Is it time to celebrate and start hugging our friends again or playing football in the park, sending our children back to school with mums gathering at the school gates? Are we getting back to normal – but more importantly – have we learned anything from the weeks of lockdown? Has anything changed?

Of course, we all know that the virus is still hanging around and is likely to pose a threat for a very long time, even if a vaccine is produced in the near future. But the coronavirus was only a curtain raiser; there is much more to come in the shaking of the nations.

Warnings from God

Back in the 1980s, Bible-believing Christians who were sensitive to what was going on in the world and who were keen intercessors, began hearing in their prayer times warnings from God that he was going to shake all nations. In the old printed magazine Prophecy Today we began publishing these warnings in 1986, quoting Haggai 2:6-7: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations...”

The coronavirus was only a curtain raiser; there is much more to come in the shaking of the nations.

From that time, there were also warning signs like the lightning strike out of a clear night sky that set fire to York Minster hours after the consecration of David Jenkins, the notorious Bishop of Durham, who questioned the virgin birth and the resurrection. Then there was the sinking of the ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’ car ferry with the loss of nearly 200 lives after it left Zeebrugge for Dover with its bow door open. And also the ‘Hungerford Massacre’ when a young man shot dead 16 people. He was into some form of Satanism with voices in his head telling him to kill people at random. But all these signs and many more showing that something was wrong in the nation went unheeded.

Already, by the 1980s we were a nation turning its back upon the Bible and forsaking our centuries old Judaeo-Christian heritage. That movement away from biblical truth at the heart of the nation has continued relentlessly since then. It has changed the whole ethos of public life, from the days when businessmen simply shook hands on a deal, because a man’s word was his bond, and trustworthiness was at the heart of national life. Those days have long gone. We are now driven by lies and fake news with violence on our streets and the social media filled with vile abuse against any who dare to express views that are not currently in favour.

Learning the Lessons?

The big question now is will we learn anything from the pandemic that is sweeping the world and will shortly be moving into its second phase – the economic chaos that will soon be upon us?

If we had learned the lessons of the 1980s, we would not be where we are today. There is a biblical principle that we ignore at our peril; it is the lessons we should learn from history – especially the history of Israel that is laid out for us in the Bible. That is the source of truth, where we can learn the principles of righteousness that bless and prosper a nation. It is also where we can learn from the mistakes of the past.

The movement away from biblical truth at the heart of the nation has continued relentlessly.

The sins of the Amorites were a lesson that the people of Israel had to learn if they were to remain in the land and enjoy the blessings and prosperity that God promised them. All the evidence of the Bible shows that God has infinite love and compassion but, because he is also a God of justice, he has limited patience. He sends clear warnings when the human beings he created in his own image depart from the ways of truth and righteousness. But there comes a time when human wickedness reaches such a point – in threatening the stability and well-being of God’s whole act of creation and his purposes for humanity – that he must act.

We learn this principle from the ‘sins of the Amorites’. There is a significant phrase in God’s dealings with Abraham, who was resident in the land of Canaan. He was told that his descendants would inherit the whole land, but they would be “enslaved and ill-treated for 400 years” after which they would return to the land that we now know as Israel. God said to Abraham: “In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Gen 15:16).

Detestable Practices

This is a very significant statement that has relevance for us today in understanding why God has sent the coronavirus pandemic and the other plagues that are linked with it – the economic chaos and the plague of locusts that has hit a huge swathe of territory across the Middle East and East Africa. It is said to be of ‘biblical proportions’ and is likely to bring widespread famine.

God has infinite love and compassion but, because he is also a God of justice, he has limited patience.

In ancient history the worst group to come under the condemnation of God were the Amorites. They originated from the area around Babylon in what is now Iraq and moved to the land of the Canaanites, which we now know as Israel, about 2500 BC. They intermixed with the Canaanites and other groups in the period between the time when Abraham and Sarah lived on the land and the settlement of the people of Israel in the time of Joshua.

In that period, they developed a range of practices that most of the other groups found abominable. These included a type of idolatry linked with Satanism worshipping the powers of darkness plus infant sacrifice, which was roundly condemned by Jeremiah (Jer 7:30-31). They also practised sexual aberrations that included violent anal rape described in Genesis 19:5. It was these practices together with the sacrifice of babies, said to be the shedding of innocent blood, that were detestable to God.

Repentance or Disaster

Abraham was told that there would come a time when the Amorites had so polluted the land and exerted their influence over the other people groups such as “the Hittites, Girgashites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites” (Deut 7:1), that God would destroy them by driving them from the land.

There comes a time when human wickedness reaches such a point that God must act.

The question now facing us is this: have the sins of the nations now reached such a level of wickedness that God is forced to act, sending us a succession of plagues and disasters upon us to warn us that unless there is a fundamental change in the behaviour of the nations, disaster will follow? At the moment, the plagues are all warnings – if they are ignored, judgement will follow.