiah, born in Bethlehem, a prophecy from Micah, uh chapter five, verse two, born of a virgin, Isaiah 7 14, very specific.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes when people are are searching for what does God want for the future, or what is my future like, they might think of it as uh going to a psychic uh medium or a fortune teller and say, tell me what's specific for me in the future.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they might be doing the same thing with, let's say, COVID-19.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something specific in the future?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not quite like that, it's more of a pattern, as you're saying.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we do have some specific events that we know that we're told to prepare for.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: We know that Jesus ascended to heaven after being raised from the dead in the 30s AD, but we're also told that he's going to return and that when he returns, part of what he's going to do is sit in judgment, and that is call each person to give an account for what they've done.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're told in not just Revelation, but passages like Luke 12, Mark 13, and then 1 John and other New Testament passages that the wise person will live their lives in such a way that recognizes one, that God is watching now, so it's wise to realize there's nothing that's really done in secret, and then two, that there's coming a day when the righteous judgment of God is going to call every person into account.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Part of what that's supposed to drive us to is to recognize boy, if that's true, I'm in trouble.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any way that the track record of embarrassingly wrong things I'm I've done can work out better at the judgment?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the Bible actually gives an answer to that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than offering a charm or doing an incantation, we look to the payment for sin, the satisfying judgment of sin that God actually provided through Jesus on the cross, by which relying on that blood payment that he made on the cross, we can then be assured that when we come to God in repentance, we don't have to wonder how he'll respond.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: He assures us that based on that payment provided on the cross, he is eager to forgive the person who comes to him in Christ seeking his forgiveness.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a way if you're looking to rig the judgment in your uh future favor, that's the biblically prescribed way of doing that.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: As we come back to the prophesied judgment of Jesus coming one time, as well as now him coming again, that's different than, at least in quality, than finding specific events and linking them to a problem that we're having in our world today, like COVID-19.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Can you say a little bit more about that?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: What makes those prophecies of Jesus' coming first and then now a second time different than uh some Christians who are, or some people and Christians are not, uh uh saying, oh, COVID-19, this must be a judgment of God?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: The Messiah's coming first and second time are really one-time specific events that are prophesied and fulfilled kind of once and done.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I say that, and even there, before Jesus came the first time, it was not abundantly clear that his two comings would be separated by uh a couple thousand years and counting so far.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, even there, you know, there can be surprises in the way prophecy is fulfilled, those are fewer and further between.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: You definitely have prophecies in the in the old testament as well.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when Sennacherib is bearing down on Jerusalem, and Hezekiah comes before God in terrified, you know, Sennacherib's already worked his way through the northern kingdom, and Hezekiah is outgunned, outmanned, but comes before God and pleads for God's mercy.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And God's response is to prophesy that Sennacherib's army is going to be dispelled, and then that happens.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that so there are instances in which there are specific events prophesied that come to pass.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some of this is disputed among Christians, but in terms of biblical specifics of that happening, that kind of specificity is not, at least it's not common since the first century apostles.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that the prophecies we have now that are of a more specific nature are more oriented towards Jesus' second coming and the end of time.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: That having been said, that doesn't mean that God has nothing to say about the events that transpire in between.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have these prophetic patterns that may in fact fit specific events, that God may in fact be behind, that God may, in fact, be sponsoring, accomplishing purposes that are similar to the original purposes he had when God was prophesying, sending prophets to prophesy similar events.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: That that's kind of a standard way God operates with biblical revelation.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have these specific historical accounts and events that then serve as First Corinthians 10, New Testament epistle is written that says these things happened as examples to us, as patterns for us, kind of indicating the way God has operated with such specificity in the past, forms a pattern by which you can discern current contemporary events.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: COVID-19 may very well fit one of those.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: So then uh his prophecy of perhaps disease in the past, calling people to repentance, then may have implications for today.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Might you want to expand on that?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so let's take the uh the judgments on Egypt, for example.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where do these occur for that's that's Exodus 6 to 11?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a series of 10 plagues.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: It starts with frogs, and actually the first plague is the Nile River is contaminated, and then it gradually increases until the final plague on Egypt is the death of the firstborn of every household except those that have had the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, which is a graphic picture not only of a an innocent substitute, but it's actually painting a picture of the substitutionary death of the lamb of God Jesus Christ that's gonna happen a couple thousand years later.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a picture, it's a pattern, it's an example for us.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: But those plagues of Egypt move from frogs to gnats, then to stinging hornets to uh death of livestock to boils on so disease.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: What we find there is a pattern in which there are judgments, but they gradually intensify so that you see some of the character of God in those judgments.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like God turns up the heat gradually, so that in theory, I mean, we know what happened in the Exodus history, but in theory, the Egyptians never had to experience the locust plague if only they'd repented when they were being stung.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: By Hornet.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Had they taken the opportunity to get the message and repent earlier, well, God in his grace and his kindness and benevolence could have relented, indications or would have relented in terms of some of the later ones.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I look at again, I've not been given a vision, I've not had a dream from God, I've not heard an audible voice from God.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: But just discerning the pattern, I look at us in the United States, 9-11.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying we're like, you know, we're we're the contemporary version of Old Testament Israel, but 9-11, that was 2001.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've since had Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, Hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey, the California wildfires, the Midwest tornado spikes, SARS, pig flu, bird flu, now COVID-19.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I see COVID-19 not just as a single event, but as part of an overall pattern that makes me at least wonder is God trying to get our attention?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is God undermining the confidence and sense of security deliberately of the most affluent, most powerful nation on earth or in history or close to it?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is there is there anything about our culture, about our mindset that is prideful, self-secure, believes that we're self-sufficient, that God might seek to undermine us so as to get us to consider that we're not as strong as we think we are.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: We may in fact need God after all.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So then interpreting it that way, COVID-19, as well as maybe some of these other events that have happened in the last uh few decades, are a call to repent, which would then fit your viewpoint of biblical prophecy in general.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's correct.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than looking at a specific verse and saying, here it's COVID-19 as written in an old testament prophet like Zephaniah from a hundred years, well, several hundred years uh previous, if it's a pattern as you see it for repentance and turning back to the Lord.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: In the past or, you know, Revelation 6 2, the you know, or Revelation 6 2 and following.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is the pale horse of death.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than that, I see it as part of a larger pattern.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then do you have any suggestions uh for for us uh some Christians, or are they just those uh looking in uh at the church from the outside and and not necessarily being Christian?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any suggestions uh for us as we endure uh this time of COVID-19 and as we think about uh what the Lord might uh want from us?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I am a white suburban male under the age of 60.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Statistically speaking, I'm in a low-risk group.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Someone like me might take the attitude of, it's not gonna hurt me.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Why should I wear a mask?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: What do I have to do?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could get it like likely recover.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's just the kind of attitude that God sends prophets again and again to rebuke.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, this virus could turn out to have implications, medical health implications, that are more serious than just the loss of taste and smell.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some indications are even people in the low-risk group who don't die from it on a ventilator are over time more susceptible to stroke or more susceptible to dementia or or whatever.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, there are elements in this virus that suggest the wise thing to do and the wise way to respond isn't to assume oh, I'm invulnerable, I'm invincible, I can be impervious to all the restrictions because I'm safe, but rather in humility, in what biblical revelation calls healthy fear of God, it's good to take precautions, partly in recognition of this could be God getting our attention.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: But then beyond that, I have aged parents in a nursing home.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I minister among and with people in higher risk groups, minority population, urban population, as one Christian publication, Christian Century is the name of that publication, has framed it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is a golden opportunity for people in the low-risk group to take special consideration and care of people in the higher risk groups.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you, that seems just like God to implement measures that would force us to such considerations.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: The other consideration that I will say is just like God, it's not a prophecy so much as the preaching of Jesus in Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 6.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells us don't invest so heavily in the here and now.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Life here is vulnerable.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: You and I are mortal, we're subject to death at any time on this side of the kingdom.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: COVID 19 is a wonderful reminder, a terrible reminder, but a wonderful reminder that you and I, if it's not COVID, it'll be something else, but you and I will one day face death.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: You and I will one day meet the Lord.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Are we prepared to do so?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: And thus to repent, meaning turn the heart, so that uh we're not distant uh from him, but are in line with who he is and uh what his plans are for our lives.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: But any final uh uh comments that you wish to make on this uh subject today?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're very glad for your input on this.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say a couple of things.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is not, even though you know I'm a professor in a seminary, I'm an academic, this is not purely an academic question for me.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I have known people who have gotten and died from the virus.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, my wife is a hospital nurse, she's going into work tomorrow, 12-hour shift in the hospital.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: She knows, we know, every time she goes to work, she's moving into a high-risk environment.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Everything I've said about God's purposes, I do not say glibly, and I don't assume that I, because I'm a Christian, I'm impervious to the virus.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: My wife is impervious to the virus.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for God's protection, uh, for her, for for us.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I recognize God's purposes, and I would say if if she or I get it, die from it, I don't think that's God zapping us for our special disobedience.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that would be an instance in which we would have the honor of being able to say, My wife got it, died from it, or passed it on.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's all horrible to contemplate, trying to help people who were sick, you know, who were in in the fray.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you that my wife, we are uh very cautious, take every precaution.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: She double masks, they put the nurses at the hospital in like a hazmat suit.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we know the virus is sneaky, it's insidious.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: We look to the protection of God ourselves.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a sense in which God's grander purposes recognized and notwithstanding.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're in this together, and I pray for God's grace to end it.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to it being over myself.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I say none of this with any kind of goodness or delight.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And may this uh sickness indeed come to an end uh shortly.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: But we're very thankful, Todd, for for your comments today and uh wish you and uh your wife the best during this time as uh she's a frontline worker and also uh your work at the seminary and blessing on uh your teaching for the future.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for uh interviewing with us today.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.