Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Lockdowns, economic chaos, thousands dying. COVID-19 has changed us all forever.
Agendas are flying as the press and politicians maneuver for advantage. The ultimate question, what is God saying to us through a deadly pandemic? It's time to open our hearts and minds and find out. Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. At a crucial point in our history, here now is Pastor Lutzer. Well this is Pastor Lutzer and I want to welcome you to a very special time here on Running to Win today and for the next several sessions.
I've written a new book entitled Pandemics, Plagues and Natural Disasters and I believe very deeply that this book is going to increase people's faith, help us to understand the scriptures, God's relationship to what's happening in our culture, what's happened in the past, so that our faith will be strengthened. Now joining me in the studio today is Larry McCarthy. I need to say that Larry's parents were among the first to join, that is to say the first African Americans to join the Moody Church many years ago. And Larry, I'm sure that they never dreamed that someday their son would be on the pastoral staff and you've been such a blessing and we're so glad that you're on board. Now you have read this book so our intention here is to discuss it, to find out whether or not God is directly involved in these things, how we can trust him in the midst of it.
So Larry, welcome to the program. Oh Pastor, it's always a pleasure to see you and thank you so much for having me. And you're right, my parents were certainly shocked at how God chose to use me but they weren't by themselves in that. There were legions of people who were also shocked by how God called me into service. But my friend, it seems that I just recently read The Church in Babylon which I'm still trying to digest many of the teachings and some of the profound insight you had there. And here's yet another book. So what prompted you now to write this one?
Well of course I was immediately prompted because of what was happening with COVID. But I also need to say that I had done some study of natural disasters previous to this and what I wanted to convey to people is this. There are so many pastors out there who say trust God in the midst of this. Well yes exactly we trust God. But they give the impression that if you trust God everything is going to turn out okay.
You're going to get your job back, you'll be able to pay your rent, God will keep you from getting sick. I want to help people to trust God in the midst of unanswered prayer, in the midst of difficulties, setbacks and to go on trusting him and help them to understand how he can be trusted even if we humbly confess that we certainly do not know all of his ways and what he is about. So what I wanted to do is to increase people's faith to help them to understand the goodness of God in the midst of this confessing that I don't claim to be able to read God's diary and find out all of his purposes but believing very deeply that even if we don't understand all of his purposes his word is trustworthy. I think that that is so very very important. Now one other thing and that is that there are false prophets out there and I read about some of them and they were saying you know the Lord revealed to me that this pandemic is going to be short. There's another false prophet who says God has given me authority over this pandemic and I need to also address those kinds of issues and to help them to understand that they don't have that kind of authority.
Oh my. You really come right out the starting block with this with your subtitle because you're right. Everybody is saying something.
Everyone has an opinion. What is this person saying? What is this news outlet saying? What are these people saying? But you boil it down to what is God saying.
That's right and as a matter of fact you know that that's the subtitle. What is God saying to us? And five of the chapters of this book which is the main part of this book are devoted to what God says. And I say in the intro that I have no private revelation. It's not as if God came to me and told me like he did one false prophet that this is going to be shorter than you think it is or that I have authority over it as I mentioned. With a Bible in one hand and the COVID and natural disasters of earthquakes and plagues of locusts and mudslides and hurricanes that have been pounding this planet for centuries with the Bible in one hand and the reality of what is happening in the other, that's the way in which I wrote this book and the five chapters that have to do with what God is saying are really from his holy word. Pastor, let me ask you this. You say what is God saying but many people today would say he isn't saying anything.
That's right. In fact, God is silent it seems and you address this here so can you just talk about that just a little bit about the silence of God and how we should understand that? That actually is the second chapter as you well know Larry. It's entitled The Silence of God because I believe that the silence of God is the greatest mystery that you and I have to put up with. The fact that all of these terrible things can happen, how a tornado can come to our southern states or any of the states, blow people away and destroy homes, take children and have them killed oftentimes and the parents survive or maybe the other way around, that is the greatest challenge to our faith. So actually in that chapter I asked the question does God really care or does God just say that he cares? I try to deal with this very realistically because I know that there are a lot of skeptics out there and by the way I wrote this book that if you have a skeptic in your life I hope that you give this book to them because I deal with even later on in the chapters of how to answer somebody who is a skeptic, an atheist who says well if that's the way God runs his world I'm out of here.
What is the best way that you can answer him? So that's the heart with which I wrote it. Now in that chapter I might say and maybe I'm a little bit ahead of you here Larry that we need to see this in perspective because although America has not been here before, the fact is that the world has been plagued by plagues and natural disasters and disease and pestilence since the beginning of time. Yes, you know when I read that a lot of what was suggested in the first couple of chapters is that we're in something that's completely new. We've never seen anything like this before yet you give many examples of other pandemics and disasters and plagues and natural disasters and so I was trying to balance that and so can you help me understand when you say this is new yet we've always had these things, what's unique about this situation now? I think that one of the unique things is that this pandemic was worldwide. I mean I don't know of any other time in history when millions and millions of people were told to stay at home and to keep their doors closed in effect so I think that that's unique but the other thing Larry that I wanted to emphasize is that it's all very unique to us as Americans but it's not been unique throughout church history. I love to tell this because I want people to see this in perspective.
I think that is so important. The year is about 251 AD and plagues are going throughout North Africa and when I'm talking about plagues I'm talking about 20 percent of the population of villages dying. Nothing like COVID you know perhaps one percent of the people who have it die. I'm talking about huge percentages here and Cyprian who lived during that period of time in effect said that Christianity would have never spread throughout North Africa were it not for these disasters because Christians died differently than the pagans. You know the Christians they would have a funeral and they would rejoice. As a matter of fact in the book I quote Cyprian who says why should we weep over those who have gone ahead of us? You know they are in a better place and so the pagans said these Christians carry their dead as if in triumph.
Where is all that hope coming from? And you know back to COVID for just a moment COVID isn't the worst crisis that Christians have. Those that have died have gone to be with the Lord Jesus Christ and later on of course in one of the broadcasts we'll be talking about the fact that the virus of sin is even worse than COVID and we need a deliverance there but so I just want people to take a deep breath and realize that we can learn from the past. Later on also I tell another story and I hope you ask me Larry about Luther. Well I will but before I ask you about Luther. The book is filled with so much historical references and I was intrigued by that as I was just reading some of the historical references but you make a point of talking about this earthquake in Lisbon that occurred in 1735 and since we're talking about that why would you include that discussion about the Lisbon earthquake in the context of what's going on in America in 2020?
You know that is such a good question. Thank you so much for asking it because I had particular interest in the Lisbon earthquake for this reason. It divided Europe. On the one side there were people who continued to believe in God.
On the other hand it spawned a lot of skepticism but let our listeners try to understand the drama here. It's All Saints Day. The churches are filled with worshippers, 9.30 in the morning and suddenly this terrible earthquake comes and of course they are in the churches and they are shrieking and people from the outside ran into church thinking surely if I'm in God's house I'm going to be protected and all of the churches basically were destroyed and the people destroyed and as always there's a difference of opinion as to how many people died but you know the estimate is somewhere between 20 and 30,000 people and this affected Europe greatly. As a matter of fact pastors and preachers often referred to it. Now isn't this interesting that on the one hand you had the Catholics who said it's because we have let up on our emphasis on Catholicism and the Protestants says it's because we are still too Catholic which reminds us of the fact that when it comes to these events we have no right to try to pry into all of God's purposes but the reason that I emphasize it is Voltaire. Voltaire of course was a very famous skeptic and it was the Lisbon earthquake that made him write a book filled with sarcasm and wit regarding the fact that God could not be trusted to have the best of all possible worlds and there are historians who believe that this earthquake in Lisbon may have been the impetus for the eventual secularism of Europe because what happened is when they began to discover that an earthquake happens because there's movement under the crust of the earth, you know there are these plates, by then they began to figure that out, they said well we don't have to refer to God, this isn't an act of God, this is purely an act of nature and by the way in the next broadcast Larry we're going to be discussing that, is this just nature or is it God, that's what's coming up but the point is they said we don't have to believe in God and Voltaire's point was why should we believe in a God who won't even protect his own people within a church, he'll let them all die and here we're supposed to believe in a good and caring God. So what happened is as always natural disasters divide people, on the one hand you have the people who come to their faith and said we're going to go on believing God no matter what, on the other hand you said there were those who said who needs a God like that who won't even protect his own people and so much of Europe drifted off into agnosticism and atheism, huge, huge thing and natural disasters do the same, COVID even does that. I'm glad you mentioned that because in the book you use the illustration that Jesus takes a natural disaster to teach us some really important lessons and I'm always looking for practical application when I read God's word and this is where this became very illuminating to me, the natural disaster that Jesus talks about in the book to teach important lessons, can you talk about that for a minute? Yeah, you know he comes to the end of the Sermon on the Mount and he says something that all of our listeners I'm sure are familiar with, he said that there were two people each built a house, one upon a rock, one on the sand and here's the frightening thing, on a beautiful Sunday or Monday afternoon the houses looked similar. If you'd been going through the neighborhood you'd have said well that house just looks as nice as that house but what distinguished them is when the rains came and the floods came and Jesus said the wind blew, one house that was built upon the rock stood, the one that was built upon the sand it of course collapsed and the point that I'm making there is that crisis really does reveal character. Crisis either reveals our faith or crisis also can destroy our faith and what I wrote the book about is to try to help people to understand the importance of believing in God. Now next time we're going to talk about the fact that God actually has spoken and he's not silent like some people said but certainly he's oftentimes silent, people have looked around during a time of natural disaster and says I have no reason to believe that God is on my side but they've still kept on believing. The point that Jesus is making is that natural disasters divide people and we'll be talking about that later in one of the broadcasts where I'll be talking about how do we deal with the atheists and so forth. But you know Larry, I don't want to skip Luther and the reason I say that is because as you may know I've had the privilege of leading tours to the sites of the Reformation and I've been in the house where Luther and his wife Katie lived many times. In fact one time I actually opened a cupboard where Katie would have kept her dishes.
I asked the tour guide if I could do it and I think I had to step across a rope but he said yeah go ahead. So I can't forget Luther. Okay it's 1537 in Wittenberg.
The plague comes. So the question is do we stay or do we leave? So Luther wrote an essay about it and I mention that so that people understand that the Church of Jesus Christ has been in these crisis times before. Luther's answer basically was this. If you have no responsibilities in Wittenberg you can leave.
We won't judge you. It's a matter of conscience. You can get out of town if you want. If you're a magistrate or if you're a pastor you're obligated to stay and he and his wife Katie took sick people into their own home and cared for them and Luther's view was this that if I die while I am doing good to these people I will have died a good death because greater love hath no man than this but that a man lay down his life for his friends right? So what Luther did is he stayed and he took the risk even though his Elector, the Elector Frederick who played such a large part in Luther's life urged him to leave because Luther was famous.
He had written many books and by 1537 you know he was news all throughout Europe. Luther said no I'm going to stay and I have to add this. You know people often ask me what should the role of the pastor be during COVID right? During COVID-19.
Well the answer is this that I always give. Pastor your people need you more now than at any other time and while it's important to shelter in place, while it's important to obey you know all the guidelines that we are handed down and even as businesses began to open as all of us know there are new restrictions and things going on so we obey all that to the extent that we can but at the same time we should not play it so safe that we don't get involved in people's lives and of course that's easy to do today in a day of technology especially spend an afternoon making calls. Call your people, stay connected and Luther would say you know if you die you'll die a good death and in fact next time I'll tell you why I'm so confident that COVID is in God's hands but that's in our next broadcast. I really appreciate that so much particularly that perspective that the crisis reveals character. It shows our weaknesses, it shows who we really are but there's a layer here within the household of faith when the crisis comes does it just boil down to are we obedient to the word or is it something else about ourselves even our weaknesses that's revealed here? Oh boy I think that God has multiple reasons why he takes us through trials. Sometimes it reveals our character, sometimes it really challenges our faith. In fact one of the last chapters in this book is entitled Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief. I think our faith is greatly challenged and in one of the broadcasts I'm going to give you an illustration that just tore my heart out regarding a mother who kept on believing even though she lost an 18 year old son in the midst of the rubble in Haiti.
I mean really so I think that there's a number of things going on it also reveals our weaknesses but also Larry it gives us an opportunity to minister to others and to be able to say to other people you know what we're going through this but as the sign says we're in this together. Well my friends I've had this interesting discussion with my good friend Larry he's on the pastoral staff here at the Moody Church and the book that we're talking about is pandemics plagues and natural disasters and of course as you might guess in this discussion we're only hitting the highlights but I want people to understand I think this to myself and perhaps I've said this about other books that I've written but I would say this this book encapsulates what I deeply believe about God's sovereignty faith that we should have in his word and the fact that he can be trusted in the most trying and difficult times. If that weren't true we wouldn't have any martyrs would we Larry?
Amen that's right. You know because martyrs said I don't have to hear a voice from heaven you know I can I can go to the stake and I'm not hearing anything from heaven but I'm cleaving to his word and I believe that his word is trustworthy even though I can't see even though I look around and I don't know why God doesn't help me and deliver me but I'm going to go on believing no matter what. So the title of the book is pandemics plagues and natural disasters but the subtitle is very critical what is God saying to us? Five chapters on what God has to say now next time we're going to look at one of those chapters and we'll find out that God says I am in charge trust me. Thank you Dr. Lutzer that was Erwin Lutzer with Larry McCarthy introducing pandemics plagues and natural disasters next time on running to win what is more comforting the belief that somehow COVID and natural disasters are happening sort of independently of God there and he's just watching or is it more comforting to know that he is in control which incidentally is the title of this chapter to me that's much more comforting to know that I am in God's hands and you know what it means if COVID is out of God's hands then I am out of God's hands. Oh yes. So don't miss our next broadcast Pastor Lutzer's new book on pandemics plagues and natural disasters will be sent as our gift to you as you support running to win with your gift of any amount just call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 or write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 online reach us at rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
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