Join us at 9:00 or 11:00 AM on Sundays

Coronavirus and God

Blog Pic

[by Pastor Chris Kovac]

If you google “coronavirus and God,” you will get over 545 million articles.  In one article we read: “Hundreds Pray at Western Wall for cure to coronavirus: God has the power to send healing.’” Another article asks: “coronavirus: punishment from God?”  Clearly the fear of this virus has created a lot of interest and questions about God. So why would God allow diseases like the coronavirus? Why is there disease in the first place?

According to the Bible, the reason we have pain, disease, suffering and death is because we live in a broken creation. In the creation account found in the book of Genesis chapters 1-2 we are told that the world was created perfect. No pain, no disease, no suffering, and no death. How awesome it must have been! But by chapter 3 humanity rebels against God and sin enters the world. Sin is like a spiritual disease that infects everything it comes into contact with. In the Scriptures we read that the inevitable consequence of Sin is physical and spiritual death. The coronavirus has a 3% mortality rate; sin has a mortality rate of 100%!

The problem is that most of us don’t recognize that we are spiritually sick. In fact, most of us think that we are good people. God has given us a tool to diagnose our spiritual health. Just as an x-ray machine reveals what is wrong inside our body, so the Ten Commandments reveal what is wrong in our soul.  Take a moment and consider just two of the commandments: 1) do not lie; and 2) do not steal. Each of us knows that we have been guilty of breaking these two commands at some point in our lives. This means that we have deceit and greed in our hearts. God can’t allow a spiritually contaminated person to enter the pure uncontaminated presence of heaven! If he did, we would corrupt heaven just as we have corrupted the earth. If we don’t get this disease cured we end up in spiritual quarantine for eternity (this is what the Bible calls Hell).

If you knew that your neighbour had the coronavirus you would undoubtedly seek a vaccine if one was available. Why? Because you don’t want to risk dying. The good news is that Jesus Christ is the ‘vaccine’ for sin and death. The Bible tells us that God made him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21). In other words, when Jesus died he took on all the contaminants of our sin and then died the death that we deserved.  If you repent (agree with God and turn from our sin) and place your complete trust in Jesus as the great physician of our souls, then God will forgive you, heal you, and give you a new heart that will love what is true and right! Will you allow God to heal you today?