What is God saying in the Coronavirus ?
- Guy Willcock
- Apr 8, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: May 2, 2020
Call 333 (Jeremiah 33:3)
It would be arrogant and wrong of me to answer the above question with a list and definitive statements about the mind of God, however one thing that I am certain God would be calling us to do is pray. This would seem especially important if as I shared in my last VLOG (25/03/20) we truly believe Jesus has all power and authority and he has delegated power and authority to his believers.
If you do not believe in Jesus as King of the Universe and Lord of your life then I would still encourage you to support us in prayer - we see in Jonah 1:6 non-believers who were in a desperate situation putting their hope in God.
Jeremiah 33:3 makes it very clear that prayer is something God invites (some would say commands) us to do all the time, not just when we are in times of trouble.
You may have read this week of people who have had powercuts, limits in bandwidth for streaming films or information through the internet, crashes in mobile networks as so many stay at home and therefore increased strain put on energy and communication providers.
As a means of communication, prayer is unbeatable! We can pray anywhere we want to - even from the belly of a fish, and at anytime that we want to.
Even during the Coronavirus many of us may be making phone calls, sending emails or text messages more than we are praying. Surely we need to be praying more ?
If we look at the context of Jeremiah 33:3, where God calls us to pray, we see some very interesting parallels with the culture of the time and the crisis we currently face.
Firstly, the two preceding verses (33:1-2):
Jeremiah was confined in his physical space (actually imprisoned) just as we are confined to our homes.
The first time God spoke to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 32:27) he confirmed to him what Jeremiah had already declared i.e. Nothing is too hard for God (32:17). Then when God spoke again in Jeremiah 33:2 he showed us that he has authority over all creation.
In other words, God spoke to Jeremiah to remind him that nothing is impossible for God.
If Jesus who is God has all authority in Heaven and on earth, which I believe the bible clearly shows us, then why is this virus still running rampant. Couldn’t Jesus just wipe it out?
Jeremiah could have asked similar questions of God
Why am I imprisoned?
Why am I suffering and why have you allowed a fatal disease (Jeremiah 32:24) to come against the people?
Jeremiah you see had been obedient to God but still suffered the consequences of others sin, just as all of us alive today can at times suffer the consequences of this fallen world , either directly at the hand of others or indirectly by viruses or natural disasters. I only heard yesterday of a great man of God, who I had the privilege of meeting briefly a few times, whose body succumbed and died to the Coronavirus.
As we cry out to God for intervention in this current pandemic, it is worth seeing other parallels with the culture at the time of Jeremiah, these include:
A perceived absence of God’s goodness in the situation
A situation that seems hopeless for the people
Many corpses all around
Idolatry, immorality, injustice in the world
On the last point I have to confess I have been at times in the past guilty of them all;
Idolatry – putting something else before God, for me that sometimes in the past can be comfort over trusting God for an answer i.e. my comfort has more worth than me using my life to glorify God.
Immorality – Jesus tells us that anyone who holds (it is not wrong to be angry) anger in his heart is guilty of murder in their heart (see Matthew 5:21-22 and 1 John 3:15). I have held grudges and allowed bitterness to develop – have you?
Injustice – To my shame in the past I have passed judgement on others and spoken to them in an ungracious way – how about you?
I am not saying God has caused the Coronavirus , from my previous VLOG this is clear, or that this is God’s judgement against SIN (unlike in the book of Jeremiah where God in his wrath allowed enemies of God’s people to rise up against them and strike them down -Jeremiah 33:5).
However, just as God got peoples attention at that time, he has our attention now.
For the people at the time to receive the promises of God stated in Jeremiah 33:6 i.e. to bring health and healing, they had to put their trust in God, (Jeremiah 39:18). This is why God said to them:
Jeremiah 33:3
3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
We need to call to him and put our Trust in Jesus as we approach Good Friday remembering that God took his anger for our SINs (such as immorality, idolatry and injustice) himself in the form of his son Jesus ( God incarnate) on the cross. As I shared in my last VLOG Jesus disarmed all powers and authorities (Colossians 2:15) on the cross. Maybe then the unsearchable things will be the discovery of a miracle vaccine or the virus will no longer penetrate our bodies – the Hebrew word for unsearchable (or mighty as some translations record) can be translated as impenetrable e.g. used in the context of fortified cities. Please God give us immune systems that the virus cannot penetrate!!
People may have thought that Satan had defeated Jesus but on the third day (Easter Sunday) Jesus rose (1 Corinthians 15:4) defeating death.
Therefore, I would encourage us all on Easter Sunday to pray together and cry out to God and put a picture of an empty tomb with the numbers 333 and Jeremiah 33:3 as a reference in our windows. An example of such a picture can be seen in my youtube clip -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGcRTUC768Q
(The empty tomb Image is accessible at [1] )
[1] https://us.123rf.com/450wm/tanyasid/tanyasid1902/tanyasid190200009/118627975-stock-illustration-empty-tomb-with-shroud-crucifixion-at-sunrise-illustration-.jpg?ver=6
Comments