In a message on Sunday, Pastor David Jeremiah questioned the biblical implications of COVID-19 as a sign of biblical prophecy.
“Is there a connection between COVID-19 and the End Times?” Jeremiah, pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, asked in his Sunday sermon, according to The Christian Post.
“Are we living in the last days before the return of Jesus Christ?” he questioned.
“Is all that is happening to us at this moment a sign that the world is coming to an end? How do we know if the coronavirus is a sign?”
The founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries defined a “biblical sign” as an “event or a symbol or an object or a place, or a person whose existence indicates something important on God’s plan for the future.”
While he affirmed Jesus’ words of future signs, Jeremiah also acknowledged that Jesus said no one knows the “day or hour” of His return.
“If someone tells you they know when Jesus is coming back,” he said, “you can tell them absolutely that’s not possible.”
Jeremiah then points to six signs indicated by Jesus to determine “if we’re in that time.”
The signs include deception by false Christs, disputes and warfare among nations, deliverance of believers to tribulation, the defection of false believers and the declaration of the Gospel to the whole world.
“Is this a sign of the Second Coming of Christ? I cannot say with any sense of certainty that it is. But neither can I say with any certainty that it is not. It could be the early evidence of number three on Jesus’ sign list, the coming of pestilence,” Jeremiah urged.
Jesus refers to what will happen at the end of the age as a “pestilence” (Luke 21:11).
According to Merriam Webster, pestilence is defined as a “contagion or infectious epidemic that is virulent and devastating.”
“That’s a pretty good description of what’s going on right now,” Jeremiah said.
“Jesus said this pestilence would arrive like ‘birth pains,’” he continued. “This means that it will increase in frequency and intensity in the time leading up to His return.”
He added that increased future outbreaks will “impact more people, and be more deadly. This is what the coronavirus threatens to do.”
Source: Christian Headlines
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