Errors of judgment

In a nutshell the bible passages that talk about God’s dealing with Israel in the past like Exodus Chapters 7-12 and Deuteronomy , Jeremiah and Amos being the main ones are past acts and are summed up well by Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. This is the first error, taking what has happened in the past to Israel and applying it to the current worldwide pandemic and making the claim its God.

The second error is taking the prophesies in Revelation about Judgment and bringing that forward into our time. These are easy to refute as there are prerequisites that have not occurred.  No antichrist no beast and no rapture.

Then there are the prophecies of Jesus in Matthew 24:7 and Luke 21:11 – Both of these tell us of a time when we would have “The beginnings of sorrows” This is not given as a judgement of God but rather as a sign of the times. This is likely where we are at now in the biblical timeline. If so then we can expect earthquakes and famines to follow and they will get closer and closer together.

Again note if you are not aware that the bible speaks about Jesus coming back to reign on this Earth from Jerusalem then a lot of scriptures will not make sense. Habakkuk 3:3 is a good example. This is the time when all the nations will come and worship. See Zechariah 14:16-17. Again these bible passages are hijacked into a time reference they were not written for.

Another group of Christians prefers to call coronavirus a “judgment” based on Adam and Eve’s original sin in the garden of Eden. (The fall).

This is quite wrong as they would have to then argue that every disaster or problem that mankind faces is God’s judgment, leaving no room or part to play for world wars or other man made destructive forces such as Hiroshima and no room for the devil to do anything but watch on the sidelines. Otherwise who is deciding what is from God , man or the devil? It really begs the question why use the word judgment in connection to a crisis if this “judgment” is a result of original sin? Didn’t God curse the ground because of Adam so that he had to toil it with hard work. Are they seriously going to replace “curse” for “judgement” everywhere in the bible?

If they are just implying that only “natural” disasters are God’s judgments they have at least two problems to explain. The first is, what’s “natural” and who decides that it’s not a result of man’s tampering with nature. (i.e. Earthquakes caused by underground nuclear testing, Mad made global climate change creating floods and droughts and famines, wet markets or bio labs causing pandemics and man made wars creating famines). Or is it caused by Satan as we see in Isaiah 14:16 “The shaking of the Nations” The second is they have to explain why it falls on some and not others as all are sinners and the “judgment” if they want to call it that, was for all mankind. If you then try and say a particular disaster is judgment for a particular “wrong” then you have gone way beyond the remit of “judgment” for original sin
You cant say its just part of the overall curse working its way out and then say a specific disaster is a judgment for a specific wrong as then you have to say that a specific wrong doer and only that wrong doer is being punished by the judgment. If you claim some people who suffer are just innocent bystanders then you make a mockery of God’s justice. Is the Aberfan disaster God’s judgment?

So now lets turn to our main judgment theorists. They claim judgments today on God’s behalf based on Old testament scriptures some of which we will now examine.

Moses and Pharaoh – The 10 plaques of Egypt found in the book of Exodus Chapters 7-12.

Interesting to note is the fact that some of the plagues affected the Israelites as well as the Egyptians but some were very specific and only afflicted the Egyptians. Most were not of an infectious cause. In fact the only one that could be, is the boils which were not fatal. The death of the firstborn cannot be mimicked by even modern day technology. No pathogen can target just that group and look at door posts and distinguish if lambs blood was there.

So what parallels do they draw? Firstly it wasn’t a pandemic. If you can find a pandemic in the bible please let us know. There were epidemics (local plagues if you like but not global). The flood of Noah’s time was not a pandemic (in the ordinary sense of the word as defined today). Yet again, at that time Noah took 120 years to build the ark. That was 120 years of warning. We will come back to this at some point as the judgment theorists often refer to the flood in connection with our times.

Lets take the Pharaonic plaques for instance. Firstly there were warnings exactly what was to befall Pharaoh and what he had to do to prevent it. These warnings are absent in the current circumstances although many have since jumped onto a bandwagon claiming the current pandemic is retribution for X, Y and Z – you fill in the blanks on what your preferred sin(s) its for.

Top prophetic leaders in the UK have said openly there was no prophetic warning of the pandemic.
Again no parallel to our current pandemic. There was no warning! The Church leaders in this case would be “prophets” but they were all unaware of the coming pandemic. (There have been a few claims since but as we shall see they do not stand up to scrutiny). The only one I have come across that mentioned in 2018 that a virus was coming was Joseph Prince and there is documented proof of what he said in 2018 (Visual recording at a conference) However he claimed the devil was going to send a new virus – a huge difference to blaming God!

Secondly the plaques of Egypt themselves were short lived and aimed at getting Pharaohs’ attention and later his obedience. However there was a distinction in many of the plagues or disasters between Egyptians and the Israelites such that Pharaoh saw that God protected his people. However with the coronavirus it makes no distinction between Christians (who have died – I know personally) and non Christians. What about God’s chosen people – Israel- They have suffered terribly, they haven’t escaped. Abraham says in Gen 18:25 Far be it from You to do such a thing— to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

Thirdly the final disaster afflicted the first born – death – and was administered by God’s destroying angel who made a distinction between Israelites and Egyptians via the blood on the door posts. No virus in the world including coronavirus can do that. Hence the deaths we see in Exodus are quite sudden (merciful) compared to the agonizing, protracted deaths due to Covid-19. Again there is no comparison. I will now turn to the other scriptures some have quoted but this is by far the most popular one used by the “Judgment theorists”. After all it is a theory and they cant prove it but that doesn’t stop them from trying.

Lets now take a look at 2 Chronicles Chapter 7 verse 13,14. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
When quoting scripture, its important we don’t forget the context its in. I remember in the early days of the pandemic in March of 2020 this scripture went viral in a video and even made it to papers like the Daily Express.

So what is the context of this scripture? Whats the big picture? We have to look at what went before and what comes after it. Well we have Solomon, the wisest man to ever live apart from Jesus, having just completed the first Temple in Jerusalem and dedicated it to the Lord, making several prayers in Chapter 6 asking for God to have mercy and forgive the future sins of the people(Israel) which he knew would come. So this is God’s answer to Solomon. Basically repent and humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face etc. This is aimed at Israel but the judgment theorists want us to think this is directed at the Christian Church. If so, the lesson for the Church is to repent and indeed I do see national calls for prayer and repentance and many of these judgment theorists thinking that they have let God down and the world is paying the price now for the Church’s lack of effectiveness in the world today. This is a theme that keeps coming up. So my question to them is if this is applied to today, then surely they and they alone would be the ones punished by the coronavirus but that’s not what we see. We don’t just see Christians hospitalised and dying.

However you look at coronavirus, whether it’s those who have suffered directly by the disease itself or those who have lost jobs or livelihoods or those bereaved of loved ones or just that it falls mainly on the weak in society and the elderly, its seems to me that the coronavirus is not targeting the sins and sinners they think it is. Many anti Christian world leaders are still alive and well. So this scripture just does not fit with what we see and cant be used to support that claim.

Lets move on to other scriptures that have been suggested to support a theory that God has in some way enabled this pandemic.

Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
This does not end at verse 20, read verse 21 and then 27:1-13 especially verse 13 which is still referencing the same day. Does any of that relate to what we see today? in fact verse 13 matches well with the trumpet judgments of revelation. Do you see Assyrians worshiping the Lord in Jerusalem? Its very much like Rev 18:4. Ok Please don’t expect me to believe this verse is in any way related to the pandemic. Do you think lockdown is just for Christians? Do you think we should hide while coronavirus passes by. Who supplies your food and shopping and wages? Some have even twisted this scripture to suggest that it happens from time to time? Even if you read the end of verse 21 – And will no more cover her slain – That is a one time event in my reading.

The shaking of the Nations ! – This is a cry you will hear from many a judgment theorist. Its the softer approach to saying God has sent the virus. They imply it without saying it because who else has shaken the nations? (They should read Isaiah 14:16). They also say, we must admit that the nations have been shaken. Really? lets see how they justify that cry.
Haggai 2:6-7 For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple.
I think the key is in verse 7 when it mentions the temple. There is no temple yet! – there was and there will be but Haggai is speaking about a time when the shaking of the world will be very violent and will affect the heavens and the earth. Every nation will be impacted. If we connect this to what the prophet Isaiah wrote in 24:18-23 and Revelation 16:18 – This will be a shaking that the earth will never recover from. An earthquake that the earth has never seen before that will split the earth in three ways. Isaiah says it will reel like a drunkard in 24:20.
This “shaking” is heralding the coming of the Lord to judge the nations of the earth. I know the Lord is coming soon but a lot takes place before that day of the Lord including one third of the earths trees burning up. Revelation 8:7. – We haven’t seen that yet.
There are many more bible passages referencing this time of shaking but they are all referencing a future event, and I believe it is the same event that heralds that great day of the Lord. In fact if you read Isaiah 14:16 – it references someone who shook the nations and it was not God. The clue is in verse 12 of Isaiah 14.

Habakkuk 3:5 says: Before Him went pestilence, And fever followed at His feet.
There are many bible passages that talk about plagues or pestilences but this is one that I personally have seen used to try to convince folk of the coronavirus being God’s judgment.
Verse 3 sets the context ..His brilliant splendor fills the heavens, and the earth is filled with his praise. – This is definitely referencing a future event as I am not aware that the earth is currently full of His praise (Although I wish it were true today). So without spending too much time on this verse it is not about our time with coronavirus but again relates to an end time judgment event after the beast of revelation has been revealed. (that’s the subject of another article).

We are not saying God never judges. He is the judge of all the earth and He has judged in the past as we have seen with Pharaoh and other old testament passages and will judge again in the future as indicated in Revelations and the bible passages above related to revelations but every time with justice, because ..the Judge of all the earth will do right.