Please do this: Listen to this AND follow along below…and you’ll see why you should always be listening versus reading these notes. It’s not really a transcript because, well, I can’t stick to a script.
Lede:
Every news story is COVID-19 something, but not this one.
Notes:
It’s almost becoming a joke in the business – write a blog post, do a new story, send out an email marketing piece and somehow connect it to COVID-19. “Five things you should know about COVID-19 and pet suppositories!”
Of course, the church world is not immune, and to be honest, I’ve read almost nothing of the zillion posts asking questions like “Where’s God in the coronavirus pandemic?”
But it doesn’t mean I don’t care. It’s just nothing new. As a fave saying of mine goes, “There is no new news, there is only old news happening to new people.”
People lodging moral complaints against God goes back to, oh, Genesis 3. “God said not to do what? Clearly he’s holding out on you and can’t be trusted.”
To be fair, there IS a time and appropriate way to use current events to address eternal issues. But today’s reflection isn’t about coronavirus or even prompted by it, per se, so much as a reminder.
As I’ve been doing for some of these, let’s hear from 19th century dude Charles Spurgeon, albeit I’ve cleaned up the thees and thous. The verse – or part of a verse he’s riffing on is John 16:33 when Jesus is telling his disciples what they will experience in the future.
He says, “You will have suffering in this world.”[1] Jn 16:33, CSB
Here’s Spurgeon:
Believer, are you asking the reason of this?
Look upward to your heavenly Father, and behold him pure and holy. Do you know that you are one day to be like him? Will you easily be conformed to his image? Will you not require much refining in the furnace of affliction to be purified? Will it be an easy thing to get rid of your corruptions, and make you perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect?
Next, Christian, turn your eye downward.
Do you know what foes you have beneath thy feet? You were once a servant of Satan, and no king will willingly lose his subjects. Do you think that Satan will leave you alone? No, he will be always after you, for he “goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Expect trouble, therefore, Christian, when you look beneath yourself.
Then look around yourself. Where are you? You are in an enemy’s country, a stranger and a sojourner. The world is not your friend. If it is, then you are not God’s friend, for he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Be assured that you will find foes everywhere. When you sleep, think that you are resting on the battlefield; when you walk, suspect an ambush in every hedge. As mosquitoes are said to bite strangers more than natives, so will the trials of earth be sharpest to you.
Lastly, look within yourself, into your own heart and observe what is there. Sin and self are still within. Ah! if you had no devil to tempt you, no enemies to fight you, and no world to ensnare you, you would still find in yourself evil enough to be a significant trouble to you, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”
Expect trouble then, but do not despair on account of it, for God is with you to help and to strengthen you. He has said, “I will be with you in trouble; I will deliver you and honor you.”[2]
In these few short words we have the grandest metanarrative of all…God’s goodness, a villain, conflict, and, implicitly, redemption. A reminder that the brokenness in this world isn’t just the other political parties’ failure or some tom foolery in another country where the virus originated, the brokenness of the planet began with brokenness of relationship that goes quite literally to the heart.
If you are not a subscriber to the weekly email here, PLEASE get it. And if you don’t catch today’s practical, “there are four questions that should be on the tip of your tongue dialogue training,” PLEASE email me at hello@forthehope.com and I’ll send it to you.
Here’s why:
There is hope for joy in the middle of all this. Not just for you, but for the people around you. And you are the catalyst God wants to use right here and now.
Every person has a choice. Every choice has a consequence.
Let me leave you with the choice that God made for you when he sent his Son on a rescue mission. The old news is should renew us every day. Here are the rest of Jesus’ words in that verse.
33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”[3]
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
[1] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Jn 16:33.
[2] C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
[3] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Jn 16:33.