Pandemic - A Biological Prophecy | Dr. David Jeremiah

the virus points us to jesus as he was preparing to finish his earthly work and return to heaven he told his disciples this he said these things i have spoken to you that in me you may have peace in the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer i have overcome the world notice jesus didn't say in the world you will have tribulation and i have overcome tribulation no he said in the world you will have tribulation i've overcome the world jesus doesn't just overcome the event he doesn't just overcome the event he overcomes the environment in which the event happens he doesn't just overcome tribulation he overcomes the world in which tribulation happens i don't know about you but i found jesus in a new and special way during covet 19. i found out that he was enough that no matter what was going on that was frightening and and we didn't have any answers to it we had one answer and his name was jesus and when we talked to him he helped us and we got through this because we believed and counted on the one who has promised never to leave us or forsake us amen amen are we living in the end times there may have never been another time in history when end times prophecy has been more aligned with the culture and circumstances of the world than it is today [Music] i believe there are ten phenomena we are witnessing today that were recorded centuries ago in bible prophecy seeing our circumstances in light of these prophecies should give us resolve purpose and hope and help us answer the questions what are we to do with the world around us what hope do we have in times like these and ultimately where do we go from here are the illnesses plagues and pestilence of our day a sign that we are living in the last days are the ravaging diseases shaking our world one last attempt to awaken and warn people about the eminence of christ's return pandemics like covet 19 have a significant place in bible prophecy join dr david jeremiah for this special prophecy edition of turning point as he presents a sign of the end times pandemic a biological prophecy on january 11th 2020 the first coveted 19 death was reported in wuhan china two months later on wednesday march the 11th 2020 the world health organization declared covet 19 a global pandemic after the virus had spread to 114 countries and nearly one hundred and twenty thousand people killing more than four thousand people in those early days stocks tumbled with the dow jones industrial average falling 10 percent its biggest one-day percentage dropped since 1987. broadway theaters went dark movie theaters emptied and hospitals filled up let's take a step back what exactly are pandemics and what does the bible say about them since this is a modern word you shouldn't expect pandemic necessarily to appear in the bible but the scriptures have other terms that describe the same thing in fact there are six ancient words in the greek and hebrew language that describe what we would call a pandemic and those words are used 127 times in the bible so the bible is full of this subject throughout the bible we see repeated examples of god using pandemics or diseases to accomplish his divine and sovereign purposes in exodus chapter 9 the lord allowed an infectious skin disease to sweep over egypt it was the sixth plague and it was epidemic in nature every single egyptian young and old was affected when king david sinned against israel the lord sent a plague upon israel from the morning until the appointed time second samuel 24 15 tells us about that seventy thousand men lost their lives in that pandemic and in the gospels the lord jesus christ warns his disciples that pestilences will be one of the signs of the last days of human history these ravaging illnesses will shake the world seeking to awaken and warn people about the eminence of christ's return to judge and to reign and in the book of revelation the lord warns a dozen times about terrible pestilence and plagues coming to the nations as part of his judgment of sin prior to the second coming of christ all of this will take place and this period is known by bible scholars as the great tribulation the most devastating period of divine judgment in human history so what does this mean well my youngest son daniel works for the nfl network and he's become acquainted with many of the football players in the league shortly after the covet 19 pandemic was announced one of his high-profile friends who watches turning point on television came to him and said daniel ask your dad if the coronavirus is in biblical prophecy and i ended up preaching a whole message in answer to that question have you asked yourself that question is what we've just been through and what we're continuing to go through does it mean anything set against the larger scale of history and if so what does it mean during the last week of his life the lord jesus left the temple in jerusalem with his disciples hiked down the kidron valley climbed to the top of the mount of olives the city of jerusalem spread out before them shimmering in the sun and that's when the disciples asked jesus about the last days prompting jesus most comprehensive teaching on the events related to the end of time we call this the olivet discourse it's called that because it took place on the mount of olives it's recorded in matthew mark and luke here's how matthew records it now as he sat on the mount of olives the disciples came to jesus privately saying tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age and jesus answered and said to them take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying i am christ and will deceive many and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars see that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places all these are the beginning of sorrows now this passage is so extensive that many people have called it the mini apocalypse jesus gave us some key signs that point to his second coming or as he put it in verse 30 the sign of the son of man here are the six things that jesus said would happen as his second coming began to draw near if you have your bibles you can just read them but let me list them for you there would be deception by false christs there would be disputes and warfare among nations there would be disease and famine worldwide there would be deliverance of believers to tribulation there would be defection of all false believers and there would be the declaration of the gospel to the whole world these six signs cover the first three and a half years of the seven year tribulation period and they coincide with the prophecies of the book of revelation but while these signs will be fulfilled in the seven year tribulation period they will not start on a dime how many of you know that they will build up over time according to jesus the generation that sees these signs will also see his second coming matthew 24 says this now learn the parable from the fig tree when its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves you know that summer is near so you also when you see all these things know that it is near at the door assuredly i say to you this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place what jesus said was when these signs began they will fulfill themselves within a generation when you see these signs if you're living at that time you will see the coming of jesus christ when these signs are full-blown now if you follow my teaching over the years you know i've always believed the bible predicts the return of christ for the church and that it could happen at any moment that there aren't any signs for the rapture this event is known as the rapture of the church then there will be seven years of global tribulation and the last half of that global tribulation is called the great tribulation a unique outpouring of god's wrath and when that period concludes jesus christ will return with his church to put an end to global conflicts and pandemics and to judge evil and to establish his thousand-year reign so there are no events that predict the rapture without any sign without any warning jesus christ will return to gather his saints and take them to heaven so you're wondering perhaps as some people would and naturally so if these six signs are not the signs of the rapture and after the rapture we're going to heaven what do we care about these six signs because future events always cast their shadows before them and god's people should be bible students and bible students should be interested in prophetic passages and when we study those prophetic passages we should learn to spot the signs of the times recently i clipped something from the writings of mark hitchcock who's a prophetic writer who i know he told this little story this story helps me understand how to put all this together so listen carefully to the story he said dr john walvoord used to share this illustration of how the signs of the times relate to the rapture and the second coming he pointed out how there are all kinds of signs for christmas there are lights everywhere decorations christmas trees music even santa in the mall but thanksgiving can sneak up on you there are no real signs for thanksgiving dr walvard noted that the second coming of christ is like christmas it will be preceded by many very specific signs that scripture outlines the rapture however is like thanksgiving there are no signs for its coming yet if it's fall and you begin to see the signs of christmas everywhere what do you think thanksgiving has not arrived but it's on its way the signs for christmas actually also tell you that thanksgiving is not too far away and the signs for the second coming are appearing all around us today what that means is if the second coming is christmas the rapture is thanksgiving so the rapture couldn't be too far away these signs are not particularly about the rapture but they're particularly about the second advent and there's only seven years between those two events let me circle back once more to the big question on many of our minds is covet 19 a sign of the rapture no because there aren't any signs for the rapture the rapture is a signless eminent event but is this pandemic a sign of the second coming of christ probably i can't say with certainty that it is but neither can i say that it's not it could well be early evidence of number three on jesus list of six signs in matthew 24 disease and famine worldwide as i mentioned earlier some of the tribulation signs could spill over into the final years before the rapture jesus said this pestilence watch this would arrive like birth pains this means it will increase in frequency and intensity in the time leading up to his return in other words as the end approaches we should expect infectious disease outbreaks to be more frequent and more intense and have impact on more people and be more deadly that's what's happened we've had pandemics before i remember when this whole thing came out they listed them all they went back to sars they went back to hiv they went to all the pandemics all of which were really serious i remember a couple of them that have happened in my lifetime and people were saying this could kill all of humanity without the proper response to it but it didn't and it went away and then this happened and there's been nothing like this in your lifetime or mine this is a sign of the vulnerability of all of us we're all more vulnerable than we like to think no one escapes the possibility of infection we know that now not just because we've read it somewhere in a magazine we know it because we've lived through it and we've experienced and we've watched it unfold right in front of us so that's a really important lesson for us to file number two this whole pandemic has taught me a lesson about the credibility of the bible let me explain what i mean for more than 50 years i have been teaching and studying the bible i've never failed to be astounded by the events of the tribulation as they unfold in the book of revelation and i believe them even though it seemed kind of outlandish to me i believe them just because they're in the bible but now these apocalyptic events seem to be knocking at our door and the prophets no longer seem like outlandish prognosticators they seem like people who are telling us what we should know and what we should understand in revelation 9 18 we are told that a third of the earth perishes by various plagues caused by demonic forces in revelation 11 another part of the prophecy of the tribulation two supernatural witnesses have power to strike the earth with all plagues so often as they desire that warning isn't limited to pandemics but let's just say i have a greater understanding of how the tribulation events will take place when you read these sections of the bible read them carefully and prayerfully and look for emerging trends the events of revelation no longer seem implausible to me indeed they seem to be impending they seem like they could happen who could ever have believed that the world could be strangled to a stop by a plague but covered 19 has taught me that everybody's vulnerable and it's taught me that the bible is credible you better believe the bible knows what it's talking about it's not talking about something you don't know here's a third lesson that we should take away from this the uncertainty of life contagions remind us of the uncertainty of life did you expect your schedule to be wiped out for an entire year before this happened were you prepared for your children to be shut out of their classroom for your vacation your wedding to be canceled for your workload to shift to your kitchen table no one expected to stay away from church for weeks or months how terrible for those who were laid off or whose businesses failed few people had their pantry stocked with sanitizers masks and toilet paper who could have known the patriarch job do you remember how he explained the sudden deconstruction of his life here's what he said my days are swifter than a runner they flee away they see no good they pass like swift ships like an eagle swooping on its prey or job 14 1-2 man who's born of woman is a few days and full of trouble he comes forth like a flower and fades away he flees like a shadow and does not continue how uncertain and how precious are our days i took that away from this i don't have any guarantee nor do you that i will have tomorrow i have only the day that god has given me and how precious is that day how important should it be for us to give thanks to god for the days he has given to us as his gifts so i've learned about the vulnerability of everybody all of us are nobody's safe from this i've learned about the credibility of the bible i've learned about the uncertainty of life and i've also learned about the sufficiency of jesus christ the virus points us to jesus as he was preparing to finish his earthly work and return to heaven he told his disciples this he said these things i have spoken to you that in me you may have peace in the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer i have overcome the world notice jesus didn't say in the world you will have tribulation and i have overcome tribulation no he said in the world you will have tribulation i've overcome the world. jesus doesn't just overcome the event he doesn't just overcome the event he overcomes the environment in which the event happens he doesn't just overcome tribulation he overcomes the world in which tribulation happens i don't know about you but i found jesus in a new and special way during covet 19. i found out that he was enough that no matter what was going on that was frightening and and we didn't have any answers to it we had one answer and his name was jesus and when we talked to him he helped us and we got through this because we believed and counted on the one who has promised never to leave us or forsake us amen amen so okay there you go we've had the pandemic we've learned some things from it but the question that's been up on the screen and it's been in my heart as i've been working on this series is where do we go from here now that this has happened to us now that we're coming out of it now that we've experienced it and hope we never experience it again where do we go from here first of all let me suggest that we prioritize our prayer life don't you suppose the people of earth have prayed more in the last months than ever before i mean the more problems the more prayer but what kind of prayers have we prayed this is the posture of the christian appeal to god's character confess your inability put your eyes on the lord and trust him when you can't see your way through when you don't know what's going on when you're wondering where is this going to take us is this the end of of life as we know it is this the end of our nation as we know it you don't know what the answers to those questions are but one thing you know is god is in his heaven he's occupying his throne and he's in charge and you can trust him and so you put your eyes on him and you put your destiny in his hand that's one of the things we kind of learned and we reviewed that so where do we go from here we prioritize our prayer life here's something else i've learned we sacrificially serve other people how many of you know the best thing you can do when you're under pressure is quit thinking about yourself and think about other people that'll do more for you than anything you can imagine during the early days of the pandemic were painful shortages of food in each county i remember hearing the stories of people for the first time in their lives being hungry they couldn't get food and for several weeks we devoted the morning hours of friday to feeding the hungry we packed boxes with staples like toilet paper paper towels and soap and and then we put another box together with food and when people drove in front of our sanctuary on friday morning we had people out there in six lanes and we pop their truck open and we put that food in their trunk and send them on their way before they left the parking lot we added a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread we had somebody actually bake the bread for us and we paid for what it cost to bake it but we had fresh bread for everybody who came through the line and then we would pray for them as they came by we would ask him it was all right can we pray with you and we prayed for those families by the time we were finished with this we had touched more than 1800 different families we had given out 27 000 boxes of food prayed with hundreds of families as they rolled down their windows to say thank you as martin luther put it if you wish to serve christ and wait on him very well you have your sick neighbor close at hand go to him serve him and you will surely find christ by serving your neighbor what i've learned what we've all learned in this church what we've learned in our own lives is when pandemics come when things come you don't understand and you don't know what they're all about don't just think about yourself look around and see that there are people out there who are worse off than you are by a long shot find a way to serve them prioritize your prayer life and serve others sacrificially and here's one count your blessings when we are feeling the pressures of unexpected pandemics we need to get our calculators out and start counting our blessings john 1 16 says from his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another paul wrote this blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ ladies and gentlemen even with this terrible year that's behind us god blessed us even during that time i wish i could tell you all the ways god has blessed this church all the ways he's blessed turning point how he's blessed us and he's blessed many of you as well have we had problems yes do some of them still exist yes but all what happens to us when we take a moment and thank god for all the blessings that we have god has blessed us with every spiritual blessing the bible says in heavenly places the bible says in everything give thanks for this is the will of god in christ jesus concerning you so prioritize your prayer life sacrificially serve other people count your blessings and here's one stay calm and carry on stay calm and carry on you know uh how many do you know there are some people that staying calm is not in there they just know how to do that you know somebody maybe you're married to somebody like that but oh how wonderful it is to be in the presence of someone who's in the same mess you're in and notice they have a sense of calmness that's obviously beyond who they are as a person it comes from god and when you fill yourself with gratitude for what god has done you begin to get a kind of quiet confidence in the midst of all that's happening i felt that often when i would come here to preach and there wasn't anybody here we had a camera and and it seemed so strange to me but oftentimes i would walk in here i would sense the power of god in this place and sense that he was in charge and i had a confidence and then i would find out how god used the message that i preached to nobody all over the county and all over the country and other places in the world i had that confidence and he gave me a sense of calmness the bible says that god has not given us a spirit of fear but he's given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind in other words god created your human imagination to be a powerful force it can create beautiful visions of a desirable future or it can conjure up the worst case scenario have you ever been around anybody who always takes the worst of everything that happens first thing you get up in the morning they might say well yeah this is going to be a bad day it's it's not sunny outside i know people like i'm frankly i don't have anybody in my family like that but i've been around people like that they see the dark side of everything they never see the brightness of god's goodness they only see the things that they don't understand the dark things of life well these dark products of the imagination can put you in the grip of fear a place god would never have you go and the bible tells us we're to bring every thought into captivity unto god that means don't let those thoughts those negative thoughts control your life when an unhealthy thought enters your head i'm sick all is lost i'm going to die this pandemic is going to be the end of my family examine it in light of the knowledge of god does this thought have any basis in reality if not take it captive don't give it free run in your mind don't let it lead your imagination away from god's goodness into unhealthy fear you are in charge of your mind someone said your mind is like an airport and thoughts are like the airplanes flying over you can let them land if you want to or you can tell them to keep on going so prioritize your prayer life sacrifice and serve others count your blessings stay calm and carry on and then do the next thing we have to keep busy with whatever god assigns us day by day this was a lesson we learned in our family when we were first quarantined at home don and i realized how easy it would be just to float along with no schedule get up later don't get dressed until 10 11 o'clock no schedule no plan no objective the thing we couldn't understand is at the end of the day we were tireder than we'd ever been in our life how did that work how could you be so tired when you weren't doing anything well it didn't take us very long to figure out that that wasn't how we wanted to live our lives during that time what i discovered and what i'm sure many of you discovered was i didn't need to know how the whole day was going to work i needed to know what i needed to do next i needed to get up maybe i needed to go to the store go do what's next do the next right thing just keep marching to the plan and don't ask for so much information in the future the disciples at the beginning of this message they wanted to know how the lord was going to resolve all the issues of the end time and jesus didn't tell him and he's he doesn't owe us that he owes us only the fulfillment of his promise that he will lead us day by day moment by moment what i found during this time was when i would just say okay lord what do you want me to do today what's next i would do the next thing and i was freed up because god always there to show me what came after that but if i wanted to sit down and say okay now by the end of this day it never worked because everything was so uncertain and how many of you know it's still pretty uncertain isn't it every day is uncertain it's not like it used to be there's so much that we don't know and we can't control and we're going to talk more about that during this series but if i could just encourage you prophecy always has a reminder for us and this is the reminder there is coming a day when all these things that jesus predicted would happen would happen was the pandemic that we just went through part of it it might have been and it might not have been we don't know for sure but what we do know is it was meant to teach us some things and we have learned those things and let's carry those lessons over into our lives and let's live for jesus even if we don't know what's going to happen next week or tomorrow or this afternoon let's get up and do the next thing that god has called us to do and know in your heart that if you are obedient that way there's no way god is not going to lead you step by step can we give him a good hand today amen [Music] thank you for joining me today on turning point the more we study scripture the more we understand that our loving god desires to have a personal relationship with each one of us if you would like to begin that relationship and ensure that you will spend eternity with christ you must simply repent of your sin and ask jesus christ to become your lord and savior if you've taken this step of faith today i encourage you to share your decision with other christians at a trustworthy ministry or a local church and to continue growing in your faith may god bless you and i look forward to seeing you next time right here on turning point [Music] you

Channel: David Jeremiah

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Keywords: Dr. David Jeremiah, David Jeremiah, Turning Point with David Jeremiah, Turning Point, God, Jesus, Christ, Bible, 2021, church, the word, pandemic, covid-19, coronavirus, illness, plague, pestilence, signs, last days, corona virus, covid 19, virus outbreak, end times prophecy, end times bible, end times, turning point ministries dr. david jeremiah

Id: nNcD3j3IES4

Length: 29min 43sec (1783 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021