Originally Posted by
victoryword
I'm just amazed that you guys believe that God is the One who did this; as if God needs to create a sickness (virus) to move people to stop worshipping idols and worship Him?
There are two separate things here are there not VW? (1) Did God do this? and (2) If He did them why?
As to (1), "While God sent his prophets to give (us) a clear word about such things back (in the Old Testament), we do not have the same sort of sure word today about particular disasters". However what does God clearly tell us in the Bible? Let me expand this quote from someone (who has more time than I) writing about something sorta similar.We are not privy to all the particular ways of God today. Does God use natural disasters to accomplish his purposes, including judging sinners, and even his own people? Absolutely.
The Old Testament for example is full of this. There are hundreds of passages we could appeal to here. Let me offer just a few:
-Leviticus 26:19-20
I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.
-Deuteronomy 32:23-24
I will heap calamities on them and spend my arrows against them. I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
-2 Samuel 24:15 So
the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
-2 Kings 21:12 Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says:
I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.
-Jeremiah 3:2-3 You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen.
-Jeremiah 11:23
I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.
-Jeremiah 27:8
I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague.
-Ezekiel 5:17
I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.
-Haggai 2:17
I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,' declares the LORD.
But as mentioned, while God sent his prophets to give a clear word about such things back then, we do not have the same sort of sure word today about particular disasters. So we must be cautious and wise here. (Is the virus a judgement from God?)
Perhaps. But we must not be quick to offer judgment. We can however pray for the situation. We can pray for the family members and loved ones who are left behind. We can pray that something like this – as with all tragedies and disasters – will help these folks to seek the one true God, and his son Jesus.
That would be a much more helpful response to such disasters than to make somewhat presumptuous claims about what exactly God may be doing in these situations. (
REF)
As the above quote says, "we must not be quick to offer judgment", but let's consider (2 - why?) and look at examples of God's judgement.
One of the first things God said to man was "from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Gen 2:17) and He followed it up in Gen 3 when the woman is cursed, the ground is cursed, and "He drove the man out" of Eden.
Then in the days of Noah "The Lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky;"
Later we see that "the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven".
In Moses' day we see:
Ex 6:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh
Ex 7:17 Thus says the Lord, "By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, I will strike the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned to blood.
Ex 8:1 'Thus says the Lord, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs.
Ex 8:21 if you do not let My people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and on your servants
Ex 9:1 "Let My people go, that they may serve Me. For if you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them, behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a very severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the field
Ex 9:18 Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very heavy hail,
Ex 10:4 if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory
Ex 11:4 "Thus says the Lord, 'About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones
Ex 12:29 Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle
If we were not convinced that God brings judgements on sinful man let's look at what God says will happen to Israel of they don't obey His commandments: (From Deut 28)
15 "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 "Cursed shall you be ...
17 "Cursed shall be your ...
18 "Cursed shall be the ...
19 "Cursed shall you be ...
20 "The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, ...
21 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you ...
22 The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever ...
23 The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze ...
24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust ... (and so it goes on and on for another 44 verses.
Have a read for yourself)
And if this is what He will do to His chosen people, what will He do to those who hate Him?
So unless we deny what the Bible clearly says (and thereby call God a liar), we know that God brings (what we call) "natural disasters" on the world; we know God judges the world; and we know that God uses "natural disasters" to bring judgement on the world.
So where does that leave us? Back where we started I guess. As I quoted "while God sent his prophets to give a clear word about such things (in the OT), we do not have the same sort of sure word today about particular disasters. So we must be cautious and wise". Cautious enough to not go around proclaiming emphatically that this is a judgement from God, but wise enough to not say that it can't be.