Britain is now into its third national lockdown in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Was it really necessary to shut down the whole nation once again? According to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, addressing the nation this week, the new variant of the virus is spreading 70% faster than the original one that caused the first lockdown in March last year. He said that the increase in the spread of the disease across the nation is alarming.
Indecision, indecision
Johnson and his Government have come under a lot of criticism for their numerous changes of policy in dealing with the pandemic. The latest fiasco allowed schools to open for one day, then the policy changed, and schools were shut down, which caused enormous confusion in the nation. Last minute changes like this not only create personal problems for a vast number of families, but they also produce an atmosphere of uncertainty and a lack of confidence in the Government.
It is the indecision in Government policy that has caused so much unrest in the nation. The Prime Minister has borne the brunt of this criticism and there have even been calls for him to step aside because his leadership is inadequate. Clearly, he does not like being the bearer of bad news. He is a natural campaigner and an irrepressible optimist. It is against all his inclinations to have to impose restrictions upon the population, so he is reluctant to take the advice of his health experts. This reluctance is transmitted to the nation as indecision, which makes people lose confidence in the national leadership.
Lack of spiritual guidance
There is no other natural leader in the Tory Party at the moment who could replace Boris, and a change of Prime Minister at this stage in the pandemic would undoubtedly create enormous instability, which would do great harm both at national and international levels.
The Prime Minister’s policy is to highlight any items of good news that he can obtain, such as the number of vaccinations being carried out across the nation since the introduction of the Oxford vaccine. The hope is that by the middle of February all the front-line health staff, the over-80s and the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated. But the vaccine will not save the nation.
The reason for the rapid change of policy in Boris’s leadership is because he does not understand what is going on! He has plenty of experts on the scientific facts among his advisers, and there is no shortage of political advisers around him. But what is lacking is spiritual leadership. For at least the last four prime ministers there has been a ‘Faith Adviser’ in Number 10, and more recently there has been a small group of evangelical intercessors who meet daily for prayer. But the role of the faith adviser is a wide remit covering other faiths as well as Christianity, and the group of intercessors has no direct communication with the PM, other than through the faith adviser.
Absence of strong leadership
There are a number of individuals in both Houses of Parliament who are strongly committed Christians, but the way the political establishment works means that they have no direct access to the PM. Among church leaders there is no outstanding Bible-believing Christian exercising a notable public ministry in any of the denominations. We have an Archbishop of Canterbury who is ‘all things to all men’ but exercises only weak leadership and an Archbishop of York who is notoriously liberal, with a record of antipathy towards Bible-believing evangelicals.
Among church leaders there is no outstanding Bible-believing Christian exercising a notable public ministry in any of the denominations
So where does the Prime Minister receive any biblically-based Christian counsel? The plain answer is that there is no one to tell him that it is God who is shaking the nation through the coronavirus pandemic which will go on for a long time yet; indeed until God achieves his purpose in sending it.
Tipping point
What is God looking for? Quite simply: he is looking for repentance for all the wickedness that we have committed, and the ungodly laws that we have passed in our Parliament since the end of the Second World War. We have now reached the tipping point of iniquity, the point where God has said “Enough is enough”, and the point where he must intervene in human history for the ultimate benefit of humanity.
God has intervened before. In the sixth century BC he sent the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and the whole land of Judah. This is reported in the historical book of 2 Kings, where it says “These things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood and the Lord was not willing to forgive” (24:3).
We have now reached the tipping point of iniquity, the point where God has said “Enough is enough”
Ultimate challenge
The major sin that triggered this judgement, according to Jeremiah 7:31, was “They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire”. But in our day throughout the world, we have polluted the land with the blood of innocent aborted babies being burnt in the incinerators of our hospitals and clinics. In Western nations, LGBT teaching has reached a point of direct challenge to the God of creation as revealed in the Bible. For he created human beings in his own image and instituted marriage between a man and a woman, declaring all other sexual arrangements detestable. We have reached the ultimate challenge to God by undermining the absolutely essential frameworks of both family and gender.
God’s response is to send (or allow) the plague1, which will continue until the first signs of repentance. Those first signs should occur in the Church, which has been complicit in the sins of the Amorites, strongly condemned in Scripture.
Endnotes
1. A biblical understanding does not necessarily differentiate between God sending and allowing plagues, suggesting that while God did not necessarily design the virus, he has his purposes in permitting it to spread - and also has the power to stop it.