Flu Virus

 

An old story but worth Telling

 The day is over, you are driving home.  You tune in your radio.  You  hear a little blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before.  It's not influenza, but three or four people are dead, and it's kind of interesting, and they're sending some doctors over there to investigate it.

You don't think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot.  Only they say it's not three villagers, it's 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it's on TV that night.  CNN runs a little blurb; people are heading there from the disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.  By Monday morning when you get up, it's the lead story.  For it's not just India; it's Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you're hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as "the mystery flu." The President has made some comment that he and everyone are praying and hoping that all will go well over there.  But

everyone is wondering, how are we going to contain it. That's

when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders.  No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen.  And that's why that night you are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed.  Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman is translated from a French news

program into English:  There's a man lying in a hospital in

Paris dying of the mystery flu.  It has come to Europe.  Panic

strikes.  As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week before you know it.  Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms.  And then you die.  Britain closes it's  borders, but it's too late.  South Hampton, Liverpool, North Hampton, and it's Tuesday morning when the President

of the United States makes the following announcement:  "Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled.  If your loved ones are overseas, I'm sorry.  They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing." Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear.  People are selling little masks for your face.  People are talking about "What if it comes to this country," and preachers on Tuesday are saying, "it's the scourge of God."  It's Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, "Turn on a radio, turn on a radio."  And while the church listens to a little transistor radio

with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made:

Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu.  Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.  People are working  around the clock trying to find an  antidote. Nothing is working. California.  Oregon.  Arizona. Florida.  Massachusetts. It's as though if it's just sweeping in from the  borders.  And then, all of a sudden the news comes out.  The code has  been broken.  A cure can be found.  A vaccine can be made.  It's going to

take the blood of somebody who hasn't been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing:  Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken.  That's  all we ask of you.  When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.

Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that  Friday night, there is a long line, and they've got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it.  Your wife and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say,  "Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home." You stand around, scared, with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on and if this is the end of the world.  Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming.  He's yelling a name and waving a clipboard.  What?  He yells it  again!  And your son tugs on your jacket and says, "Daddy,  that's

me."  Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy.  Wait a minute.  Hold  on!  And they say, "It's okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure.  We want to make sure he doesn't have the disease.  We think he  has got the right type."

Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses,

crying and hugging one another - some are even laughing.  It's the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says,  "Thank you, sir.  Your son's blood type is perfect.  It's clean, it is pure,  and we can make the vaccine." As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.  But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and you wife aside and says,   "May we see you for a moment?  We didn't realize that the donor would be a minor and we need you to sign a consent form."  You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of  blood

to be taken is empty.  "H-h-h-how many pints?"  And that is when  the old doctor's smile fades and he says, "We had no idea it would be a little child.  We weren't prepared.  We need it all!" 

 

"But -- but ... You don't understand. "We are talking about the world here.   Please sign.  We -- we need it all!"  "But can't you give him a transfusion?"  "If we had clean blood we would.  Can you sign?  Would you sign?" In numb  silence, you do.  Then they say, "Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?"  Can you walk back?  Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, "Daddy?  Mommy?  What's going on?"  Can you take his hands and say, "Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything, happen to you that didn't just have to be.  Do you understand that?"

 

And when that old doctor comes back in and says,  "I'm sorry, we've got to get started.  People all over the world are dying."  Can you leave?  Can you walk  out while he is saying, "Dad? Mom?  Dad? Why why have you forsaken me?" And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and some folks sleep through it, and some folks don't even come because they go to the lake, and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just pretend to care.

Would you want to jump up and say, "MY SON DIED!  DON'T YOU CARE?"

Is that what GOD wants to say?  "MY SON DIED.  DON'T YOU KNOW HOW  MUCH I CARE?"

 

Now the real story.

Gen. 3 the infection begins.  Adam and Eve Sin.

 1Jo 3:4 ¶ Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

Adam and Eve violate God's law. Ge 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Not that they died right then but because of the sin they began to die.

 Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

 

God has a plan for the an antidote for sin.Gen.3:15  but the world is not ready for it yet.  However the infection becomes so bad that it is destroying everything.

God's solution to slow down the infection rate - the flood.

Gen. 6:11-13

 

Again the infection of sin is great but the world still is not ready for the antidote.  Hence the law is given. Much like a drug to slow down the infection in a few. A treatment for a few but no cure

 

 Ga 3:19 ¶ Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.Babylon 70 years - hardship & miricals - built fatih

 Joh 1:17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Rom. 6:23

God gave his son his only son for our sin.  John 3:16-17

He bore our sins, by his blood we are healed.

Mat. 27:38-46

How can we ignore his memorial?How is it that we can ignore his gospel. ?

2Thes. 2:9

If you had a deadly flu virus and there was a vaccine that would heal you would take the shot...how is that we have a sin virus that kills and will not aminister the cure....Baptism is how it is ministered.

Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21; Rom. 6:3-4 &17-18

 

3/26/00 BC