Leadership Thought: Advice from Luther and Spurgeon on How to Deal with Pandemics.

Dear Friends

We have recently surpassed the grim 100,000 mark of corona virus deaths as was predicted a month ago by those in the medical field. In the past century we have witnessed the Spanish Flu, (1918-19) the Asian Flu, (1957-58),  the Hong Kong flu, (1968), and SARS (2003), and now the Covid 19 epidemic.
Our world is no stranger to disease. In the 1300’s the Black Plague killed almost half of Europe’s population. 200 years later the plague reemerged in Martin Luther’s own town of Wittenberg. Luther expressed advice to pastors and  church members that is worth reading to those of us who are living though our corona virus pandemic. He writes “All of us have the responsibility of warding off the poison to the best of our ability because God has commanded us to care for the body……..I shall ask God to mercifully protect us…I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and to cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, He will surely find me, and I have done what He has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely.”

The famous London preacher Charles Spurgeon also faced a cholera pandemic that ravaged his nation in 1854. He writes in his autobiography. “If there ever was a time when the mind is sensitive, it is when death is abroad. I recollect, when first I came to London, how anxiously people listened to the gospel, for the cholera was raging terribly. There was little scoffing then.”

“In the year 1854, when I had scarcely been in London twelve months, the neighborhood in which I labored was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congregation suffered from its inroads. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave.”

I went home, and was soon called away again; that time, to see a young woman. She also was in the last extremity, but it was a fair, fair sight. She was singing-though she knew she was dying,-and talking to those around her, telling her brothers and sisters to follow her to Heaven, bidding goodbye to her father, and all the while smiling as if it had been her marriage day. She as happy and blessed.”

He discusses how at one point he grew discouraged by seeing so many people die at the hands of the plague. He writes “I felt my burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it.” 

Returning home from a funeral he read the following handwritten words in the window of an area shop. ‘Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.’ He wrote how those verses provided him with marvelous power and how they caused him to cry out, ‘I adore the Lord my God.’

In 1866 as few years after the cholera outbreak he gave this charge to pastors and all Christians. “And now, again, is the minister’s time and now is the time for all of you who love souls. You may see men more alarmed than they are already; and if they should be, mind that you avail yourselves of the opportunity of doing good. You have the Balm of Gilead; when their wounds smart, pour it in. You know of Him who died to save; tell them of Him. Lift high the cross before their eyes. Tell of Calvary, and its groans, and cries, and sweat of blood. Tell them of Jesus hanging on the cross to save sinners………………. Tell them that He is able to save to the uttermost all of them that come unto God by Him. Tell them that He is able to save at the eleventh hour, and to say to the dying thief, ‘today shall thou be with me in paradise.’”

Spurgeon’s challenge is our challenge today. Let us also minister to the hurts and pain  of others while always looking for the opportunity to share with them the glorious good news of how Christ came to save and offer them eternal life.

Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget to ask God to show you how you can show His love to someone who needs hope and encouragement during this challenging time. I would love to hear how you ministered. 

Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
PS All quotes are taken from Nelson Searcy’s Renegade Pastor Newsletter, April 20, 2020,  pp 5-8