The situation with COVID-19 has opened up many doors of opportunity for God’s people. In this session, Sam Waldron, Jeff Pollard, Anthony Mathenia, and Scott Brown discuss how churches and families should respond to the upheaval.

Together, they address what a Christian is to regarding church meetings, social distancing, quarantines, honoring civil authorities and loving our neighbors. Last, they also discuss suggestions for church life when limiting suggestions are made to churches by the civil government.

Okay, well, welcome. Welcome to the COVID-19 webinar. Whoever thought we would do such a thing. Hey, there are a lot of pastors online. I was looking through the list of signups, lots and lots of pastors from all over the country and the world.

And for those of you who are listening into this conversation, we have men from Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, and North Carolina, Sam Waldron. Sam, maybe you could wave to everybody in case, I'm sure everybody knows these guys. President of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary and pastor Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky. And then you have Jeff Pollard. He's a pastor of Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida and runs Chapel Library.

And you've got Anthony Mathenia, who is a pastor at Christ Church Radford and works hard every day at HeartCry Missionary Society. So brothers thank you so much for for joining me on this. This is a really remarkable moment. Thank you, brother. You know, our whole mission at the NTFIC is to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture, which brings us to have a tender care for local churches.

I think what's probably greatest on our hearts is the bride of Jesus Christ and her health. We all are pastors in God's flock and in different places in the country. And with the upheaval that is upon us right now, there are many opportunities to glorify God and to mobilize our people to comfort and to help. And so we wanna talk about all those things with the time we have. And then we'll also allow you to ask questions at the end online, and we'll just select whatever questions we think we're able to answer.

The things that have transpired have opened up many doors of opportunity for God's people. At the same time, overnight, our nation has been turned upside down. It's been breathtaking. What appears to me to be perhaps the most transforming force for change in our culture in my lifetime. Roe v.

Wade was transforming. 9-11 was transforming. Obergefell was transforming like a firestorm culturally. I think that we're gonna look back at COVID-19 and the things that took place all around the world to be some of the most powerful shaping forces in our world. And it will work out for the good and for the evil for the church and the family and for the nations.

I think we will see, we are seeing culture transforming forces at work and personal relationships and transportation and church meetings in medicine, vaccinations, all kinds of things like that. And tonight I'd like for us to be focused in our discussion. I don't want to spend time talking about the technicalities and the dangers and the vulnerabilities of the virus, whether the reactions globally and even in our own country or even in our own states have been overreacting, overreaching, underreaching, underreacting. We're not here really to analyze the constitutional matters or anything like that. That we really are here to speak regarding pastoral care and how we might be of help to pastors who are listening and also uh church people who are who are with us tonight.

So, that's the focus of of what we want to do. The bride of Jesus Christ is the most precious thing in the world. And so that's where our concern is. Now let's just do a roundhouse here. Let's talk, I just wanna hear real briefly what the conditions are in your state.

And let's start with Anthony. Just give us a thumbnail sketch of what's happening in terms of features of the experience, restrictions and things you're grappling with, Anthony. Yeah, there are just under 100 confirmed cases in our state now. However, up until a couple of hours ago, none of them were in our area. There is now one confirmed case in Southwest Virginia that's only going to grow.

We've known it was just a matter of time. Last week, we didn't have any stipulations or suggestions from the government with regard to meeting. So we did meet and suggested that those who are vulnerable within our congregation not take any chances and take advantage of the live stream which we offer every week. We ended up with a lot more at church than I anticipated. We probably had three quarters to 80% of our regular attendance here.

And before I was home from church that day, the governor had actually suggested no gatherings over 50 and then, as you all know, then came out of the White House, even more stringent expectations than that or requirements. Okay. Jeff, what's happening in Florida? In the Lord's providence, Florida is leading the south with cases. It was 390 a few hours ago.

We've had eight deaths. Surprisingly, our governor has not called for a lockdown. And we take the language that has been offered thus far, not as a mandate, but as the words, recommendations, and suggestions we have continued to meet. But we have made it a matter of conscience for those in our congregation. Those that want to meet, we're presently meeting until it becomes obvious that we should not.

And We have probably a little more than half that are staying at home and joining online. Now, for those that come, we are taking the most stringent measures that we can. As a matter of fact, I can even share a few of those with you right now. But what we've told them that if anyone in the family is sick or showing symptoms of any kind of disease, they should not come. If they're experiencing symptoms even of a common cold, they should not come, but join us online if anyone, for conscience sake does not, let me put it this way.

We told them if you can't wash your hands for 20 seconds when you arrive there and when you're there, then don't come. So we have tried to put... And we're practicing... The thing that I don't like the most is the social distancing, but we have adopted an extreme social distancing. We're not touching one another, and so we keep a good distance.

And I, too, was surprised that we had the attendance that we did on the Lord's Day. Uh very thankful for those that came so we're we're wrestling with all the same issues but trying to honor the Lord Jesus and and all of it and uh trying not to act like we're experts on something that no one here has experienced in our lifetime. Right. Yeah. Right.

Have you taught your people the Chinese toe bump? What the Chinese toe bump? Yeah. And rather than a hug, you just kind of touch toes. Yeah, there you go.

Oh, Uh no, we haven't tried that yet. It's all the rage. You guys are way behind. That's right. Sam, what about you?

What's happening? Well, we're using the elbow bump, actually. That's what we're doing. Well, we've written a couple of letters to our church in the last two weeks. One today and one about a week ago.

We had pretty normal services. Last Lord's Day, even after telling anybody that was elderly and had high risk not to come. And In the state of Kentucky, we have about 50, and it's been in the 40s. And just today, for the first time, we had one case in a neighboring county and one case in our county, Davis County. And then 15 minutes before this webinar, I listened to the briefing today from our governor, and he signed an executive order that says no worship services and brought up a preacher to kind of support what he was saying.

And this puts us in a new situation just before this meeting that we've got to think through again because that hadn't been the case prior to today. But now we have an executive order saying don't meet. And for this coming Lord's Day, We had told our church we intend to continue with our services, but we had strengthened advice to older folks with health risks not to come, and then also said that nobody with any symptoms of any kind should be there either. And both letters have included other words of pastoral concern and advice. But that's basically the situation here.

So we have intended to meet this Lord's Day. We do intend to meet this Lord's Day, but we now face a new situation, I think, with this executive order, and I'm not quite sure how to respond to that at this point. Right. Well, here in North Carolina, we on Saturday afternoon, we of course, we were planning on meeting on Sunday, but our governor issued an order that there be no meetings over 100 with a civil penalty of a class two misdemeanor and so we got our our men together. We decided that we would split the church into two pieces and we do we had two meetings just under 100.

Uh so we did continue to meet. Uh we're grappling with uh the differences between civil ordinances like for example in Wisconsin, I was just talking to her brother uh where he was telling me that any meetings over ten people uh would result in 30 days in jail. And so there are places that are reducing meeting sizes down to ten. Now, the CDC has recommended meeting sizes at 50. And then our president has recommended meetings no longer no more than ten.

So here we've been grappling with the difference between an ordinance with a civil penalty and a suggestion How we've just been talking through those things about you know, what are the differences and what does it mean to honor the king? What is it? What we don't believe this is an axe five civil disobedience matter. We think it's more of a Romans thirteen. Uh obey the civil authorities because they're desiring to do good to you.

Uh we're assuming the best of our government and we are taking their council as counsel for our good even though it it runs cross grain even though it has been breathtaking to, for the first time in any of our lives, a civil government has made statements about when the church can and can't meet. That really is a remarkable moment for all of us. This is the first time this has happened and So we're grappling with with all kinds of things regarding that. We wanna be a good testimony in the community. We wanna be a blessing in the community.

We don't wanna be a curse in the sense that we're carriers and we're infecting everybody. We don't wanna thumb the civil magistrate in the face and defy even their preferences. We're just we're still grappling with. We haven't even decided what we're going to do about Sunday. We may just live stream the service into homes.

But we're still, we haven't decided what we're gonna do Sunday. But we won't be defying any laws. We'll listen to the civil government as something from the lord to sanctify us at this point. So, um let's let's talk about uh let's talk about special distancing for a minute. Uh you know, right away around around me, there were churches that were telling their people no handshakes, no fist bumps, no hugging.

That was shocking to me when I heard that but now a week later, it just doesn't seem so shocking. You know, these normal, really applications of friendship and greeting one another with a holy kiss figuratively have gone away. They're going away in our culture for a while. You know, you're really violating social convention now to hold out your hand and shake your hand. So let's talk about social distancing.

What are you doing? What are you thinking? What are you telling your people about this? Scott, I already haven't addressed it in the pastoral letters to our people. I guess I've left it to their common sense.

I don't know about the other guys. I mean, I shook a guy's hand Sunday morning who visited our church. He stuck out his hand to me, and I, without even thinking, shook his hand. But then there was all this elbow bumping going on and I guess it's a matter of doing, for me it was doing what makes people feel comfortable, you know. Were you washing your elbows?

No, but I made sure everybody knew I washed. I washed my hands before the lord suffered. There you go. What else? What are you other guys doing?

In our letter that we sent out on Saturday evening prior to the service, we suggested that there be an empty chair, we're in a rented facility and use chairs, an empty chair between anyone who is not next of kin, and that there be no handshaking and hugging. But we're in a situation now that we're not going to meet this week. Sorry, Jeff. Right. No, perfectly okay.

Yeah, we wrestled with all that. Brother Clarence and I thought about it, prayed about it. We have been intensely following this. I've been following it since January, but the last three weeks has been enormous. We've been putting a great deal of time because we wanted, first of all, to honor the Lord Jesus.

We wanted to encourage the congregation. And we have come to view the issue of a highly contagious disease that is without question a threat of life, a mortal threat to the older saints of God in our congregation. We simply could not take that lightly. And we see that differently. A brother from England was talking with me about this today and he said he had some older saints in his congregation that had sat under Dr.

Lloyd Jones' preaching. And this was during World War II. And they have the wonderful anecdote where Dr. Lloyd Jones was preaching his heart out as he always did. A bomb went off outside that was dropped by a plane and he kept right on preaching.

And so the older folks who had lived through that were saying, we're coming no matter what. And I appreciate that spirit. The difference, at least as far as I presently understand it, and I'm certainly willing to be corrected, is you might have a bomb dropped, you might have a bullet go through the window, that's entirely your decision to make, but that doesn't immediately impinge upon someone else. A highly deadly disease for some, most people apparently are not going to have a terribly rough ride with this thing, but at least somewhere between 12 and 20 percent. It could be fatal.

The very fact that we could have people in the congregation who have it without any symptoms, it could easily take the life of another. I think that crosses the line. So we've encouraged our older saints to stay home and then we've adopted the air hug, blowing a few kisses without blowing any droplets. We keep our distance and that's that's what we're doing for the present. You know, it's it's it's by the day.

So, we're doing it. Yeah. Scott, if I can say so. I mean, I have a personal situation. I live with a wife who is really asthmatic.

She's on breathing treatments twice a day. And my 89-year-old father lives in her home. And I told the church in our letter today that we've made the decision that because they are both older with health risk, that they're not going to be in church on the Lord's Day. I intend to be, because for whatever reason in God's providence, I'm still healthy as a horse at a 68, but my wife and my father will not be there because of these very principles that Jeff has been talking about. Jeff Liscum, NIAID Director General, National Institute of Technology Right, and I too, I have a 97-year-old father at home and a 92-year-old mother, so we're being very careful and we've decided that they'll be staying home as well.

Interesting. There are three of us on this call. They're in the high risk zone and in terms of age, I'll take the pass. You'll take the pass. There you go.

So, we can know that the Lord, the Lord, I'm also the one that doesn't fit on this call as well. Oh my, well, I don't know about that. I'm seeing several questions about Hebrews 10, 5, and the admonition not to forsake the meeting together. Now we all place a very high value on meeting. And I'd like to talk about that a little bit more in a minute, but let's talk about that admonition.

Is it a sin not together? Under normal circumstances, of course, but one of the texts I quoted, and there are lots of texts like this, but one of the texts I quoted in my first pastoral letter to the church was, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. And I think that general principle makes clear that there are sometimes, and in some occasions and some situations where it is, if it's going to be contrary to the real welfare of human beings, not to meet on the Sabbath, and I think that one of the main purposes of the Sabbath is the corporate meetings of God's church. That it's not sin then to do so. It's not a violation of the Sabbath, and therefore it's not sin not to meet for worship on the Sabbath because that's one of the main purposes of the Sabbath.

Yeah, What else? Other thoughts on that? Scott, I am continuing to wrestle with that very thing. But I think the way you worded it misconstrues or at least opens the door for misunderstanding. Forsaking the assembly is a willful leaving the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and refusing to come and to worship the Almighty.

So we have brothers and sisters in communist countries who want to gather with the Lord's people in their times when they simply cannot. It's not because they have sinfully chosen to turn their back on their duties and their desires, even casting off their desires to worship the Lord. It isn't that way at all. They simply cannot come to the place of meeting. They are held back because perhaps there's been a spy in the midst of them and the whole congregation's broken up for a while.

There are numerous situations. When I'm sick, I don't go to church. I stay home because I believe I would be violating the sixth commandment if I'm sick and I go and sit, you know, with the folks in our congregation that are older and could easily contract a disease that wouldn't bother a five-year-old but could kill one of my brothers or sisters. And so I'm not forsaking the worship of Almighty God. So I think it's all resting upon how one understands that idea of forsaking.

In the epistle of the Hebrews, the Jews were going back to Judaism. They were forsaking the gathering together of those who worship the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're in a situation that we've never been in. And I think it's really easy for people to take a hyper spiritual perspective on things that actually ignores other important aspects of our responsibilities of loving Christ and loving one another. Amen.

Amen. Anthony, any thoughts on that? No, I'm in complete agreement. I would just add that I don't think anyone would argue that deeds of mercy are not acceptable on the Lord's Day and it seems like a very merciful and loving thing to do to not give someone a disease that may kill them. You know someone sent a question in quoting the Westminster confession and the sixth commandment saying really what you were articulating that we have we have a duty to preserve life and to and to not do anything that would harm another person and I think that's I think that's really critical.

You know, when we talk about this matter of meeting and we have a high value on the meeting of the saints, I think there are two things. Your churches and our church, if we don't meet, isn't doing so because we want to avoid the worship of God. We long for the worship of God. It's not the same thing. The writer of Hebrews is talking about the person who doesn't want to worship God and who therefore avoids the worship of god.

This is an unusual situation. Uh we're hoping it's a very short term situation if it becomes long term. I think the the the question will be more difficult for us. And we we we may have to resort to other means or something but I don't think any of us would be satisfied to meet for a to not meet for a long time. Right.

But if we look at what's happening in the other countries that are a little bit ahead of us in this, it doesn't look like it's going to linger right. It looks like it's going to run a course and then we'll at least start dissipating some right right. Yeah. It'll be very interesting to see our the our local school system has said that they're expecting 8 weeks to 20 weeks of school being cancelled but you know, who knows how to project these things. We just know even the people who are projecting it don't know how to project it.

Right. Exactly. The numbers out of the hat. Yeah. If you read any of the articles that have been released in the last few days, you will see a wide variety of perspectives of how long this could last.

There's some people saying, oh, well, you know, in, you know, five to six, seven weeks, you know, we'll be seeing a peak. Others are saying, no, there's not going to be a peak until July or August. And there are different ways of calculating those numbers. So one of the most encouraging things I've heard from the mouths of the men in the highest offices, the highest skills of epidemiology, virology, and they've said it repeatedly, is I don't know. I don't know and and I'm thankful to hear that they don't know and they don't know and and uh Anthony Fauci, you know, said yesterday, he said, well, it's possible that it could peak in 45 days.

He said, but the minute you put a number on it, you've got to own it. And if it doesn't come to pass, then you're sunk. And the smart guys are saying, I don't know. And I think that's exactly the position we have to take. Not one of us in this video or this webinar, not one of us, not anybody in our congregation, nobody on this planet has been through a worldwide pandemic before.

So it's time for humility among the Lord's people, not spiritual high roadism. We've got to take into consideration the life of God's sheep. That's what we're focusing on. It doesn't matter whether this thing was created in a lab or whether it came from bats. It doesn't matter.

Quite obviously, it's been politicized already and it's going to be hard to get any solid information as long as people have politicized it. So we have a responsibility as shepherds for God's people and their spiritual condition and there's some places where we're going to have to say, I don't know. This is the best we can do with what we presently understand. Right. You know, I've been encouraging some of the men in in our church to have mercy on our civil leaders.

Civil leaders have to make decisions that affect a lot of people and you some might say, well, you're overreacting. Somebody might say, no, you're underreacting. Well, this is the nature of leadership. Leaders have to throw a switch. They have to decide on behalf of lots of people.

You know, I think of, you know, in my own life, I can look back and say, well, I may have overreacted or underreacted in that situation. Well, this is the way God actually ordained church leadership and civil leadership and that's why we're called to honor the king and obey our authorities and uh pray for them and I encourage our people to honor them and not to act like we know more than they do. We may have disagreements with them, that's okay, but it's really important that we lead our people to honor the authorities whether we think they're overreacting or underreacting and we want that from our children we want our children to look at us and and honor us and obey us if they think we're overreacting or underreacting and we want that in our churches too. We actually need that. We need our churches to follow us and to pray for us and if they disagree with us even to still talk to us about it.

But I think it really is a time to be humble. I really appreciate what you said. We don't know where this is going. I don't think any of us are willing to make prophecies about what's going to happen with this. So hey, I'd like to talk about the matter of quarantine.

You know, we have people self-quarantining. California, I believe, I got a phone call from somebody today. I don't know if it was just a county or the whole state, but no one can go outside except for essential activities, which would be shopping or the hospital, things like that. But the Bible does give us pictures of quarantine. And if you look at Exodus 13, 14 and 15, these laws of quarantine are all in the context of loving your neighbor.

Leviticus 1918, I think speaks of it. But you know, in the biblical quarantine laws, The quarantine isn't out of fear of getting something the quarantine is based on the reality of someone who has something and of course there are washings and there are cleanings and you know, cleaning of clothes, cutting of hair, even a house being torn down. If the remedies did not work and you know, there's language in there. I was rereading the quarantine laws this week. The lord puts the plague in the house and It's very interesting to me the the way that we're thinking about quarantine doesn't exactly fit the biblical quarantine laws.

Let's talk about that. I just want to throw that bomb out there. What do you think, biblically, about quarantining? Well, we'd like to throw the bomb back in your court, Scott, so take it. Well, I'll say something as Scott considers how to juggle the grenade that Jeff tossed him.

This is the story you've told just reinforces for me the danger that authorities are in and whether they have any actual authority or whether they're just, you know, experts of overreaching in this whole thing. And the very real danger of doing more harm than good by making the cure worse than the disease in some of these cases. And you can't go outside, really? And who gave you the authority to tell people that? Especially if they're not going to be anywhere near other people?

What is up with that? And I guess I feel sometimes that there may be some individuals that are just taking way too much upon themselves and have no real authority, And there's a reaction and a panic here that I think we have to warn our people against. The wicked flee when no one pursues. But the righteous are bold as a lion. And I think, well I certainly want to honor the king and I believe in that principle and I do believe that they have a responsibility to protect society in situations like this.

I mean, I just think there's a real danger of some sort of tyranny going on here on the part of people that are just reacting all over the place and not using real wisdom to keep a balance here. Yeah, if you, if you are afraid of going outside for catching something, you would never go anywhere. Uh, you know, in Psalm 91, uh, it is, let's see what verse is it, Psalm 91, of the pestilence walks in darkness. Pestilence walks in darkness. We don't know when we're around it.

God ordered the world that way. And I've just been encouraging people, don't be driven by fear. God God has ordained to protect you uh and you you will pass into eternity in his own time and you will catch whatever pestilence the lord lays upon you but he but he keeps us from pestilence as well and I think in our church, we're trying to encourage people to have, you know, a cautious freedom and uh not to be so afraid about everything. We could be creating a society where you know, the the worst social gaffe you can perform is not to wash your hands and everybody knows it and it's kind of like the new holiness code. You wash your hands for 20 seconds.

Who I, you know, I don't know if everybody's been washing their hands for 20 seconds. I've been trying to wash my hands for 20 seconds. By the way, there's a way that you can know you're at 20 seconds. Sing the first part of Nothing But the Blood and that takes you about 20 seconds to sing and by the time you wash your hands and be and know it was about 20 seconds. So — Dr.

Pursues, and also the prudent man sees the evil and hides himself, and tried to encourage people to some sort of biblical balance between legitimate hiding of yourself without compromise, but not panic-driven fear that goes to all sorts of impossible extremes and does more harm than good. Right. I was, I wrote a letter to our church saying, I don't want us to create a culture in our church where we're afraid to touch the tray for the Lord's Supper. We're afraid to shake someone's hand. We're afraid to be with people.

That really is such a contradiction to Christian culture. The Christians actually visit the sick. That's what Christians are commanded to do. So, there's an element where we should set aside our fears. We should be careful not to infect people on the one hand and love our neighbor but if it if this whole cultural shift causes us to be afraid to be brothers and sisters and real human beings, it will have a terrible effect on us.

Well, if I could contribute to what you're saying there, I appreciate the fact that we shouldn't be guided by fear. I preached about this on the Lord's day. And I preached on what should we say to the coronavirus. And I did a brief exposition of Romans chapter eight versus 15 through 39. And I set out a handful of headings that should show that we should not live by fear.

But I think we need to be extremely cautious that we don't call fear common sense. Right. Amen. I mean, because if we say, well, we just don't want to shake hands. Well, that's how you get it.

You know, I mean, that's how you get it. You pass it on. Droplets, hands, all of that. And so it's difficult for all of us. You know, I walk by people on the Lord's Day that I normally hug or kiss or shake their hands or put my arms around their shoulders.

And it was the most abnormal feeling day I have had. But at the same time, it wasn't that I was living in fear, it's I didn't want to take the risk of contaminating them. Just that simple. I'm not living in any kind of fear. I'm doing everything that I can to preserve life of both children and older brethren.

So I think we have to be really cautious about common sense all of a sudden being called fear. This is going to pass, as brother Anthony says, and I agree with that. It's going to pass. So it's a season in which we're doing everything we can to show the love of Christ and love for his people. If I could throw one more thing into this.

Psalm 9 verses 19 and 20 says, "'Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. Let the heathen be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men." That is what God is doing. He is showing this world that stands day by day living in its paganism, its atheism, its worship of atheistic science. What do we hear on the mouths of the transhumanists?

We're gods. We're going to be gods. We're going to upload our brains and computers and live forever. God is showing the people of this world. He is showing them that they are but men.

And all he has to do is say one of his little servants that you have to have a microscope to see, and he can sweep 10, 000 people into eternity. They are but men. They've got to see it and we've got to see that. We should bow before our sovereign. The thing is, and that's why they're in fear, we should be living, trusting our God, wisely handling one another or not handling one another.

As a matter of fact, the thing that I said on the Lord's day was this. The very first thing that we should say in all of this is that we're children of God. That sets us apart from everybody in this world. Everybody. We are children of God by the glorious miracle of regeneration and God's electing grace.

Secondly, our sufferings will not compare. Our sufferings in all of this will not compare to our sonship. We are the children of God and we're going to suffer. We've been called to suffer, whether it be specifically for the name of Christ, or whether it is any of these ways like contracting this disease. Thirdly, God gives us His Spirit so that we can pray.

We don't know how to pray in this situation. I have gotten on my face, I don't know how many times in the last few weeks and said, Lord, I don't know how to pray with this, except help, help. And the Spirit of God gives me help to pray and to cry out. All of God's children have that blessing. All of that.

He helps us in our infirmities. Even if we're burning up with fever, He helps us. He makes our sick beds sweet. It's a place where we commune with Him. And I've prayed for many, Lord, He whom thou lovest is sick.

And fourthly, we've been predestinated into glory. If the Lord is ready to take us home and make us during this time, the answer to the Lord's Prayer that those that the Father gave Him would see Him in His glory. Praise the Lord! We're not tethered to this life. We're to honor Christ as the children of God.

And finally, if God is for us, who can be against us? Certainly not a virus. It's all gonna be used in God's hand. And I'm not talking about a fatalistic perspective. I'm the one who's not touching anybody, but I'm trusting under God that I'm walking according to His Word and according to the love of the brethren, to love God and to love His people.

So we shouldn't live in fear, not in the slightest. I'm in the category of of almost all of the things that someone dies from when they get this thing, right? I don't care at all but it would just break my heart if I infected somebody, right? So, out of love, I'm going to go through a season of not touching anybody. If I live through it, everybody's gonna have to look out, I'm gonna hug everybody.

Amen. I'd like to talk about the challenges that surround having online meetings. How do we shepherd our people when they're going to be hearing live streams rather than personal interactions and I think there's so many things that happen in personal meetings that are so far superior than listening to things online there. You know, when people meet regularly, it it's it's it's very personal. It's spiritual.

Their connections with people even when you're driving to church, you're thinking about the scene that you're entering into. You walk in the door and there's the greeter and you see some people you've known for a long time. Some people are brand new and you're greeting a visitor and you you're with someone who you regard as very wise who's helped you and and someone who's a holy person and you these interactions are really important. You hear preaching. You hear the children sing if you're in a church like ours.

You know, you hear all kinds. You're seeing people. You're noticing that someone might be depressed. You're noticing that someone is really happy. Someone gives you good news.

This is such a sweetness about being part of the body of Christ. You see people whom you love and whom you've prayed for. Many of you, maybe you're meeting someone who's had a real trial or a death in their family. Well, this is the joy and the richness of meeting together. We sing, think about the singing together, just the sound of the voices.

That has become my favorite sound of all sounds is to hear the voices of the church saying. So how are we going to shepherd our people through this when they're going to be live streaming? Maybe for a while. Who knows? Well, for myself, I'm not against live streaming at all, but I want to say online and church are not the same thing.

The promise of the saviors where two or three are gathered together in his name, there is in the midst, and the command is to assemble together. So, I think we have to make sure our people know that live streaming and online gatherings like that are a distant second best. They may be the best thing we can do, but they're a distant second best to the actual assembly of God's people. Amen. Amen.

My hope is that being forced to do this for a couple of weeks actually creates a renewed zeal in a lot of people for the desire to get together into a symbol. I fully agree. I think it's vital that we understand with clarity the very thing that Sam said before us. The church is the gathered people of God. We're gathering in a certain way, but it's not the same.

We're not really gathered. We are united by a love for Christ and a desire to worship Him, but we're in different places. So it is simply a season. We're planning, I'm certainly planning to meet with our people not only on the Lord's day but through the week contacting them, you know, talking about how they are or where they are. It's not the same as sitting in their living room, but it's the best that we can do.

We can Skype or we can use Zoom or we can use any of these matters where we can come into the house, at least at some degree, and talk with them about the love of Christ and encourage them and build them up in the faith. So shepherds have a real challenge before them because the thing that makes the church the church we're not able to do in the way that we all know we want to do it. I wept the other day at the thought of not being able to meet with God's people. And I agree with Anthony, absolutely. I'm hoping that this makes a lot of people understand, you know, the old proverb, you don't know what you have until you lose it.

It is not the same. I've sat in my bed sick and watched my brother Clarence preach, and encouraged by the Word, and strengthened, and thankful to the Lord that I heard the Word of God faithfully preached. But it wasn't the same as being there and hugging him. It wasn't the same as being there and sitting with God's people. So I agree, this is second best at best.

It may not even be second. The Lord would show us something else. But I sure hope that you know we will as shepherds keep close contact and tabs with the Lord's people, praying with them and reading the scriptures with them, talking to them about how they're faring through this and not simply the issue of the meeting together. I've been making more personal phone calls to people this week in our congregation just to see how they were doing. When I was growing up in Southern California, it was scandalous that Robert Schuler created the drive-in church.

You know, you drive in your cars and the people would, you know, hear a sermon. It was absolutely the most scandalous, ridiculous thing I'd ever heard of and I just got a question from one of my dear pastor friends in another state and his question is his question is what about drive-in theater style church? Everyone stays in the vehicles and the ministers are in the audio outdoors. I cannot believe I got that question. You know who you are.

But it's just amazing that we would ask that question. We're living in a different time zone right now and we're having to think about things that we've never considered and things that we thought were just undoable, unthinkable, as a drive in church. And it sounds like something that we could do for a little while now. So there are just lots of challenges here. We're in uh unusual territory.

What what was that, Sam? I didn't hear you. Let's see. Sam, your your audio is off. I can't hear you.

I'm going to get somebody to help you here. Maybe maybe David can help you to get you turned back on. I don't know Anthony. Can I hear you? Can you say something?

I'm still here. Okay. Good. Okay. I think we're alright.

Sam hold that thought and we'll we'll try to try to loop back. I want to ask a specific question of each of you. I'd just like to hear what you have to say because it's something that we really struggled with here. What differentiates the banning of meetings by a judicial order with a penalty. What distinguishes that and making recommendations again, you know you have these very you know there was a recommendation uh against 250.

Then there was a law against 100 in North Carolina. In California, it's 10. I believe there are other states that have enacted that very same thing. I believe Texas has done that. There's also some differentiations.

Um Sam mentioned in Kentucky, they were specifically told that they could not worship. Um and I think in North Carolina, it's specifically aimed at churches as well. In Virginia, it hasn't been narrowly focused at churches but just any gathering. Mm-hmm. How do you distinguish Anthony between a law and a suggestion in our situation?

Well, I am, because no laws have been made I'm not having to make that distinction. Right now, I'm listening to what they're saying, listening to the recommendation, and also doing a bit of research on my own or listening to people that I trust who've done the research and then making the decision that I think is best for our congregation and for the reputation of Christ. Isn't that interesting? They're highly customized and local decisions that we have to make because we're working off different sets of music. We're having to deal with different situations.

All of us are. It's difficult to make rules. That's right. Well, the the um and uh a fairly well-known attorney sent out uh uh a circular here just a couple of days ago. And he was pointing out, I could be wrong here, I'm not a lawyer, I only know as much of the law as I must, but I don't believe it's constitutional for the president presently to command us not to meet under some certain circumstances.

I can be corrected for that, but I think that is why they are using the language suggesting and recommending. But local governments are doing that and then that makes it a more difficult situation because right now It is still up to the states. And so you have governors in one state saying, absolutely not, you can't do this. And others saying, well, we're suggesting or we're recommending. So I'm in the same situation as Anthony, is that our governor, and I'm surprised at this because of how many cases we have so far.

But right now, even as we're talking, we've got thousands and thousands of young people out on the beach for spring break, and that has not been broken up. So, working it as suggestions and recommend. I think his internet connection dropped. We just lost Jeff. Yeah.

Right. And Sam, our tech guy, he's having a hard time getting you back on. I think we're going to get Jeff back here. Yeah. Sam, can you hear me, Sam?

Right, I'm so sorry. We can't get you back on for some reason. We're gonna we're gonna keep working on it is your mic definitely on at the top of your page there, Sam. Well, I think yeah. Oh, I think I ate it.

Huh. I'm not able to get you on here. Well, yeah. Sam II. I'm not able to get you on here.

Yeah. Well, brothers, I really appreciate it. I think we'll we'll bring this to a close. You know, there are so many many of the questions we've addressed all these questions that have been asked. They're very good questions and some really remarkably insightful suggestions and thoughts.

Um it's really uh I'm really thankful for the the comments that have been made many just very helpful comments very consistent with some of the things that you guys are saying and but I don't see questions that we haven't addressed that are asked here you know in the live stream but let's pray that the Lord gives pastors wisdom and church members wisdom in building up the body of Christ in every way that we can to evangelize. You know, there are there's there are people that have free time and they they need to be deployed. Uh there are um there are opportunities for ministry that have not existed before right now. Uh my people are telling me they're bumping into people in stores and having remarkable conversations and with people that don't know what to do with their children because school has been cancelled. Some really neat conversations about that and our people have been able to comfort people and say, yeah, you can do this.

We've been doing this for 20 years. And so there are a lot of natural opportunities. We should try to, you know, multiply opportunities for ministry right now. In the next couple of days, we're going to launch a free sermon player that can live stream. It's really easy to use.

It's a neat one. We're testing it right now, but we'll be launching that for our network of churches. There are about 500 churches in our network and those will be that will be available to you if you'd like to use it for live streaming if you need it. Whether your conscience will allow you to do it or not or whatever. It's I guess our view right now is it's better than nothing and um even though it is a tremendous downgrade.

Uh but uh brothers, I'm just so grateful for the time that you've allocated here and I know I've had there are lots of comments here of appreciation for the things that you've shared and how helpful it's been um but II would go. Yes, Jeff. Could I say just two quick things? Sure. Number one, through all of this, and with some of the discussions I've had in our neighborhood and with many others, not trying to toot our horn, just saying I'm seeing the beauty of age integration and of homeschooling in this.

It has strengthened all of the people in our congregation. They're used to having their children at home. They're used to disciplining their children. The folks that very often put their children in the government schools, they don't know what to do having their children in their house all the time. And so it has been just a beautiful, absolutely beautiful thing to see how well our families have responded to all of this.

You know, they've been teaching their children, they are the education for their children, And they've brought them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They're not bothered to be home with their spouse. They're not bothered to have their children in their home. And I'm seeing people already thinking, how in the world am I going to have my children in the house until April? And the same thing with the church when our folks come in, they're coming in, they're sitting as families, and There's a distance between the other families, just for safety's sake.

But the beauty of that is just overwhelming to me. And secondly, as far as the opportunities that you're talking about, we fully agree. We're praying that we don't get a lockdown here because those of us on the staff at Chapel are going to be in there day after day pumping out as much literature for the Lord's people and for the lost as we possibly can. And we just put a new cover on JC Ryle's booklet, Sickness. And it is a tremendous sermon.

If you've never read it, I've passed it out here in my own neighborhood. And We're encouraging pastors, individuals, anybody. Contact us. We'll send you what we can and go distribute them. People read something on sickness right now.

Also, Arthur Pink's Divine healing. These are wonderful books. He says in the middle of that booklet that he was writing decades ago that that one of the primary reasons people are sick because they don't wash their hands. So, yeah, this is pink, you know, and and we've got tons of of gospel literature to go with it. So, contact us as long as we've got those doors open as long as the mail is running.

We want to get it to as many churches and pastors and individuals as possible. Oh, that's great. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah, go to chapel library.org and all that stuff is there. Anthony, how about any final comments from you and then could you just pray for us and then we'll conclude the broadcast?

Sure. I'll go back to something that Sam mentioned earlier and Jeff hit on it as well, there's a huge need for us to live in this balance, a life of faith. We're prone by the way that God has made us and by where our influences come from to be extremist on two different poles, either a fretful fear on one hand, or a flippant foolishness on the other. If we can find the middle balance of living by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us, we can avoid these two extremes and seek to walk with God in the midst of this, trusting that he will prove sufficient. He's faithful.

He's promised to care for us and to give us all that we need in Christ for godliness in this life. And so we press on day after day. Amen. Amen. Okay, let's pray.

God, we thank you for the kindness that you show us as your children. We do pray for your people during these days, that we might walk with you in a very near way. We pray for extra measures of grace to be understanding that we would be careful not to bind other people's consciousness unnecessarily. God, we want to love you. We want to express that love to you.

We want to worship you and we trust that you'll grant us the wisdom and discernment necessary as we seek to lead the people that you've entrusted to us. We thank you for Christ, for his gospel, for the reality of the knowledge of sins forgiven. God help us to bask in these glorious truths and to live for you with our whole hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you brothers. Thanks so much. Goodbye.

See you.