“The Fall and the Hope”
A Biblical Response to the Coronavirus [on screen]
Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD
First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida
March 22, 2020
Introductory Comments:
Well, it’s a joy to join you all in worship this morning, both in-person and via video.
Please be patient with us as we continue to try and navigate these uncharted waters for our church. Also, please be in prayer for our church as we continue to seek God’s guidance and the good of our church family.
I’ve had a few questions that emerged over the last couple of weeks concerning the coronavirus.
One of our deacons asked me, “What does this mean biblically?”
Also, one of my sons asked, “Why did God create the coronavirus?”
Well, today, we’re going to look at the Bible for the answer to questions like these. Let’s seek God during this time and, specifically, let’s seek God in His Word.
Before we do, let’s seek God through prayer.
(prayer)
Well, how do we deal with the reality of things like the coronavirus? What about the reality of cancer, or murder, or catastrophic natural disasters? Well, let’s examine the Word of God together.
First, let’s learn that . . .
I. Sin brought the Fall and it messed up everything. [on screen]
You know, initially, when God created everything in this world it was good. In fact, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31 says, “31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. [on screen]
Well, there are some things in the world that are not good. The coronavirus is not good, so what happened?
Genesis 3 explains how things in the world became not good. We refer to this event as the Fall. This was not only the fall of mankind, but the fall of the earth as God created it.
Let’s check out Genesis 3 to understand what is going on:
Genesis 3
1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”
And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
16 He said to the woman:
I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children with painful effort.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.
17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and a
