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faith, not fear, is to
be the response of Christians - we need to stand strong on our Lord, the rock,
and offer direction for the lost who are on shifting sands - when the world is
in a panic, it needs a Church which is rock solid, offering very real hope and
a way forward
CultureWatch
Bill Muehlenberg's
commentary on issues of the day...
COULD it be his
judgment? Yes, it could be.
But certainly, it
should help to wake us all up as to some important truths: life is short; we
will all one day meet our maker; and we need to get our priorities right.
Both biblical and
secular history can be of great help in times of crisis:
As always, having an
understanding of history can be extremely helpful, especially in dark times.
Understanding that
our current situation is not all that unique, and that there is much that we
can learn from what has gone before is certainly of value.
This is not our first
pandemic, and if the Lord should tarry, it likely will not be our last.
There we find this
basic truth: God can and does often use something like plague and pestilence as
an instrument of his judgment. The passages on this are many.
We all know of Exodus
7-12 of course which gives us the account of the ten plagues Yahweh sent on the
Egyptians.
But
well before this God was also afflicting the Egyptians, as Genesis 12:17
states: “But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues
because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.”
There are many more
such passages. Here are a few of them:
Exodus
32:35 – “Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the
calf, the one that Aaron made.”
Numbers
11:33 – ”While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed,
the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down
the people with a very great plague.”
Numbers
14:37 – “the men who brought up a bad report of the land — died by plague
before the Lord.”
Numbers
16:46 – “And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, and put fire on it from
off the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation
and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague
has begun.”
Deuteronomy
32:23-24 – “And I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on
them; they shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured by plague and poisonous
pestilence;”
2
Chronicles 21:14 – “behold, the Lord will bring a great plague on your
people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions,”
Psalm
106:29 – “they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague
broke out among them.”
Hosea
13:14 – “I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them
from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes.”
Habakkuk
3:4-6 – “His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his hand; and
there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at
his heels. He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then
the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were
the everlasting ways.”
Revelation
9:18 – “By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire
and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.”
Revelation
15:1 – “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels
with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is
finished.”
Revelation
16:21 – “And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from
heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the
plague was so severe.”
A few things can be
said about such passages. One, these are just some verses of many that could be
mentioned here.
Two, note that it is
not just pagans who can be subject to the judgment of God via plagues – God’s
people can also be the recipients.
Three, thus far,
despite some very severe plagues, mankind has persevered. The plagues mentioned
in Revelation however may be the final ones.
Four, and most
importantly, I am NOT saying that coronavirus is the judgment of God.
But certainly, it should help to wake us all up as to
some important truths: life is short; we will all one day meet our maker; and
we need to get our priorities right.
Let me return to
history. The past few thousand years of human history also offer us lessons to
be learned about plagues.
They have hit us hard
in the past, but life did go on. In an earlier piece I mentioned the Black
Death of the mid-1300s: billmuehlenberg.com/2020/03/14/coronavirus-christianity-history-and-faith/
That was indeed a
killer plague. Anywhere from a third to a half of all of Europe’s population
perished in that outbreak.
To help us get some
perspective on coronavirus, and to see what transpired back then, consider
these descriptions that I have taken from Philip Schaff’s 8-volume History of
the Christian Church.
I had read all 7000
pages of this great work decades ago while a missionary in Holland.
I just now pulled out
volume 6 and reread what he had to say about the great plague. Here are some
intriguing excerpts:
During Clement’s
pontificate, 1348-1349, the Black Death swept over Europe from Hungary to
Scotland and from Spain to Sweden, one of the most awful and mysterious
scourges that has ever visited mankind. It was reported by all the chroniclers
of the time, and described by Boccaccio in the introduction to his novels….
In describing the
virulence of the infection, a contemporary said that one sick person was
sufficient to infect the whole world. The patients lingered at most a day or
two.
Boccaccio witnessed
the progress of the plague as it spread its ravages in Florence. Such measures
of sanitation as were then known were resorted to, such as keeping the streets
of the city clean and posting up elaborate rules of health. Public religious
services and processions were appointed to stay death’s progress….
The mortality was
appalling. The figures, though they differ in different accounts, show a vast
loss of life. A large per cent of the population of Western Europe fell before
the pestilence.
Nor was the papal
city on the Rhone exempt. Nine cardinals, 70 prelates, and 17,000 males
succumbed….
No class was immune
except in England, where the higher classes seem to have been exempt. The clergy
yielded in great numbers, bishops, priests, and monks. At least one archbishop
of Canterbury, Bradwardine, was carried away by it….
Bishops found cause
in this neglect to enjoin their priests to preach on the resurrection of the
body as one of the tenets of the Catholic Church, as did the bishop of
Winchester.
In spite of the vast
mortality, many of the people gave themselves up without restraint to revelling
and drinking from tavern to tavern and to other excesses, as Boccaccio reports
of Florence.
In England, it is
estimated that one-half of the population, or 2,500,000 people, fell victims to
the dread disease….
The English king
prorogued parliament. The disaster that came to the industries of the country
is dwelt upon at length by the English chroniclers. The soil became “dead,” for
there were no laborers left to till it….
Hopefully all that
gives us at least some perspective on our current crisis.
Sure, it is early
days with corona, and we do not know with any certainty how long it will last
and how much worse it will get.
But we can keep in
mind that horrific pandemics have occurred before, and mankind has survived.
And that leads me to
a final point. Christians believe that God is sovereign, that he is working out
his purposes, and that he does know when this current world will come to an
end.
Coronavirus has not
caught him by surprise, and he knows when and how things will be wrapped up on
planet earth.
He also knows all
about each and every single one of us, with even the very hairs on our heads
being numbered.
And he knows our
appointed times. When it is time for us to leave this world, it will be
according to his schedule, and not fate.
Sure, these are
terrible times and I am not seeking to make light of all this.
As others have said,
when the world is in a panic, it needs a church which is rock solid, offering
very real hope and a way forward.
We need to stand
strong on our Lord, the rock, and offer direction for the lost who are on
shifting sands.
During this time of
crisis Christians need to be at the forefront of leading the way in how we are
to live.
And as we do this, we
need to be praying for our leaders, such as Trump in America, Morrison in
Australia, and so on. They need divine help and wisdom right now as they seek
to steer us through all this.
Two passages are
worth closing with here:
Psalm
23:4 – “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Philippians
4:6-7 – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus.”
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