COVID 19 - a Christian Physician's perspective

hi everybody for those of you don't know me my name is Quintin Smith and I am a family physician who works in British Columbia in Canada I also am an elder in a congregation called Grace Fellowship Chilliwack and a biblical counselor through the association of certified biblical counselors I wanted to put up a message that is hopefully going to be encouraging to our people within our church around this particular time and I had wanted to reach out earlier in this week but as most of you will be aware we've been trying to come to grips with this new reality and it's the novel coronavirus that has really touched all of our lives and I said I was thinking about doing this I I just was realizing that if you see me touch my face during this video you'll have to forgive me as all of you will have realized some of these things are difficult to to stop doing but the one thing that has really struck us during this last week is that there has been a lot of uncertainty and as humans uncertainty things we don't have control over makes us anxious probably more than anything else and I've seen anxiety I've seen fear I've seen the uncertainty and I've seen in some cases of panic and even in other people people who are very realistic these people have even been wondering even second-guessing themselves if they should actually be hoarding and stocking up and getting antibiotics just in case they they know that they ought not to panic but they're there wondering whether they're actually neglecting their duty to their family by not doing these things so there's a huge spectrum out there we've also seen some younger people on TV who have not taken the soul seriously who have I would say foolishly said things that would betray that they are disregarding warnings from the government officials and physicians and so of them themselves have become quite sick so I wanted to reach out because at times like this it's good to do some self-reflection regarding anxiety and I would if I was to distill that I would I would give you a framework that goes as follows one would be what am I feeling most of us are aware of what anxiety feels like and we can identify it the second question would be why am i feeling that way and in this case we know that the topic is the coronavirus and its implications to society and the third thing within that frame motion number one is what am I feeling why the third thing is what can I do about it and that breaks down into two sub categories and that would be one things you have control over and secondly things you don't have control over and generally speaking the things that we have control over crudely would be a to-do list and sometimes even that list can be overwhelming because of its length but if you plug away at it and you get things done there's a tremendous amount of satisfaction that can come from getting those things done and off your plate but in the category of things that we don't have control over that's where you have to have some faith that's where most of the time people spin their wheels because they worry about things that they really don't have control over and that's the difficult and debilitating type of anxiety if I want to talk about that later but first I want to put on one of the hats that I wear and that is as a physician but my physician head on first and to say this that none of us really has a great handle on this completely we are all learning as we go along and I would just try and say this there's been a lot of comparison between influenza epidemics and even the the previous pandemic of swine flu the h1n1 that came through in 2009 and comparing it to coronavirus and I just want to say a bit about that the first thing is that with the swine flu it's difficult to get accurate data but the data on the internet will say anything from 700 million to 1.4 billion people were infected of that a hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred and seventy five thousand died now that's a massive range which just goes to show how difficult that is to actually get decent data on these things but that would translate to a death rate anything between 0.02 and 0.04 percent and that actually when all was said and done is roughly equal to the seasonal influenza death rate and the difference was at that particular time the seasonal flu if you're gonna die from seasonal flu 80 to 90 percent of people who died or more than 65 years old but with a swine flu it hit a lot more young people than the seasonal influenza but this coronavirus is different to that it's different to those two examples and this is much more lethal and in Italy the death rate has approached 8 percent and so to put that in perspective it's probably 200 times the death rate over the h1n1 or seasonal influenza but but having said that on the positive side we still believe that about 85 percent of people get mild symptoms and of those who don't die others will get quite severe symptoms and will require a significant medical intervention and it is secondly sobering then we need to remember this that while the elderly are more at risk this is hitting younger people and for that reason we must take it seriously there are numerous younger people within the popular with or without comorbidities that are needing to be on ventilators to recover so these will be rare but we must remember that you're not immune to that just because you're younger I'm the other thing that was that there was a family in New Jersey who lost a mother two brothers and a sister and three others are infected in the family as a result of having a family dinner early this month so it is a different beast we do need to be careful but we also have to balance that a little bit so I thought I would just from the physician point of view kind of just talk to you a bit about what's going on but using some key principles or what was sort of catch phrases that have been circulating and the one the first one that comes to my mind is we just don't know hear that a lot when we're on briefings or Tilly conferences people a lot of the experts are saying we just don't know enough that not enough time has passed things are changing very rapidly by the hour and recommendations are coming out that are then changed the next day so the important thing is that we need to be flexible we need to be able to adapt and we need to be staying calm as things unfold second catchphrase is that we are all in this together that is one thing we do know and I'm sure that you've felt a degree of comfort in that because we as a people are people who are meant to live in society we're meant to live in community and overall when we go through things let me go through something anything together there was a bond that does keep us going thirdly we've heard the term flatten the curve and I'm pretty sure everybody knows what that means at this point but really it's about avoiding the peak that may come and overwhelm the healthcare system primarily because there's no active treatment to prevent this disease and the sickest people may simply need support through the illness which might mean in worst case scenario ventilator even perhaps being on dialysis but flattening the curve just means that we want to reduce the number of people who have this disease at any one time and that ease to the fourth principle that we've heard and that is social distancing and I would I would suggest as you've probably heard in the last 24 hours the idea of social distancing being less popular because I think people are realizing that isolation is not that great for people and I would suggest we change that to physical distancing or physical prevention in maintaining social connection but we maintain it mostly virtually it is really important to remember what I said just earlier that we are made for community and for a lot of people loneliness and isolation is a daily reality and it is very difficult to deal with and this is an opportunity for us to bring the plight of many who live alone and who experience isolation to the forefront and and try and grow in compassion in that area to help them particularly during this time there's nothing like going through something yourself for your compassion to grow in that area but for those who have been downplaying this social or physical distancing and acting as if the whole thing has been overblown to to to you I would say look it's not about you I would just ask you respectfully to remember that though you might get infective and get mild symptoms and blow it off you may act as a vector and bring it home to a loved one you might you might give it to your frail grandmother who may die or someone else may not fare as well as you did so in in one sense it's not about you and in another sense it is about you and doing what you can do we we have to do this as a society together for everybody's the benefit um next catchphrase would be the and one of the issues that we're facing is running supplies and this is one of the realities that we are facing and that is that we don't have enough masks or PPE personal protective equipment to go around we don't even have enough swabs to make sure that people are getting tested and because of that reality of the shortness of supplies and the limitations to capacity only we're only testing those who are most seriously ill this is a this is a balancing act this is a decision based on wisdom because of this reality because we have to try and and save the resources for those who need them the most the swabs for those patients whose status we truly need to know the personal protective equipment for the caregivers who are taking those swabs from potentially infected patients who are seriously ill and so what we've been telling people in those with symptoms that are mild even though it could be coronavirus they're being told to stay at home and recover so currently the guidelines are to test women over 36 weeks pregnant with symptoms because they're about to go into hospital we're also testing health care providers because we can act as vectors in spreading this disease if we continue to work without knowing that we have coronavirus thirdly those in long-term care who are the most vulnerable because they are the most frail and those who are in hospital because of the need to isolate them if they are infected but if we only test those who are the sickest we really are not going to know the total number of people who were infected and didn't die because they were not tested so you may feel that you've had coronavirus and be somewhat disappointed that you weren't able to get a test but that is just the reality and that's what we're asking people to live with we ultimately will really not know what the ultimate death rate was because of that because not everybody who has symptoms is being tested so when you think about it for a death rate you need a numerator which is the top number of refract which will be those people who have died and will never and you need a denominator but will will never during this crisis have an accurate denominator which is the number of people who were infected so it's those who died divided by the number of people who had the virus and this is just another uncertainty that we'll have to live with so even if you think that you had coronavirus the reason why you're not being tested is because of the supplies issue another catchphrase necessity is the mother of invention we this week started to ramp up and in the office we've been doing virtual visits over the computer or over the telephone other places in society there are distilleries who are stopping producing alcohol for beverages and they're starting to produce hand sanitizer we have factories that are retooling to make masks this is the power of human endeavor and working together and it is amazing to see what is happening and we need to celebrate that as a people and not not forget about all those who are working hard to do things on behalf of others next one it would be mitigating risk not eliminating it this is a thing that we really have to remember and governments have evoked an unprecedented response to closing borders and grounding flights closing schools and universities conferences have been canceled exams and gatherings with significant numbers of people have been stopped this is the kind of response that we really do need to slow down the spread and to flatten that curve and and it really amounts to mitigating the risk we're not aiming to to completely eliminate it but the best we can do is to mitigate it and we're going to need everybody on board um next is the the economic and societal fallout look this is going to be huge but because everybody is affected I know that and trust that governments and national institutions educational institutions will be trying to make this work for everybody and again I want to say that I think it is a source of encouragement to us that we are all in this together it's not something that we could prevent um finally I want to just make a point about the opportunity for community it's interesting that there have been so many who have just stepped up to serve one another meet one another's needs if one is sick or unable to get out and collect groceries or do banking I heard that you can order groceries online but there's a two-week wait because even those people who are doing the deliveries and putting together the carts for people of course are limited and there's a huge demand for that right now so instead of fear-mongering we read this week something about care mongering and I just want to emphasize that I like that and I want to encourage that because as you know the Bible says that it is more blessed to give than to receive um I wanted to just for our people at church just maybe put on my my other hat here and that is as an elder in the biblical counsellor and just maybe talk about this from this perspective because I think that's just really important to go back to where our hope lies the one word that comes to mind is humility I think this has been very humbling when you think about our entire society economic institutions our lives have and can be basically brought to a standstill and we can be isolated by a single virus and when you think about it the Bible teaches that God is in control of everything including this virus and it's fallout then I think the only proper responses humility and I wanted just to go to Romans chapter 15 verse 4 to remind ourselves that the Word of God is a tremendous source of encouragement it says this that for whatever was written in the earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope so there's two aspects there it's the perseverance which we need right now but there's also the encouragement of the scriptures and it's that combination of the perseverance the steadfastness the stick-to-itiveness now that we need along with the encouragement of the scriptures to have that hope we have as a group of men of church being doing an Old Testament survey and we've been reading through the Old Testament and then discussing that when we get together in our in our group and there's been so much that has come out of that for each of us as we've discussed it but I want to maybe talk about three passages with you this morning to encourage you the first was from Ezra chapter 1 the context of that is that Israel has been taken into captivity in Babylon in 605 BC by Nebuchadnezzar the Persian king and Israel would remain there for 70 years the consequence of their disobedience and rebellion against God was that he used Persia to take them into captivity as a punishment well that I belong folds in 539 BC and King Cyrus begins to reign over the Persian Kingdom and Cyrus is sovereignly moved by God to allow the Israelites to return to Israel and rebuild the temple which Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed in 586 BC prior to taking Israel off into captivity but such as the sovereignty of God that causes Cyrus to fund this out of the Persian Treasury here's a man who who acknowledges that God has given him authority but he's not one that's following God and if God stirs his heart to make this happen and then God also stirs up the people to support one another with goods and and freewill offerings for the purpose of building up the temple again of God in Jerusalem and I just want to read to you the first two different verses of Ezra chapter 1 now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah which is also Isaiah the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing saying thus says Cyrus king of Persia the Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem which is in Judah whoever there is among you of all his people may his God be with him let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and to rebuild the house of the Lord the God of Israel he is the God who is in Jerusalem every survivor at whatever place he may live let the men of that place support him with silver and gold with Goods and cattle together with a free will offering for the house of God which was in Jerusalem then the heads of father's households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites arose even everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem all those about them encouraged him with articles of silver with gold with Goods with capitals and with valuables aside from all that was given as a free will offering also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods and Cyrus king of Persia had them brought out by the hand of Mithra death the treasurer and he counted them out to shish Bazaar the Prince of Judah now this was their number 30 gold dishes a thousand silver dishes twenty-nine duplicates 50 gold bowls four hundred and ten silver bowls of a second kind and a thousand other articles all the articles of gold and silver numbered five thousand four hundred shish Bazaar brought them all up with the exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem now the fascinating thing about this is that if you read Isaiah 44 verse 28 through 2 chapter 45 verse 8 one realizes that this prophecy was made a hundred and seventy-five years before Cyrus even began to reign long before he was even born it's a fantastic picture of God using a king leaders priests and common people to work together to accomplish a goal that he had decided upon and it's it really is a stunning reminder of both the sovereignty of God and what is possible when people work together next best take you to is Nehemiah and Nehemiah was written after Ezra and this occurs long after the temple is built and it goes back to about 445 BC where the prophet Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls around the city and at that time he's in the service of the king of Persia who at this point is artaxerxes the first what happens is that Nehemiah gets word from Judah to say that the Israelites are in great distress and reproach because the wall around Jerusalem is in ruins the temple has been rebuilt that's finished but there is no wall and and the wall of a city in that time was a great source of protection and confidence for the people who lived there Nehemiah is devastated and he weeps and mourns for days with fasting and praying and God puts the desire within his heart to go back and rebuild the city walls and at that time he's serving the king as a cup bearer and he needs to ask the king to release him from his service and go back to Judith and he has a very good relationship with artaxerxes but in preparation for his discussion with artaxerxes he he prays and he confesses both his own sin and the sin of his people that had placed him in captivity far away from Judah in the first place and he asked God to go before him and produce a heart of compassion in the king it artaxerxes knows nehemiah well and when he sees his sadness and and and asks him why his countenance is down nehemiah tells him about this desire to go back to Judah and to rebuild the wall around the city well not only does the King grant him the request but he also sends some letters and some of his army officers and horsemen to achieve that and as soon as they start to rebuild the wall there is opposition from enemies locally and yet to despite that opposition they have faith that God will grant them success and they persevere because everybody is motivated let me just read from Nehemiah chapter 4 just from verse 6 through to verse 9 so we built the wall and the whole wall was joined together to half its height for the people had a mind to work there's a there's a phrase that just talks a little bit about the the resolve and and the purpose that people had they they had a mind they were of one mind to get this thing done they worked together now when sanballat Tobiah the arabs the ammonites and the ashta Deitz heard that the repair of the walls of jerusalem went on and that the breaches began to be closed they were very angry all of them conspired together to come and fight against jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it but we prayed to our god and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night so you can see the opposition you see the motivation of the people to be rebuilding the wall but you see the opposition and then you see something else you see faith working together with prudence they trust the Lord but they set the guard and then another example of the prudence comes later in the chapter when the opposition really ramps up and there is a conspiracy that becomes known about where they're going to be attacked and so what they do is that they divide up and some stand guard while others work and even those who worked worked either holding their swords or at least having their swords at their sides so faith and prudence I'm not suggesting that we arm ourselves as we have seen a spike in the purchase of guns and bullets in the u.s. not at all the principle is much much more simple God has given us faith and wisdom and we need to use both as we face this crisis the third passage I thought I would share with you it's just something on my heart and it comes from 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 11 through 12 and really I don't know about you I think most of us are far too busy these days we are driven people we accomplish a lot but sometimes at great cost and so I wanted to share with you the fact that normally our lives are anything but quiet and this has and will create a certain quietness that will be difficult for some of us to manage and and notwithstanding the difficulties that will come economically for people I totally understand that that is going to be very difficult for a lot of people but at the same time I want us to try and look to the positive to remain optimistic to remain trusting to remain having faith but under normal circumstances it is a fact that many of our lives are somewhat frenzied we tend to be human doings instead of human beings and sometimes dare I say it even in our faith community our faith can can be a series of things that we do so that our church activity becomes our faith I think there's a real danger for some of us in there and this could be an opportunity for us to drink really deeply in a very personal way in our relationship with God this might represent an opportunity for us to slow down enough to catch up with our human humanity and actually be a human being live a bit more in the moment I have some margin in our lives a time to read a time to pray a time to reflect and the time to serve one another and think of others as more important than ourselves Philippians 2 verses 3 & 4 it might be an opportunity to spend some time away from screens I know that that the Netflix accounts and YouTube's accounts have been going crazy and and but but maybe let's think about an opportunity to spend some time away from screens you can you can still go for long walks as a family obviously within the bounds of physical distancing you can spend some time connecting with your kids in a real way time to bring out the puzzles in the boardgame family devotions many of you will get a taste for what it's like to homeschool as schools try to move to more of an online presence supported by parents in the home try to embrace these things as an opportunity and have the perspective that outside of these times we live in a very privileged freedom you may feel a little bit captive right now but just let that enhance and make you appreciate the freedoms that we do have outside of these times so you know goddess God has not given us a spirit of timidity Timothy says he hasn't given us a spirit of timidity but of but of power and love and discipline or self-control and there really isn't room maybe a better way of saying that there isn't cause in our lives for fear or panic we do need to each do what we can even if that is only to try and protect ourselves and our loved ones from getting the virus by doing that physical distancing but maintaining so interaction maintaining encouragement maintaining morale just at a just at a safe distance or virtually be aware of of those who are isolated on a daily level let's grow in that area and I wanted to share with you a perspective that was inspired by one of our friends who went through esophageal cancer not that long ago here's a faithful woman in her 50s who went through treatment of radiation for five and a half weeks every day managed three of the weekly chemotherapy treatments that she was prescribed she was prescribed five she managed to get in three before she became too weak to continue and then nine weeks later had surgery it's big surgery to have yourself at the esophagus removed but what it what what really inspired me and encouraged me when I listen to your testimony was the fact that she trusted the Lord that that was her meant to be a reality this was what she was supposed to go through he had sovereignly chosen this path for her and in that humility and with that faith she sought out the treatment that was available to her but every day when she went into the hospital she reminded herself that for the Christian there is no bad outcome Paul said it for me to live is Christ and to die is gain but because there's no bad outcome for the Christian that's why Paul can write to the Philippians in chapter four verse six and say be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus that's why even outside of this particular process this particular challenge Christians can face death without that anxiety so I want us to remember that we will get through this remember that there are things we have control over and things we don't for the things we have control over do those prudence for the things we don't have control over have faith remember this is from the sovereign hand of the Lord there is no bad outcome for the Christian even if he takes you home but he would call us to faith in prudence and he calls us to love one another and that means obeying your government when they asked you to do something as long as they're asking you not not asking you to sin we have that responsibility to be good citizens and loving one another enough to sacrifice making this an opportunity to care for one another not being cavalier about it serving one another and caring for one another even if that means doing everything we can to protect one another from getting sick so we have lots of hope as Christians but if you don't know God today if you're somebody watching this because it's been forwarded to you and you're not a Christian that I would share with you today that God has created us to be in relationship but their relationship but broken when we rebelled and when we would be sinned in our sin has separated us from God Bible says that we have suppressed the knowledge of God and in that suppression of the knowledge of God there's been a break in the relationship with God and the Bible says that we all like sheep have gone astray each one to his own way and we kind of know that that's true we have suppressed the knowledge of God we we have disobeyed his commands and if we were to die without having faith in Jesus Christ God tells us in the Bible how he feels about sin he takes it very seriously and he will punish that rebellion he'll punish that sin with an eternity of suffering that's the message of the Bible but it doesn't stop there the good news is that Jesus Christ came walked on this earth God in human flesh fully God fully man something that we'll never understand but with the authority of God told us that when he went to the cross he absorbed on the cross the wrath of the Father that will be poured out against sin and he absorbed that wrath on your behalf on my behalf he's taken the punishment that you and I deserve for our sin and rebellion upon himself so that we don't have to experience that so that we can go to heaven and be with God for eternity with that relationship perfectly restored it's called grace and it's free to all who ask to all whom he calls well thanks for listening and I hope that's been an encouragement to you god bless you all keep safe and take care of one another have a great day

Channel: Grace Fellowship Chilliwack

Views: 11,716

Keywords: Biblical, Spiritual, Medical, Counseling, Corona, Pandemic, God, Christian, Doctor, Psychology, Bible, Jesus, Church, Covid-19, Encouragement

Id: RCp27YDtmKo

Length: 38min 47sec (2327 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 21 2020