As a student, from time to time I attended the Avenue Road Church in Toronto, where A.W. Tozer had been pastor until he died.
I knew there was a special presence of God in those services long before I knew anything about Tozer.
The last few days one of his incomparable quotations has resurfaced: A frightened world needs a fearless church. I wonder whether he wrote those words during the Cuban missile crisis, which was the last time the world experienced the kind of mass fear gripping it today.
Then there was more reason to fear - a lot more, for we were facing nuclear conflagration and the possible end of the human race.
Part of the reason we’re afraid today is that medical advancements have led us to the conclusion that doctors always have the answer. Until they don’t.
We were nearly there in 2003, when SARS hit Toronto, but it died out with the spring weather. And maybe this will too.
Whatever happens in our current crisis, the Bible tells us that Jesus not only conquered death, but conquered the fear of death.
That is why Christians throughout history have faced plagues head on. In the Antonine plague of the second century and the Cyprian plague of the third century, Christians cared for their sick pagan neighbours long after the civic leaders and physicians had fled town. As a result, Christianity grew. Every hospital in the western world was started by Christians. Spurgeon bravely went from house to house in cholera-stricken London leading the lost to Christ. The fearless Christians of Wuhan went door to door and hospital to hospital delivering supplies when the government that had persecuted them fell down on the job.
This is our hour. This is our opportunity to rise to the occasion and do what we can to help our fellow citizens.
And most of all this is the hour to retain our confidence in the One who alone is the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord of the beginning, the Lord of the end, and the Lord of all that is in between.
In just a few weeks Easter is coming, that day on which we declare to the world our hope in a living Saviour who once and for all destroyed the power of death.
Let’s make this the best Easter in a very long time.
CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH DAVID & ELAINE CAMPBELL IN HELPING TO SUSTAIN THEIR ACTIVE MINISTRY.
AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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