Why did this happen? (Covid 19)
Matthew 5:44-46 (NKJV)
… for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The question in the title of this post, is a question, that mankind has asked individually and corporately throughout history.
Individually, things befall humans, that are common to all.
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to ‘happenings’.
There are things that everyone has similarly experienced somewhere on the planet, in the past, present, or future. Good things and bad things.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
In other words everybody, whether they are the so called – good bad or ugly – experience the rain and the sunshine.
The natural elements are there for everyone to either enjoy or try to escape.
If we were to go out in the sun and not make provision for the coming storm, we end up soaked to the skin, and returning home, may well (as we shiver into the shower) ask: “Why did this happen to me?”
Pretty obvious answer – ‘you went out…’
Often the ‘reaping what we sowed’ principle clearly decides what happens.
Romans 6/
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
The younger or older person went out and fired the alcohol into their bodies and now are falling about the place, and experience a hangover the next morning.
“How did this happen to me?”
Pretty obvious answer – you sowed what you sowed and reaped the consequences.
In the beginning, in a paradisiacal garden, mankind rebelled and stopped believing and obeying what God said and reaped the consequences, through choices made.
Genesis 3:3
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Genesis 2:17
…she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Mankind sowed disobedience and unbelief, and reaped the fall.
In the biblical story of Job, he did everything right. But eventually disaster came into his life.
What!!?
Surely then – what is the point of being righteous?
Job 1:1
[ Job and His Family in Uz ] There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.
He reaped what he didn’t deserve – did he not?
On the surface in the realm of face value – he reaped what he did not sow. Or conversely, he stopped reaping the blessing of what he did sow. (Read the book for the whole story)
He sowed righteousness or right living, was pleasing to God, and reaped God’s enablement and blessing. Then low and behold he reaped what he didn’t sow.
“Agh!” some say – “but God was testing him”. Can’t argue with that, he certainly was having his faith tested – that, we can safely conclude.
In the book of Job, there is a big emphasis on wrongly accusing the creator. Job was conscious of this and made the necessary sacrifices perchance his sons had done so, i.e. ‘cursed God’ or wrongly accused Him.
5 So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly.
His wife after their initial family disasters – (to arrest a modern phrase) – that through material and family loss ‘put them on the street’, was also conscious of the choice to ‘curse God’.
Especially when the devil touched Job’s physical person, she was up for her husband taking the ‘curse God and die’ option.
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
In all that befell Job, he did not choose this option.
He couldn’t understand it all and simply put, was questioning “Why did this happen to me?”.
Paraphrasing in summary: ’I am not reaping the continued blessing I have experienced up to now. My uprightness and integrity intact, and this happens? What’s this all about?’
Paul the apostle, as it were, shouts back down through the ages to Job and forward to us, and says:
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God..?
So we are all – as we say colloquially in my culture: ‘A beaten docket’, when it comes to questioning God and His unsearchable ways.
NB: [a beaten docket is a piece of paper a betting person has to enable them to lift their winnings after having bet on a winning horse. Therefore a beaten docket is proof they bet on a losing horse..]
In other words we cannot reply against the judgement of, or divine reasoning behind, the works of God.
Romans 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
We are a beaten docket when it comes to speaking against or being displeased with God:
Proverbs 21:29-31 (NKJV)
There is no wisdom or understanding
Or counsel against the Lord.
So that leaves us with blind acceptance then?
Yes and no.
God looks for trust above all, regardless of what befalls us.
When we can see no light at the end of the tunnel. Our only option is to have God Himself, as our all in all. That’s faith.
It isn’t blind because God reveals Himself clearly in the person of Jesus Christ The Lord. We can know Him, and know the character of Him in whom we have believed. Follow Him!
God does reveal things in His time. At the end of the book of Job, he was replenished one hundred fold. He was made to understand, and was healed.
But for a period of time, he saw no light at the end of the tunnel.
The three men who went into the fiery furnace, had (one could say) the perfect attitude of faith and love for God, when whether they were delivered or not, was not the issue.
Daniel 3:16-18 King James Version (KJV)
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
Whether they were pleasing to God or not was the issue for them.
The most important thing, was making sure by faith that they would be in God’s hands, the One who joined them in the furnace.
Hebrews 11/6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Is Covid 19 falling on the just and the unjust?
Now we begin, (Christian believer and unbeliever alike), to use our intellect to reason the why’s and wherefore’s of the world’s dilemma.
Stop there!
We use our intellects, – exactly.
‘After all’ – our intellects reason: ‘What else have we got to use?”
Surely we cannot abandon reason? Certainly not. But we must see it’s limitations, and allow humility to become our choice before The Almighty. Let’s take on God’s reasoning (Bible).
There is no room for self-satisfied pride about the advancements mankind has made, when a virus puts the world, into shutdown.
The helplessness and imperfections of man, come clearly into full view.
We are to affirm only what we know of the divine counsel, and don’t accuse God wrongly, about things we do not easily get a handle on, when it comes to “Why?” questions.
But consider also the stench that has been arising to His ‘nostrils’, and has been for years, regarding the rebellious behaviour of a morally corrupt mankind.
Consider also that the ‘what we sow we reap’ principle will always operate.
Turning away from the Only Living and True God in increasing measure and mankind will suffer the consequences in increasing measure.
However if we seek Him in our hour of need he says:…and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.(KJV)
Acts 16:31
So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
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