(This article is written in the knowledge that there is a broad range of opinion amongst evangelical Christians on the coronavirus and on how society should react to it. It is therefore offered for consideration in a humble and deferential manner – and in a spirit of brotherly love).
Britain is in desperate need of spiritual direction. Liberal secularism has fashioned the national mindset in such a way that responses to national crises are now totally different in character to, say, those which prevailed during World War Two.
Let us examine the current response to the coronavirus in the light of how the nation once dealt with the affliction of war. Covid-19 has, in fact, exposed the deep spiritual void in our contemporary national life; whereas during the Second World War, although the nation’s spiritual condition was far from thriving, there was still a general acceptance of the concept of God’s providence overruling in the affairs of men.
So, faced with a powerful enemy in the form of Nazi Germany, society understood that military might and strategy were not the only answers, but that there was also a need to seek the aid of the Almighty, He who determined the outcome of wars. Even the politicians publicly acknowledged this. As a result, the war witnessed no less than 12 national days of prayer, all widely supported throughout the land – and this revealed that society still broadly appreciated the words of Psalm 20:7 – “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God”.
All in a matter of a few weeks, a virulent virus spreads over the globe. The pandemic Coronavirus – Covid 19 – has caused widespread disruption in every nation it has visited, many are calling these ‘unprecedented times’, times when the medical services have been stretched, often beyond capacity, in terms of hospital beds, staff and equipment. The price of oil, man’s liquid gold, has for the first time in its history reached negative territory. To add to these calamities the world’s economies are in danger of a great, possibly the greatest, recession ever.
When the Bible, the Word of the Living God, in the book of Amos speaks of the “lion roaring”; what does this mean? It means that God by The Lord Jesus Christ who is also called in Scripture “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah”, has roared out a warning to the inhabitants of the earth. How? By His acts of Providence in temporal judgements, we may say chastisements. Amos which speaks much of these Divine acts declares: “the lion has roared, who will not fear?”
It should be remembered that Almighty God who has sent out this warning holds in the hollow of His Hand all His creation and all events be they great or small. Lest any should ascribe these things to chance or the ‘natural way of things’, He asks by Amos: “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” The Puritans in the time of the black death had no doubt as to who had sent such a plague!
Many, including the Prime Minister, have likened the current coronavirus pandemic to the crisis faced by the nation in World War 2.
There is certainly one key area where at the present time we would do well to emulate what happened during the wartime years, and that is in respect of a corporate turning to God by means of national days of prayer.
In WW2, as various crises and turning points came into being, some 12 national days of prayer were held. This was reflecting an historic and long established tradition in which between 1535 and 1939 this country had conducted no less than 536 such occasions of public prayer and ‘humiliation’ in respect of national calamities, including outbreaks of plague and cholera and poor harvests.
During the course of the Second World War Britain was very dependent upon the importation of food by sea in order to feed the population. It was more than ever vital that the nation grew as much of its own food as possible. Christians were therefore praying that He would mightily bless the produce of the fields. The harvest in 1942 in fact brought forth one of the most abundant yields on record, so much so that the then Minister of Agriculture, R. S. Hudson, on the BBC News of October 10th, openly attributed the harvest to the intervention of the Trinitarian God in answering the people’s prayers.
ADOLF Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. On May 4, at Luneberg Heath in Lower Saxony, representatives of the armed forces of the Third Reich went to General Montgomery’s headquarters and signed a paper accepting the Allies’ terms of unconditional surrender. The German delegation was led by Generaladmiral von Friedeburg, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy.
On May 8, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the Speaker of the House of Commons and requested that the House adjourn in order to cross the road to St Margaret’s Church to give thanks to God for the rescuing of the nation. Later that day King George VI went out on to the balcony of Buckingham Palace and again offered thanks to the Lord, as he addressed the crowds in front of him.
That same evening the King further addressed the nation, and concluded his speech stating, ‘In the hour of danger we humbly committed our cause into the hand of God and He has been our strength and shield. Let us thank Him for His mercies and in this hour of victory commit ourselves and our new task to the guidance of that same strong hand.’
Not even viruses occur outside of the providence of God
Regarding the national and indeed worldwide calamity of the coronavirus, this pandemic must be viewed as a call to the nation to humble itself before the Trinitarian God who controls the advent of all diseases. We must as a people cry out to the Lord in prayer, for He is able to deliver us, both on an individual and a national level.
Believers in Christ experience God’s special protection in their physical and material affairs, as well as in matters of the soul. This is clearly taught in Matthew 6:33, and in Psalm 91:1 we are told that believers
“dwell in the secret place of the most High … (and) abide under the shadow of the Almighty”.
The ‘secret place’ and the shadow’ speak of the special protection which the Lord is able to grant to those who honour Him even in times of common calamity. This of course is not to say that Christians will not contract diseases or suffer the negative effects of a widespread affliction along with all other people – we all live in the same fallen world – but the difference is that believers always remain under God’s special providential care. This gives them a security and a peace of mind which those outside of God’s kingdom simply do not possess.
Most of the research for this article was done in 2019 before there was any sign of a global emergency. During his research, the author often wondered why he felt the Lord’s leading in this way. Now that the Lord’s mighty hand has been revealed upon the nations through this present coronavirus pandemic, the author is burdened in the fear of the Lord to publish this article. The author’s prayerful desire is that it may be an encouragement and a help to the Lord’s people at this time of chastening and judgment upon an ungodly world.
Chippenham, UK, 31 March 2020
Copyright – I A Sadler, 2020
The author gives permission (indeed encouragement) for this article to be copied freely, provided it is not altered in any way.
The Hand of God Manifest
“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” (2 Peter 2 v 9) “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3 v 7) These scriptures bear particularly upon the events that began at Pentecost on the Lord’s Day morning 8th June 1783. A godly man who was an eyewitness wrote: “In clear and calm weather, a black haze of sand appeared to the north of the mountains nearest the farms of the Síða area. The cloud was so extensive that in a short time it had spread over the entire Síða area and part of Fljótshverfi as well, and so thick that it caused darkness indoors and coated the earth so that tracks could be seen. The powder which fell to earth looked like the burnt ash from hard coal. … A southeasterly sea breeze drove the dark cloud back inland later that day so that, like other clergymen here, I was able to celebrate the day with religious services under clear skies. The joy of those celebrations was turned to sorrow soon enough. That night strong earthquakes and tremors occurred.”
These were just the beginnings in southern Iceland of one of the greatest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. The scale of the Laki eruption is almost unimaginable; the eruption lasted for eight months and a giant fissure (crack in the earth’s crust) opened that was 17 miles long, from which issued fountains of lava that reached up to 4500 ft high and floods of lava that covered 230 square miles, much of which was inhabited farmland. Part of the eruption occurred under the Vatnajökull icecap, resulting in massive glacial floods for nearly two years. Vast emissions of sulphur and fluorides poisoned the air, water courses and the pasture land. Great rivers that issued from behind the mountains through canyons dried up, only to be replaced by floods of fiery lava that consumed all in their path. Often, the land in front of the lava exploded and was torn apart, whilst day and night continual lightning, thunder claps and tornados further terrified the local people. Outside of Iceland, a choking sulphurous haze arrived in parts of Europe during the unusually hot summer of 1783. Trees lost their fruit, crops failed and many fell sick and died. This led many to believe that Armageddon had come. The winters that followed the eruption were exceptionally cold and harsh, with worldwide climatic changes. In Iceland itself the majority of the cattle died and one fifth of the country’s population died of disease and famine. The total death toll in Europe alone has been estimated in the many hundreds of thousands.
We respect and honour Her Majesty the Queen, but we feel that her broadcast to the nation given on April 5th 2020 involved some unhelpful elements and regrettable omissions.
Her Majesty said, “The pride in who we are is not a part of our past”. We courteously refute this statement. Every generation only builds upon the ones which have gone before. We cannot just ignore what we used to be. In particular, we cannot cast aside as belonging to the past the enormous benefit which Biblical Christianity has brought to our history, culture and civilisation. In this context it is pertinent to remember Deuteronomy 32:7,
“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee” (Deuteronomy 32:7).
The Queen stated, “If we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome (the crisis)”. This is an appeal to human solidarity as the ultimate solution to the pandemic. This is theologically erroneous.
The CRE (Christian Resources Exhibition) took place at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey between 15th and 17th October, 2019 and the Lord mightily blessed and answered prayer as those manning the stall had to stand for 8 hours or more each day in order to deal with a steady stream of enquirers.
Many people visited the stall and appreciated the vast array of literature on display, including Gospel tracts and pamphlets written by Bishop J.C. Ryle (the first Protestant Bishop of Liverpool) and many of the old Divines. The stall was adorned with banners portraying Huss (on the left), Luther (in the centre) and Tyndale (on the right), which created much comment. 300 British Church Newspapers were distributed, together with 300 calendars (with Gospel texts) and 300 Christian Watch newsletters, incorporating application forms to join with us. The leaflet — ‘D-day and the Providence of God’ — written by Christian Watch Committee Member, Rev. Peter Simpson, attracted considerable interest.
There was — as there always will be — many who call themselves Christian, who clearly have little understanding of the things of God but, nevertheless, the banner of the Lord was lifted up to His honour and glory and we give Him all the praise.
There’s a painful truth that glares out to us from this beautiful text and that is this – sin must be cleansed. But not just any old sin, it is our personal sin that needs to be cleansed. The blood cleanses “us” from all sin! Since our sin needs to be cleansed, it must, therefore, be filthy and polluted, but more than that, without this cleansing we are left filthy and polluted. It’s a painful picture, isn’t it?
There is a tendency today to forget just how horribly wretched sin is. We’ve dulled our spiritual senses so much that we cease to see sin as being what the Bible says it is, “exceeding sinful” (Rom 7:13). What a choice of words! “Exceeding sinful.” God, wanting to call sin by the worst of words could have called it vile or wretched or any number of names, yet He chose to call it by its own name “sin”. Literally, sin is heinous beyond all measure. When a person begins to see how ruinous and awful sin is and at the same time to see just how holy God is, it is then that they begin to wonder whether or not they, as polluted sinners, could ever meet the all-holy God in peace. It is only when we see these two things – our utter pollution by sin and the absolute holiness of God – that the Gospel begins to make any sense. Indeed, unless we see these things we will have a very low notion of the Lord Jesus and His saving work. Furthermore, our life will not be filled with Gospel wonder and astonishment concerning Him.
Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.
Psalm 60:4
Banners, standards and ensigns, are given to armies by their commanders as a central point around which the troops may rally and be encouraged.
A banner is furled when there is no battle, or when the army is beaten, or has capitulated in abject surrender; so too when the banner is captured; defeat is usually not far away.
Whatever the state of the battle, the army always endeavours to keep its banner aloft and unfurled unto the very end. If the standard bearer is killed, then another takes his place, for it is a sign that the battle is still being fought and that they are a force to be reckoned with.
Moreover the banner unfurled signifies in whose name and for which cause the battle is raging. Worldly battles may be fought under despotic and wicked rulers; while opposing armies under their own banners fight against these tyrants.
