We all may have an opinion about what God has been saying and doing through the pandemic. I recall the time when every man would read his own choice of newspaper. Opinions would be formed and firmly adhered to based on the political line taken by the choice of newspaper. This seems quite naïve now, in that we understand the bias in all media. There are now even greater and more subtle forces at work influencing our judgements. Our opinions are often formed from the websites we read. Do Christians escape this influence on their thinking or do some, as with the daily newspapers, have their favourite points of reference and hold strongly to what a chosen group with supposed prophetic gifts have to say?

Where is God in this?

I know of no-one who prophesied the pandemic but now almost everyone has an opinion about what will happen next and why God has allowed/done this thing across the world. Some claim to know what God will do next, but I suggest caution. The more important issue is how we live our lives in the light of the world situation, whilst testing all things – neither of these things is easy.

One thing I have noticed is that everything is being tested. It is amazing how an invisible virus passed somehow to one person in (we think) China was then passed rapidly from person to person across the entire world. The result is a world struggling and ‘locked down’. Where God is in this, is subject to much debate but certainly it was not outside the permissive will of the all-seeing Almighty God.

The more important issue is how we live our lives in the light of the world situation, whilst testing all things.

A major test is what our perception of God is. What is his character to bring this or allow this to happen? Is it judgement of sin, a Revelation-type woe, the beginning of the antichrist rule or are there redemptive purposes from the loving heart of our Saviour? Actually, in Hebraic thinking, it can be all these things together and still more that we don't fully understand.

Another major test for us all is how closely we are walking with our God. Our reactions will find us out. Does hardship draw us nearer or take us further from God? Or do we try to find some personal walk through it all – neither close to God nor far from Him?

A shaking

There is much in the Bible to help us understand the prophetic significance of our day. The prophecy given to Haggai and repeated in Hebrews is a clear reference point which has been tested as current by many Christian leaders over the last three or four decades. Whilst not necessarily knowing the precise details we have been expecting a time when the entire created order will be shaken to bring forth a tested and refined people. A pandemic was possible in light of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but the Book of Revelation does not give an ordered set of occurrences that one can tick off one by one from our checklist.

Personally, I have believed that the prophecy given to Paul Slennett roughly 30 years ago¹ would come to pass. We have expected a financial collapse likened to an earthquake to hit the City of London, whether or not accompanied by a physical shaking. Paul and I have learned to bide our time, but there does seem to be a distinct possibility that at least a pre-tremor of financial shaking will follow, or is even now following, behind the pandemic in the UK and elsewhere.

How we live is key

My chief perspective, however, is that it is not so much how we prophesy but how we live in the light of the present and changing reality that matters most. The Books of the New Testament were written in the midst of trials for believers of many kinds. Paul the Apostle suffered many personal trials to obey the call to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Roman Empire, permeated by Greek thought, was dominant in the world.

The New Testament letters to believers are filled with a call to character more than any other thing.

These were pressures at times far beyond our experience today. All this brought refinement to disciples of the Lord Jesus (Yeshua HaMashiach). The New Testament letters to believers are filled with a call to character more than any other thing.

This pandemic brings many restorative possibilities if we read the circumstances through the right spiritual spectacles. Our need is to stop and consider and to ensure that we are walking close to the Lord. It is all too easy to march on in the power of human logic – even Christians do that. However we proceed, things are changing, and that which will not stand the test will vanish, whether we feel the hurts or sidestep or overcome them. It is interesting how this virus has brought separation – not only socially but separation from many things which are potentially unclean and therefore harmful to us in God's sight. Is God reminding us of something here? Separation from worldly things and worldly habits is a move from uncleanness. In biblical language this is a call to holiness, central to the message of the Apostle Peter.

Something to pray about for sure.

Endnotes

¹ Earthquake in the City prophecy, Jesus is Alive! Ministries; also Earthquake in the City - How to survive the coming economic collapse, by Clifford Denton and Paul Slennett, published by Jesus Is Alive Ministries in 1997