COVID-19, The Gates of Hell, and Joy in Heaven
Sometimes we don’t know that ridge we see on the horizon with the peak rising up into the dark clouds is the last one we’ll have to climb (at least for a while) before the difficult and treacherous path opens up into a beautiful valley filled with green pastures and peaceful waters.
It can be awfully hard to get perspective when you’re in the middle of it. We’ve all heard it and we all know it to be true, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees! With every day that passes leaving us hostages to a microscopic threat known as COVID-19, that ridge on the horizon seems daunting!
Who would have believed a microscopic organism could have kept us at home for 2 months, wreaked havoc on the economy, changed the way we do life and introduced us to a kind of fear we’ve never known before?
Who would have thought we could have been kept from worshiping together for 7 weeks and counting? From singing together and hearing each other’s voices in the same room offering praises to God? From opening the Word of God together and sitting next to each other while engaging with a sermon exalting the greatness of God? From offering an encouraging hug, from breaking bread with each other?
It’s easy to wonder if this will ever end and if so, when. It’s easy to wonder if any good can come from this season of life we find ourselves in and it’s easy to wonder what purposes God has in all of this. While I can’t offer any answers to those questions, I can take some good news that I heard this week and offer some perspective on how that good news relates to promises we know from Scripture.
The good news begins with this note I received a few days ago from a ministry partner on the other side of the world. This is a personal friend and someone our church supports through our missions giving. This dear brother serves alongside his family in North India. Here’s his note (names removed for security reasons):
Dear faithful praying friends,
Many of you prayed for my friend _______, especially for his salvation. This morning at 10:50 am the Lord saved my dear friend. We have known _______ for 16 years since 2005 when we started working with Lepers . For the last three months, I am talking to _______ on regular basis, today over the phone I explained him Romans chapter 3 and 10. _______ repented from his sins and put his trust in Christ. We are so excited that his sins are removed and washed in the blood of Jesus. Please continue to pray for him that the Lord will keep and help him to grow in the knowledge of His word. Let's rejoice and give thanks to our Lord for the gift of salvation after many years. He is mighty to Save the Lost!
Serving Him with you, Thank you 🙏
Sincerely, ___
So what does this testimony of salvation have to do with COVID-19?
In Matthew 16:16, Peter answers the most important question anyone will ever answer. The question? Jesus asks in verse 15, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Upon Peter’s confession, Jesus says to Peter, “…I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
It’s the good news from India of this new brother in Christ that reminds us Jesus’ words to Peter are still being fulfilled, even at the height of a global pandemic.
The Gates of Hell sounds like a pretty ominous foe. Jesus’ use of this phrase, literally, the gates of death, signaled there was no adversary that would derail His mission to form and grow the “called out” community which would soon become known as “the church”.
No war, no pestilence, no downturn in the economy, no virus named COVID-19, no, and I mean, no enemy of God’s, not even death itself can stop the advance of Jesus’ church.
If the gates of hell don’t stand a chance, what is our response? We get a cue from Luke 15. Jesus is talking with Pharisees and scribes about the proper response to someone coming to faith and being restored in relationship to God through the forgiveness of their sin. He tells two parables and ends each one by giving us a peak inside heaven when a sinner repents. In verse 7 He says, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents…”. In verse 10 He says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Because the gates of hell will not prevail against Jesus’ church, there is no wringing of hands and fretting over COVID-19 right now in the throne room of God. There is rejoicing! God is building His church and because even death itself will not stop God’s work, there is joy in heaven and joy before the angels of God.
Friends, Jesus is on His throne, He is building His church, the Father is calling people unto Himself through Jesus by the power of His Spirit, God is in control and death itself can’t stop Him.
Let our joy look like the joy in heaven and may we find ourselves rejoicing in our great God!