Last Friday, May 25, Andrew Speaker, became the first person in 44 years to be placed under quarantine in the United States.
Andrew was on his honeymoon in Italy when he was notified by the CDC that the particular strain of TB that he had been diagnosed with was especially drug-resistant and extremely contagious.
He was told to turn himself in to the proper authorities immediately for treatment and containment.
He was especially told, “Not to fly”.
But instead of going to the hospital, Andrew and his bride took a series of flights until they ended up in Canada.
They drove into the United States where the border guard, who is now on leave pending an investigation, assumed that the computer warning that popped up on Andrew was a “discretionary” warning.
Andrew refused to be separate from healthy people and in doing so he put many people in a serious health risk.
The strange thing is, Andrew is a personal injury attorney.
Just wait, he’s gonna be sued by dozens and dozens of people – even if they don’t get sick, because of the emotional trauma that they have been put through as they have undergone testing and isolation.
Even more interestingly, Andrew’s new father-in-law works for the CDC investigating TB cases.
How would you feel if you had been seated next to Andrew on the plane that delivered him across the Atlantic into Montréal?
And yet you are daily exposed to do something that is far more dangerous than TB.
Every day you are exposed to something that has the ability – even the will – to destroy not only your life, but everyone around you.
You’ve been exposed to something so dangerous - it has the desire to destroy your church.
In fact, what you are exposed to on a daily basis not only wants your life and the life of your children, the life of your church, it wants your soul.
Since the fall of Adam and Eve sin has infected and poisoned the human race.
Sin has poisoned the human culture; it has poisoned the way we think, we way we act and the way we live.
Everything in this creation has been touched and affected in a negative way by sin.
Our American culture has been infected by sin.
The evil that infects the world will affect the church to some degree.
The attitudes of the world will try to invade the church.
We live in the world; we interact with the world.
We touch this world that has become sickened by the inflections of sin.
That infection is constantly trying to find its way into the church.
Unfortunately, it is getting into many churches and is causing spiritual infections, sicknesses, and many times, death.
We are careful about physical infections, but have little concern for the spiritual ones?