Scarier Than Coronavirus // Ty Gibson

good morning story line I've been out of the country for three weeks but right before I left a friend of mine in Tennessee his name is rusty he's a pretty fun guy he sent me this text he says ty I was at Walmart earlier today and the lines were extra long so I coughed in line and said boy this is sure gotten worse since I got back from China and bam everybody cleared out and I was at the front of the line now when he sent that to me I didn't know what he was talking about so I didn't laugh it wasn't funny I just didn't know I was out of the loop and then I jumped a plane went to Australia and began to hear what was going on around the world with the coronavirus and just coming back yesterday flying home yesterday from Australia sure enough I found myself in an airport surrounded with people and without even thinking about it and definitely not on purpose like my friend rusty I just cleared my throat that's all because I had been teaching classes for four to six hours a day and my voice was a little stir I just cleared my throat and people parted all around me I looked and I saw that that a sizable percentage of the people in the airport were wearing face masks when I got on the airplane I noticed that there were individuals who were whispering to the flight attendants some of them trying to make arrangements to have their seats changed because somebody in their vicinity had coughed I mean the scariness of this thing is going off the charts well the numbers to date are pretty significant worldwide about 85,000 cases of course as you know it began in China and now it has impacted 60 more than 60 different geographic areas around the world including Iran and Italy France has taken precautions has passed and edict that no gatherings more than 5,000 people can take place anywhere in France right now and you no doubt heard that Oregon has its first case that was just announced a school teacher at an elementary school has been officially diagnosed the name of the individual hasn't been released and that's probably good the person is quarantined at a hospital here in Oregon the scary thing about it is this individual has not traveled outside of Oregon and the corona virus is born in the microscopic droplets that come from the respiratory system so when a person coughs or sneezes this is how it moves through the air it's airborne and this is why it's so contagious this individual has not traveled outside of Oregon and so this believes us with the conclusion that there are other cases here in Oregon that nobody knows where to even begin looking how do you how do you ask these questions how do you even know you have it if you're just coughing and sneezing and blowing your nose and within a matter of 14 days it begins to begins to manifest in force and so far to date in the world 2,800 people have died from this disease now I want to share with you today why this is significant in the time in which we live on the timeline of human history and I'm gonna be suggesting to you that the things that are taking place on planet Earth were actually foreseen by prophets and most specifically the Lord Jesus Christ Himself looked down the corridors of time to the end of time and said hey these are the kinds of things and then he makes a list he literally gives us a list called signs these are the kinds of things Jesus says that you can expect to be taking place just before I were turn to earth the second time now this particular passage of scripture is extremely important and it's extremely provocative you have no doubt heard of the prophecies of Matthew 24 now we're going to be mining digging out of this chapter some very significant nuances that are oftentimes overlooked in order to make more sense out of exactly what's taking place and what it is that Jesus envisions will be taking place just before his second coming well beginning in chapter 24 and verse 3 Jesus is seated on the mount of olives he's with his disciples now in chapter 23 he has just said something very startling he's looked down the slope of the mountain to the gleaming City of Jerusalem below and he's just told in chapter 23 he's just told his disciples that not one stone will be left upon another that will not be thrown down this city is going to be leveled he says it's gonna be razed to the ground and they're incredulous of course they're thinking man how could that be this great city what are you talking about how could it possibly be destroyed and then Jesus does something very interesting within the scope of Bible prophecy we have a phenomenon in the literary sense where the Prophet is oftentimes dealing with a local historical event are you tracking with me here and then taking the local historical event and using that as a kind of template or a metaphor that is pointing to final events or what is sometimes called eschatology the end time events of human history so local historical and then projecting forward to the end of time so it's very fast and here when we come to chapter 24 Jesus the way he articulates the way he begins to articulate his answer in the way they asked the question now as he sat on the Mount of Olives the disciples came to him privately and and they came privately because man he had just said this really astounding thing about Jerusalem being destroyed and they said tell us will these things be and what shall be the sign singular of your coming and of the end of the world do you see what they've done here they're saying well when will Jerusalem be destroyed and when will the world in now they're doing one of two things here they're either thinking that if Jerusalem is destroyed that is the end of the world or they're thinking that the destruction of Jerusalem will be preliminary to the events that will escalate to bring on the end of the world but whatever they mean Jesus proceeds to answer them and he says take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many so the first thing Jesus says is listen you don't you don't need to be overly concerned but you do need to take heed because the first thing that you're going to notice happening is people coming in my name well to come in his name his name is Jesus Christ is to come bearing the name Christian so Jesus here is foretelling that as the world starts to wind up and and wind down and come to an end that that there will be a kind of I guess you could say a pretend Christianity there will be a hypocritical Christianity there will be those who are burying the name Christian but but in vain misrepresenting all that is entailed in bearing that name and and they're going to use the name of Jesus kind of as cover for deception for deception and this is one of the signs they asked for a sign singular Jesus proceeds to give them a number of signs and he says that they're going to these false Christ's are going to deceive many people there's one sign for you and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars there's a another sign you think well there's been war all down through history how could that possibly be a sign of the end well hold on Jesus will explain to us how it could be a sign of the end even though there's been war all down through history so we have a second sign 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 so they just ask the question what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the world and Jesus says well there's gonna be there's gonna be a number of things that are going to be taking place leading up to that and you're gonna be hearing of wars and rumors of wars and there's gonna be a lot of deception but don't be troubled yet because this thing's going to escalate you're looking for an escalation of events and this becomes clear as we continue for nation will rise against nation Wars rumors of wars and then suddenly this thing is going to end up going vertical with entire nations rising up against one another and again you might say as I would well hey there's been nation rising against nation down through history what's the big deal I mean that's horrible but how does that constitute a sign of the end well hold on Jesus is going to explain it to us and there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places you say well yeah there's always been famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places what what's the big deal how does that constitute a sign of the end well let's list them so far Jesus says it will be false Christ's false prophets those who are claiming to represent him but misrepresenting him there will be wars and rumors of wars that will increasingly escalate until nation is rising against nation there will be famines there's gonna be hunger on epidemic level and there's going to be pestilences this word that he uses is a word that literally means or translates there will be contagious diseases and then Jesus gives additional signs there will be earthquakes and then he says something interesting as we continue in the prophecy that we're about to unpack in greater detail he says lawlessness will abound love in many will grow cold and the gospel will go global now these are the signs the second half of the list that we're going to spend significant time unpacking because watch this when Jesus had listed wars and rumors of wars famines and pestilences and earthquakes in verse 8 he says but listen all of these are the beginning of and that's where he's answering the obvious question that's on everyone's mind while we've always had these kinds of things down through history how do Wars how do pestilence is contagious diseases how do you famines constitute a sign of the end it would seem that that these things are just par for the course down through history well Jesus says well these are the beginning of Sorrows and that's the New King James Version the word Sorrows here is a very specific Greek word that the New International Version unpacks for us Jesus literally says and these are the beginning of birth pains now anybody here who's given birth will be able to testify to us that birth pains bear two specific characteristics number one they increase in frequency and they number two increase in intensity this is what it's like to be in labor to give birth to a baby first the contractions are far apart but then they become closer and closer more and more frequent and more and more intense Jesus is saying to us here listen yes there have been wars and rumors of wars down through history yes there have been pestilences contagious diseases yes there have been famines yes yes yes all of these things have characterized human history but Jesus is saying what you can expect as a a sign that the end is near is these things will begin to increase in frequency and in intensity now with that in mind Jesus is talking about what is now referred to as the law of exponential change what is the law of exponential chain well one mathematician tells us that extent essentially what's taking place is that numbers increase exponentially when multiplied and the key here is when multiplied when multiplied an author I read on exponential math giving an illustration gave an illustration using Fenway Park the home of the Boston Red Sox which is a large stadium and he said just imagine that it's watertight and at 12 noon you are handcuffed to the highest bleacher in the stadium and then a magical water dropper drops one drop of water on home base just one drop of water now imagine in your mind that that one drop of water every minute is doubled doubled doubled and if you do the math what you discover is that for the first listen for the first 44 minutes there is no significant change and then in the last five minutes you will be underwater in Fenway Park Stadium in a mere forty nine minutes that's the law of exponential 'ti now to the moon and back is another illustration that is given by mathematicians to illustrate how exponential growth takes place the question is asked is kind of a mind bender and and you know it's very easy to just believe it's not true but in fact it is mathematically true that if you fold a piece of paper over and over again the question is how many times would you have to fold the piece of paper doubling it on itself in order to reach the expanse from planet Earth to the Moon 42 minutes 42 minutes is all it would take or forty two folds excuse me 42 folds 42 times and you've reached the moon this is astounding and what it's telling us is that what's taking place in the prophecies of Jesus in Matthew 24 is that Jesus is not simply saying hey they're going to be the same kinds of things that have always been he's saying there are there's going to be the same kinds of things that have always been by at some point it's going to go exponential at some point there will be a rapid increase in frequency and a rapid increase in intensity earthquakes our case in point we're told presently that there are several million earthquakes every day by the United States Geological Society we're measuring right now fifty earthquakes per day or 20,000 annually and the December 2004 tsunami that caused 300,000 deaths that hit Southeast Asia was caused by an earthquake and the US Geological Society these people are on the edge of their seat constantly prophesying if you will that it's only a matter of time until the earth begins breaking up with earthquakes on an exponential level we've all heard of the San Andreas Fault and we've all heard the you know semi-funny statements about there being beachfront property in Phoenix Arizona pretty soon when California breaks off into the ocean well there's truth behind the joke because California is sitting on a fault line and geologists are telling us it's just a matter of time well what is it that's holding it in check why is it that we haven't had what is sometimes called the big one so far as of yet well we don't know why except that scripture does tell us that that there is a God who so deeply loves human beings that he's holding in check the four winds of insanity on planet Earth in order for people to have time and space to think out the implications of the gospel and to respond to the good news of his love for them so maybe that's the answer maybe the answer is God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance maybe the answer is that the powers of nature are being held in check by a God who is too deeply in love with us to let us go easily well earthquakes are just one example in the list that Jesus gives famines are out of control one in eight people in the world right now are suffering famine 25 thousand people per day die simply for want of food to eat and the birthrate is surpassing food production if you simply google how many countries produce enough food to feed themselves you will be shocked to discover that there are not a few but many countries with vast populations that simply do not produce enough food to feed their own populations creating a situation in which it is vitally necessary for other nations to step in in order to provide for their basic needs for food to eat contagious diseases are out of control right now and it's getting worse with every passing day ebola and ebola aids super gonorrhea which has overtaken north england outside of london and still they don't have it under control ecoli and super flus now the word super before gonorrhea here and super flus is a very interesting development in human history the the science of superbugs is not hard to understand it really is quite simple what's happening is is we are producing in our scientific laboratories drug therapies antibiotics for example those antibiotics and other drug therapies are used to fight various contagious diseases and what happens is exactly what you would imagine would happen the antibiotics or whatever drug therapy is applied will kill most of the bugs and leave the you strongest ones to multiply and now the multiplication of the bugs is occurring at a higher level of strength and resistance to the drug therapies so one of two things inevitably has to happen either you have to produce stronger and stronger drug therapies which has to have a cap because what will kill a very small germ if made strong enough will kill a very large human so there's a point at which you can't continue making the drug therapies stronger because they become detrimental themselves to the survival of those receiving the therapies are you tracking with me so what happens is we have stronger and stronger bugs called superbugs that are gradually becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics and other drug therapies so that there's nothing that can stop them and nothing that can kill them and this is what we're witnessing in the science of drug therapies and people who are engaged in these the developing these drugs are panicking because they're thinking not only hey how can we produce efficient drug therapies to fight disease but they're also realizing that Pandora's box has been open and there's a kind of collective guilt that they're trying to figure out how to reverse what they thought was going to help which is turning out in the long run to be detrimental and if you're thinking well I just won't take antibiotics anymore myself you need to understand that isn't this is not local to your physiology so if you simply stop taking antibiotics when they are prescribed that will not stop the vast majority of people from taking them increasing the strength of the bugs and you yourself will be susceptible to the same bugs and your body will not be resistant anymore than those who are taking the drug therapies now if you're not freaked out enough so far this morning let's go a step farther and see if it's possible to freak ourselves out a little bit more life on planet Earth according to all the scientific data that is accumulating on the table and according to Bible prophecy life on planet Earth is surprisingly fragile now we live under the illusion continually that you know life just goes on and there's nothing to worry about because we each of us live within our own little kind of ecosystem of of factors but the fact is the law of exponential growth indicates that the human race is very fragile and the tipping point for mass extinction is a lot closer than any of us imagine in a fascinating book by dr. Richard Swit Swenson hurling toward oblivion he observes this phenomenon the world is spinning out of control in approaching what he calls and this is fascinating language the threshold of lethality in other words we are right on the verge of something taking place that will be irreversible and he calls this lethality threshold listen a point where life as we know it can no longer continue and the book is devoted to tracking some of these trends in various branches of science he goes on and he says irreversible trends principles and forces currently at work in the world system are inevitably propelling us toward a cataclysmic outcome his point is a simple one but it is extremely frightening if you spend too much time thinking about it and that is that we live in a world that is more fragile than we think we live in a world that is held together by laws that have been very very minutely engineered on a a level that is incomprehensible to us so that literally the science is telling us that the whole world would end if we simply destroy enough honeybees if you just take out of the system one factor of the millions of eco factors if there were no honeybees on planet Earth just B's the whole human race would go extinct and we have teetered on the edge a number of times over the last two decades where science scientists have told us that whole areas were experiencing a decline in food production and peeling back the layers of the science far enough to discover it is because that the honey bees that were pollinating are gone from that area and this is how mass famine and extinction could be triggered in ways that we can hardly comprehend now let's come in Scripture to a very fascinating prophecy we looked at a prophecy by Jesus in Matthew 24 this is a prophecy by Isaiah in Isaiah 24 so it's very easy if you go home later on today and you want to look at these Matthew 24 Isaiah 24 in Isaiah 24 we have a very fascinating prophecy that says the earth mourns and fades away now the earth here is being personified as as if it could you know audibly mourn this is poetry but the poetry is communicating something the world languages and fades away and the haughty people of the earth languish so so this is describing some kind of some kind of decline of the earth and the people of the earth the earth is also defiled under its inhabitants so the inhabitants of the earth are are doing things that are causing the earth itself to be defiled which is a very fascinating statement to be made so many thousands of years ago because they have transgressed the laws changed the ordinance and broken the everlasting covenant now if you've been here very much with us at all you know that one of the biblical subjects that we refer to often is the biblical idea of covenant the word covenant is the big idea in Scripture that essentially says that everything in the world is operating by relations ship everything is interwoven so covenant for example a simple example would be what is sometimes referred to as the marriage covenant well that's two individuals who are woven together in a commitment one to the other and that relationship between those two individuals forms a covenant or it forms a fabric and integrity a strength but if the relationship is violated that covenant is broken and the relationship disintegrates and there's fallout there's there's the effect of the breakdown of that one relationship now if you can just imagine that on a large scale essentially the Bible idea of covenant is that the whole world is woven together in relationship that all that we see taking place on a daily basis everything in nature everything in society the economy everything is woven together and here's the word I want you to take on board everything is interdependent so that so that each part of the whole has its contribution to the whole are you are you understanding this so so every part is impacting the whole so any one part can theoretically at least topple all the other parts or significant parts so so if if we understand covenant in that way essentially what Isaiah is telling us here is that the very fabric of reality is being violated by human beings human beings are are living in broken covenant with one another and with with the earth as a whole and he's telling us that something's gonna happen now watch this therefore because of broken relationships on all levels therefore the curse has devoured the earth and those who dwell in it are desolate this is describing the the outcomes the effects of broken law in covenant and then it says this when it shall be thus in the midst of the land among the people will pause and remember where we've come from in the context when it shall be thus what is thus referring back to well when you begin to see that the earth is heavy laden as it were with the curse of broken law broken covenant when you start to see that the the earth itself is languishing that's the word the prophet use languishing under the weights of broken law when it shall be thus in the midst of the land among the people it shall be like the shaking of an olive tree like the gleaming of the grapes when the vintage is done now make sure that we pause to understand the symbolism here when is it that an olive farmer shakes the olive tree well when the olives are ripe and ready to fall from the tree to be harvested yes and when is it that the gleaning of the grapes occur in a vineyard well when of course the grapes are ripe and ready to harvest what is this very symbolic and metaphoric prophecy telling us the prophecy is saying that the human race and planet Earth will move along a shall we call it a maturation process in evil human beings will become increasingly exponentially evil now that's a strong word to use let me use a lighter word human beings will increasingly create ways and means to violate the integrity of relationships we will apply the ingenuity of our minds to create systems that are not sustainable and this the Prophet says will constitute a breaking of the laws of relationship a break of covenant that will produce outcomes that we don't see coming until finally the earth itself as a whole becomes as it were a vineyard ripe for gleaning an olive tree ready to be shaken to bear its fruit and of course the fruit that is being born here in the context is not the good fruit of good olives but the bad fruit of some kind of cataclysmic outcome to quote dr. Swenson again so what's taking place right now on planet earth just so you know you can look up these numbers at will and they change from time to time but right now what we're witnessing just says one example is 150 to 200 species of plants and insects and wildlife become extinct every 24 hours every 24 hours we are gradually killing the world in which we live now again we live in small little pockets and for those of you who live here in this area and just about any area in the coastal lands of the United States we are under the illusion that everything's fine because we don't live in the Amazon rainforest so we're not experiencing the fact that conflagrations are out of control there and burn in it burning it down by the hundreds of thousands of acres every time you and I wake up and we're eating breakfast the fires are raging we're living in a situation where we imagine that all shall continue quite well because we live in a part of the world where everything is going quite well we look people ask me I was just an Australian what's it like where you live in Oregon I said it's a garden it's a garden it's beautiful here where we live it's it's astounding what a wonderful place to live and yet the governor of this state just days ago officially confirmed that one of the most deadly viruses and most contagious viruses in any of our lifetimes has just had its first diagnosed case in our very state the school in Lake Oswego has been closed down for some kind of deep cleaning process before the students four hundred and fifty elementary students will be allowed back in the buildings of that school that's happening right here in the state of Oregon now come with me back to Matthew 24 because this is fascinating I want you to come back to a part of the passage that I only mentioned in passing saving it for last in order to really probe into this and because lawlessness will abound this is verses 12 and 13 Jesus has given the various signs Wars rumors of wars earthquakes or slash natural disasters pestilences or diseases that are contagious famine he's given all these signs and then he says this he says listen lawlessness will abound and the love of many will grow cold but he who endures to the end will be saved this is an extremely important passage well first of all he says lawlessness will abound the greek word here is pleaseno from which we get you hear the word plethora right this is another word that approximates the idea of exponential growth Jesus two times now in this passage has invoked the idea of exponential growth he says that these various signs will increase in frequency and intensity invoking the metaphor of a woman in birth in labor pains and now he's used a greek word that invokes the idea that hey lawlessness will abound what does that mean it's it's gonna go viral it's going to go vertical it's going to overtake we live right now at a time when if you're paying attention to what's taking place internationally around the world it seems that there is a plethora of lawlessness a plethora of caustic hatred people who once could disagree for example with with civility can only disagree now by demonizing the person who disagrees with them lawlessness will abound now not only will lawlessness abound but what else did Jesus say in connection with the abounding lawlessness lawlessness will abound the love of many will grow cold he's saying what you can expect to see taking place is that the world will be overtaken by a pandemic of self-centeredness the thing that really holds the world together is love in relationships the economy for example holds on by a thread called trust people lean in and spend and invest to the degree that they detect or discern integrity in the system the moment people begin to detect a lack of integrity in the system they pull out of the stock market they pull out of investments they pull out of the system and the economy begins to crash the whole thing is held together by the law of trust if there is no trust people back up from one another and when people back up from one another coldness sets in love begins to vanish from people's hearts people begin at the mirror clearing of your throat to part like the Red Sea's we have a situation going on where Jesus says what you can expect to take is that the world will be overtaken with selfishness interestingly enough the Apostle Paul picking up on this prophecy by Jesus says in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 and 2 but know this that in the last days perilous times will come well Paul what will make those times perilous what will what will really define the peril of the times well he tells us four men will be lovers of themselves lovers of money boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful unholy unloving unforgiving slanderers without natural affection brutal despisers of good traitors headstrong haughty lovers of pleasure more than lovers of god having a form of godliness but denying its power wow that's a mouthful the Apostle Paul is saying hey you know that thing Jesus told us we would witness where we're lawlessness will abound in and people will grow cold toward one another that natural affection will start to shut down that the impulse to forgive an offense will gradually decrease and people will become increasingly more and more vindictive rather than forgiving well Paul says here's what you can expect to take place at the end of time people will turn inward on themselves thinking that they're preserving themselves and looking out for number one but when you begin to look out for number one the entire relational system begins to crash the only way for a society to continue is for love and trust to be the key characteristics that bind people together if we're looking out for one another's best interest the system is sustainable but the moment to use Paul's words become lovers of themselves lovers of money lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God and all the while attending church professing godliness in the midst of all of the pandemic selfishness so I'm gonna put this before you this morning I think that we should be more afraid of hate than the coronavirus I think that we should be much more terrified of our potential individually to withhold affection to withhold forgiveness to not allow somebody the space to work out their own thinking even if that thinking happens to disagree with me in the moment but to remain friends and to give respect to be kind and gentle to manifest the heart of God toward one another the only thing that's holding Society together is the fact that I care and you care and the moment we stop caring then we're really in trouble then we're really in trouble but then comes the final sign in the list that Jesus gives and the final sign is quite astounding he says because lawlessness will abound and the love of many will grow cold but he who endures to the end shall be saved this part of the text grammatically is telling us I hope you're I hope you're tracking with what Jesus is saying here when Jesus says indoors he doesn't mean a kind of white-knuckle holding on with sheer willpower the word endure refers back to the vanishing of love from the world Jesus is literally saying here the love of many will grow cold but those who endure in love will be saved those who against the tide of hatred and vitriol continue loving others well they are the ones who will be saved and then Jesus says and this gospel the word this grammatically referring back to the Gospel of Andorian love this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world for a witness to all the nations and then the end will come Jesus in this final sign does something amazing after delineating all the negative signs wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and contagious diseases and famine and all of this he says it's going to go exponential and it's going to increase in frequency and in intensity and the then Jesus says but wait a minute there will be people in the midst of all of the anti love impulses that overtake the world there will be people who keep on loving and their love will constitute a witness to the world of good news about a God whose love is the answer in the text Jesus literally is telling us that the gospel that is to go to all the world as the final sign that the gospel is the enduring love of God toward us bleeding over into all of our relationships as we continue to endure in love against the tide of hatred that's overtaking so many hearts the corona virus is contagious hatred is contagious the love of God in Christ is more powerful still more contagious we hold in our hearts in our minds the power to overtake this world with a kind of goodness that people will find irresistible when they encounter it I pray that that our love for people will catch on and overtake this community I hope your hearts been impacted by the love of God through some human being who actually has taken the time to lean in rather than to lean out the last thing we need to do is be creating more space around ourselves we need to be entering into fellowship and community with one another and bringing as many people in to fellowship with us and with Christ as possible so that the contagion of his love can overtake the world and then when this gospel of the contagious love of God goes to all the nations then Jesus says then the end will come hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect of our lives listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like to partner with us in this global Ministry of taking the gospel of Christ to the whole world we want to invite you to become a partner in this ministry click give and join with us you

Channel: Storyline Church

Views: 18,991

Rating: 4.8990536 out of 5

Keywords: storyline church, coronavirus, ty gibson

Id: QVAuC1Dyqtg

Length: 46min 20sec (2780 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2020