6. Head & Heart Christian ‘Waiters’ Psalm 62:11-12

Text: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee.  Wherefore (a conclusion) I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:5-6.

          “Therefore also NOW, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.  Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?”

Joel 2:12-14.

Good morning, Christian ‘waiter’ in time of apparent Global plague!  In all my 75 years upon this earth, thirty-two as a sinful, unsaved worldling; and forty-three years as a redeemed, born-again Christian - Pastor, Missionary, and Bible Expositor/Teacher – I have NEVER seen a more serious and deadly plague, virus, pestilence (whatever you wish to call it!) sweeping across the Christ-rejecting, God-dishonouring nations of this entire planet.

Corona virus, or Covid 19 plague, seems to be causing widespread fatalities in every nation in the world today.  Humanistic societies, including Britain, which has apostatized, abandoned Bible-based Protestantism – and all other non-Christian nations steeped in gross ‘religious dread, superstition’, and idol worship – have found no answer to the spread and effects of what looks like a truly terrible unseen killer disease. It is clear to see that the Lord God is demanding our full attention; is demanding a global repentance from Christ-rejecting, Sodomy, and sin.

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines (food banks?), and pestilences (Covid 19?), and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are beginning of sorrows.”  (Matthew 24:7-8)

End times Scriptures are being fulfilled before our very eyes – yet the hearts of nations remain hard as steel against the Holy Christ of God.  Beware of His wrath to come!

“The planet is locked in containment. Barring lifestyle diseases, no other disease or infection has ever caught the grip of the globe in contemporary time — 176 countries, and over 200,000 patients spread in every continent, except Antarctica.

“Rich or poor, some 3 billion people are virtually in containment as 112 countries have closed their borders. We are in the midst of what is called the containment stage in the global protocol to fight a so-called pandemic.

“But the invisible foe — COVID-19 — reported to have escaped our radar. It is apparently spreading faster than anyone had expected.

“Between the period Down To Earth did its last cover story on corona virus in February, and now writing this unprecedented second cover closing on March 20 (2020), cases outside China — the origin of the pandemic — are reported to have increased by 15-fold.

“Our helplessness to control this first non-flu pandemic of the 21st century has resulted in panic and hysteria. Health experts are no more hopeful of containment because we still don’t know the real number of cases from poor and developing countries that are ill-equipped to screen and count such cases.

“We still don’t know how and when it transferred into a human host from an animal. But we know for sure now that it is a prolific jumper from human to human. Taking a clue from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, we, the social animals, have been prescribed with social distancing — measurable to 3 feet — as the best way forward to delay transmission of COVID-19, not to stop it. 

“Corona virus is not new to us, but COVID-19 is. It is the third new human corona virus of the century. And its characteristics are not in line with this family of virus.

“Corona viruses were supposed to have evolved in humans just to widen their spread, thus, not to kill but just to sicken us. But that is not happening.

“COVID-19 has already killed more than the earlier two such infections together — SARS and MERS. When it infects also, the symptoms are not according to observed patterns. They are mild enough not to be noticed and, in many cases, even absent after being diagnosed… 

 “Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology with Harvard University, USA, says: “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.” After China’s quarantining 100 million people in and around the epicentre, Hunan, COVID-19 spread to the rest of the world much faster. On March 6, we had 100,000 cases, which doubled by March 18.”  (Richard Mahapatra  of Down To Earth (online) Monday 30 March 2020)

God’s Word teaches us that: “…The curse causeless shall not come.  A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.”  (Proverbs 26:2-3)

Yet, amidst all God’s chastening of the Christ-rejecting nations – including the United Kingdom – His grace continues to be shown wonderfully to ‘His people’, His redeemed elect.  As in the days of Moses, when Egypt and the wilful, ungodly Pharaoh were being plagued by the Living Lord God – His own chosen people were not affected to the same lethal degree as the disobedient idol-worshippers were!  

The Lord, in His Sovereign power, knows how to deliver ‘His people’, from the plagues He Himself sends upon the disobedient, or permits in His will.

Verse 11.  “Twice have I heard this. He hears twice in the best sense who hears with his heart as well as his/her ears.”  (C.H.Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 273)

Verse 11. “…Power belongeth unto God. God is much displeased, even with His own children, when His power is questioned by them…”Is the Lord’s hand waxen short?” (Numbers 11:23) (William Wisheart)

The Lord God sent 10 horrific plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the day of Moses, to show His Sovereign power over all the so-called Egyptian ‘gods’ they worshipped.  I believe the Lord God has either sent, or permitted, this Covid 19 global plague for the same reason – to confound the 21^st Century nations for their setting up of countless ‘idols’; leaving the worship of Almighty God, Jehovah; and rejecting His dear Son’s Salvation, made at Calvary’s Cross.

Thought:  Verse 12. “…For Thou renderest to every man according to his work.”  We have sown unbelief, and rejection of Christ, the Holy Bible, and godly Government – now we must reap the whirlwind of God’s hot displeasure.  Repent, and receive His mercy!