Corona, Judgment, and Our Response

Individuals and states have not responded well to the virus:

Walking with my dogs a few hours ago I was thinking about how we have responded to the corona virus over the past 15 months or so. It seems that both as individuals and as governments we have responded very poorly indeed. And being a Christian, I cannot leave God out of this discussion. Where does he fit in all this?

One obvious question that always arises in times like this is the following: Is the corona virus the judgment of God on a sinful and rebellious world? Short answer: it certainly could be. Back in March 20 of last year I wrote about how God can and does use plagues, sickness, disease and related measures as acts of judgment: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/03/20/plagues-panic-and-providence/

If this is at least being allowed by God – if not something much more direct – the real issue it seems to me is how have we responded? As mentioned, both the state and individuals have responded quite badly in my books. Let me speak to each in turn.

The state and corona

This is now my 127th article on this virus. A few folks have said I have written too much on this. But with a virus sweeping the world for over a year now, it is not some light and passing topic. It is something all of us, and all states, are thinking about and having to deal with – big time.

And as I warned very early on, statists love a crisis, and will use it to the max to further consolidate power and control over the masses. They will ramp up the fearmongering and the panic porn. And worse yet, the sheeple, fully buying all the alarmism and fear, will happily give up basic human rights and freedoms to the State so they can be kept “safe”.

Indeed, the third piece I wrote on corona, back on March 12, 2020, was about this very issue. In it I said this:

The state is ever willing to seize control of things, but is very loathe to give up control. Thus a public health crisis is just the sort of thing that power-hungry politicians will latch onto in order to grab more control and power. And that means much less liberty and freedom for ordinary citizens. If politicians only had the best interests of its citizenry at heart we could all relax. But they seldom do. Any excuse will do to take more power while leaving individuals less free. That is certainly one of the clear lessons of history. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/03/12/crises-liberty-and-the-state/

And I did not have to be a prophet to say that over a year ago. In fact, things have become far worse than I could have imagined. The insane lockdowns, border closures and deprivation of basic freedoms have been staggering to behold. Right now we have most Australian states going into full-tilt tyranny with a handful of new cases.

Even NSW under Berejiklian, which had been doing rather well so far, has now gone full-blown alarmist. All of these leaders of course insist that they are simply following the best medical advice. Yeah right, advice that changes by the day, that seems to have no empirical or scientific basis, and that is simply all over the place.

For example, one day the experts are telling us the Rona is dangerous for 23 hours a day, and then they tell us it is now only deadly for 22 hours a day. Or the virus can get you if you go over five kilometres away from home, but then it can only attack you from ten kms from home.

And the other day we had – again, on ‘sound health advice’ – the utterly absurd decision as to how some fans were allowed into a Geelong Cats football game. The stadium can hold 36,000 people, but our elites decided to cram all 7000 spectators into one small section of the stadium! Idjuts!

Most states have just gone nutso with over-the-top restrictions, lockdowns and all the rest, with no regard to any strong evidence or a sense of proportionality. It is all about the big stick approach, and let the masses be damned. Yet plenty of studies have shown just how counterproductive and even harmful most of these severe measures have been.

Sure, some political leaders have been quite sensible in all this, but they seem to be in the minority. In the US one thinks of Kristi Noem, governor in South Dakota, and Ronald DeSantis, governor in Florida, as a few champions who are putting the people ahead of attempts at dictatorial government control.

And thankfully some new revelations from those who still put truth ahead of ideology and health fascism are now confirming what we have long suspected. It seems the virus was indeed the manmade product of Wuhan labs. Check out this piece for more on this: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6260259898001

Worse yet, Western science – which is supposed to be our saviour – keeps getting implicated in all of this. Even our own top Australian science body, CSIRO, seems to be up to its ears in gain-of-function research, and fully in bed with the Wuhan labs: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6260962459001

See also this piece: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6260960165001

While much of the mainstream media is covering this up, or under-reporting it, thankfully groups like Fox News and Sky News are running with it. Indeed, Australian Sky News journalist Sharri Markson has even penned a brand-new book on this which is full of explosive revelations of just what is going on here. Check out the HarperCollins volume, What Really Happened in Wuhan: The Cover-Ups, the Conspiracies and the Classified Research.

Image of What Really Happened In Wuhan: A Virus Like No Other, Countless Infections, Millions of Deaths
What Really Happened In Wuhan: A Virus Like No Other, Countless Infections, Millions of Deaths by Markson, Sharri (Author) Amazon logo

The individual and corona

But how have individuals responded to this crisis? There would be plenty of different responses, but let me focus on just one area. If the Rona is in fact a means by which God is judging the earth, or at least trying to get our attention, then one would have to say that most folks are not responding very well at all.

Now divine judgment can have at least two main purposes. One, it can simply be the judicial penalty and punishment for sin. It is about people getting what they deserve – about receiving their just deserts. We are all ripe for divine judgment, and God is under no obligation to spare us sinful and disobedient rebels of it.

But often it is also an act of God’s mercy and grace. It can be used to drive people back to God. It is hoped that God’s judgments will help sinners (which we all are) see the evil of their ways, repent, and turn back to God. So judgment and mercy often cohere.

But the question is: are we seeing any waves of repentance and revival so far? Let me repeat here a story I have shared before. A few days after some severe bush fires swept through the nation’s capital Canberra some years ago, destroying numerous homes, I was driving around with a Christian leader there looking at some of the damage. I asked him: “So, did this result in any moves of turning to God?” He laughed and said “No”.

Even great calamities and disasters are no guarantee that people will turn to God and that sinners will repent. Often they will keep right on living their sinful and selfish lifestyles. Scripture certainly bears this out. Some of the most shocking and alarming passages found in all of the Bible come from the book of Revelation in this regard.

The book is of course in large measure all about the judgment of God on unrepentant mankind. Heavy duty judgments are dished out by God, but still people do not repent! Consider what we find in Rev. 9:20-21: “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Wow. But there are other passages like this as well. Rev 16:8-11 says this:

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.

Also, Rev. 16:21 says the following: “And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.” No matter how bad things get, these folks refuse to turn to God, but instead hate on him even more.

But it is not just individuals who need to repent. In the past entire nations have sought God together to deal with calamities. For example, if widespread drought or famine or war was impacting a land, good leaders would often make a covenant with the people to seek the Lord. They would even proclaim national days of prayer and fasting.

We have not just many biblical examples of this, but history itself records cases of this. President Lincoln for example had done this more than once. See my write up about this here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/10/11/on-national-prayer/

So prayer and repentance is the order of the day. It does not matter if we know for sure that corona is a definite judgment of God. We still all need to seek God’s face and ask for his mercy and deliverance. Individuals and nations should both be involved in this.

Will such a turn to God happen today with the Rona? Time will tell. Let’s pray that it does.

[1670 words]

23 Replies to “Corona, Judgment, and Our Response”

  1. Whenever I hear someone complaining about the lockdowns and the pain they are suffering I ask mentally – how did you vote at the same sex marriage postal opinion?
    John Abbott

  2. Dear Bill,

    I believe the corona virus is not the judgment of God* but an intentional nefarious agenda – the purpose of which is the vaccine – by a relatively small number of very wealthy eugenicists.
    (*rather that He grieves)

    Almost always a sound sleeper, I tossed and turned sleepless through last night (before getting up to pray), after learning yesterday evening what is in the vaccine.

  3. Thanks Bill for this very timely article that need to be shared around (I’m going to do so). Yes I’ll bring myself in front of God with a contrite heart and let Him change and cleanse me. I’ll also pray that God’s mercy and saving grace be made known to all the Chinese people, and that we’ll one day see the culprit be brought to justice whose evil deeds have led to the outbreak of the pandemic.

    Take care while you have just recuperated from your recent ailment. Blessings to you.

    I have ordered Sharri Markson’s great book and am awaiting its arrival.

  4. We are fast approaching the End of this Age. Soon the ‘Last of the Gentiles,’ will come in and the ‘Time of Jacob’s Troubles,’ will start. The time of a 7 year Judgement of the Nations of the Earth Culminating in Jesus Standing on the Mount of Olives and Fighting Lucifers hoards as they seek to destroy every Jew that lives. Zech 14:2,4 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.”
    “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” What is happening cannot be turned back, it will only get worse.

  5. “And as I warned very early on, statists love a crisis, and will use it to the max to further consolidate power and control over the masses. They will ramp up the fearmongering and the panic porn. And worse yet, the sheeple, fully buying all the alarmism and fear, will happily give up basic human rights and freedoms to the State so they can be kept “safe””.

    Yes indeed! Boom!

    Thank you.

  6. Talk about medical advice changing daily bill, did you hear now gov is saying if you want, take the AZ jab if your under 60.
    Our government and the global elites are absolutely hell bent on getting each one of us vaccinated.
    Its very hard to ignore some of the well known conspiracy theories that have been circulating for a while now, such as the georgia guidestones in america, built by some secret group, with the new ten commandments carved into them, first one being to maintain the worlds population under 500 million. (You can see this monument for yourselves, just google or youtube.)
    Lets say, if some secret powerful organization wanted to achieve this, you have to say, this world wide vax program is a brilliant start.
    You cant make this stuff up!

  7. Well Suzanna it depends on the definition of judgement of God if only defined as something directly sent by him you might be right but since God uses the evil of man for his purposes one could expand the definition to something ALLOWED by God which I would say he has allowed this to bring about results. I wonder if any hearts are being hardened during these small judgments like with pharaoh?????

    Thing about these smaller attention getting judgments is eventually they end and the bigger punishment judgement comes. Plenty of examples in history especially the southern Kingdom of Judah. Question is how close are we to the end of the attention getters and the start of the punishment?? Time will tell but the clock is ticking.

    Funny in those Revelation verses they KNOW God is sending the judgments yet they still curse him. It seems that knowing the source of your agony doesn’t mean you will take the necessary steps to end it.

  8. Yes correct Paul. God quite often works through human agents – both good and evil – to accomplish his specific purposes. But God is not involved any less when he does so. The work of Christ at Calvary for our salvation is a clear case in point: it certainly was the direct will of God, but those immediately responsible for the death of Christ were Roman and Jewish leaders. See Acts 2:23 and 4:27-28.

    Throughout the Bible God’s judgment is seen in just those terms. Consider just one of many cases: God uses the evil pagan Assyrians as his instrument of judgment on Israel (“the rod of my anger”) in Isaiah 10. So evil men are responsible for their decisions, but God is able to use them for his purposes.

  9. Fascinating that this article should include the topic of repentance from sin: It is now well into the first of three weeks on the Jewish religious calendar when repentance and returning to the LORD and His ways is a prime focus of the Jewish community: for more go to: https://www.israel365.com/three-weeks-2021/ . See also Zechariah 8:14-19.

  10. Abu Dhabi is now banning the unvaccinated from public places, and Pakistan is considering/has blocked the phones of the unvaccinated. If these behaviours spread to the west, then it will be truly terrifying.

  11. God’s judgment and Mercy are both realities. God’s Word and Ways are being vindicated by means of our Human response/s to the Coronavirus. Our God-given freedoms are being undermined by Socialist Governments pursuing their Secular Utopian dreams instead of the Divine Plan and the “Kingdom of God””on Earth as it is in Heaven”. It is also a time of scare-mongering by Anti-Vax, conspiracy theorists, and of selfish egoism of the wealthy elite throughout the world. God is being eclipsed by a growing “culture of death” undermining the development of a “new civilisation of truth, love and peace”. Believers are swimming against the tide of a world spinning out of control – no easy thing to “enter-in by the Narrow Gate”…, but a way of Peace, and of “Faith, Hope and Love” (1,Cor.13).

    “Oremus…”

  12. The narrow path and straight gate aren’t the most beautiful or the easiest BUT they lead to beauty FAR beyond anything the broad and wide path/gate offer. Too many choose temporal, and temporary, beauty to eternal.

  13. Dear Bill, Thank you for the article. God bestowed on human beings the precious gift of a free will when He created them. Therefore I think a generous, loving God is not going to take his gift back every time humans mess things up and step in. Of course He could do if He wanted to but these days He would have to be stepping in all the time. Perhaps He will one day in the not too distant future.

    In the case of the pandemic humans have messed things up pretty badly and it is affecting the whole world. Maybe God is ALLOWING the terrible consequences of the pandemic in the hope that the world will learn from it and turn back to Him. If the godless Chinese government or any government for that matter allows evil things to take place in its laboratories then something bad is bound to happen eventually. In this case a deadly virus the Wuhan Lab had been experimenting with escaped. Whether it was accidental or on purpose is open to question.However, the Chinese Government tried to cover it up but it was too late and it spread around the world.The pandemic then is the fault of human sin pure and simple NOT the fault of a loving merciful God who will ALLOW the evil to run its course rather than stop it in the hope that people will learn from it and turn back to Him. I might add that the Chinese are not the only scientists to allow evil in their labs.Those scientists whatever their nationality who are responsible for making vaccines out of aborted foetuses are also evil.They may explain their use by claiming that the foetuses would be wasted otherwise and to use them productively is helping humankind to fight disease but it is still evil to use them because it justifies the murder of innocent human beings which can never be right.

    Some of your readers might not like to hear what I am about to say next but Roman Catholics believe that God has sent His Mother constantly in the last 150 years or so to warn the world about the consequences of human sin. She prophesied at Fatima in 1917 during World War 1 that World War Two would soon break out and wars were a consequence of the sins of human beings. She also said that the ‘errors’ would reach right to the top of the Church [the Catholic Church]

    Experiments in biological warfare are not unknown to History and the pandemic could well be a result of that. It was found after World War 2 what the infamous Nazi Doctor Mengele in Hitler’s Germany had been up to in his experiments on human beings so we can’t rule anything out.History has a habit of repeating itself.

    The solution to this crisis is prayer and penance by everyone who claims to be a Christian. It is time to put aside differences and pray as we have never prayed before. Catholics especially are asked to pray the Holy Rosary which are meditations on Scripture.

  14. Patricia since the US government, Dr Fauci’s branch specifically, funded the gain of function research in Wuhan we have blood on our hands.

    You mention Mengele I sometimes wonder how much evil we ALLOWED to continue via Operation Paperclip????

    The people with no problem using aborted fetus parts for testing, many anyways, would however bulk if you wanted to take their grandpa’s limbs for testing right after he died.

    I agree that messengers are sent to warn humanity. We can disagree over Mary being sent or her image being used for a Catholic audience but God will warn in one way or another before he does something or uses something so that we are not unaware. We can dismiss what he says and remain ignorant BUT we cannot claim he didn’t tell us.

    Prayers for revival and the revitalization of a nation should be something that unites all Christians regardless of denomination. However some will still not join up “why should I join (or pray in this case) with someone with whom I disagree????” For too many sectarian differences are too great to unite even in a common cause.

  15. Dear Paul,
    I agree with you wholeheartedly and I have heard before that Fauci funded the Wuhan labs research. That man is a disgrace to his Catholic religion and it is reasonable to suggest that the US should have been more vigilant about where taxpayers money was going. It is not the first time the US has engaged in evil because they had a eugenics programme in the twenties. I hasten to add that I don’t think ANY country is ABOVE engaging in unethical research and probably governments around the world don’t know half the time exactly WHAT goes on in their laboratories. There was a time when philosophy and science worked in tandem but that time has gone unfortunately.

    Also as you say some people will not put aside their differences no matter how grave the situation is for humanity.

    Finally, Our loving and merciful Father has, through the prophets, always tried to warn His people of impending danger. The fact that He has chosen His own Blessed Mother to warn us in our times shows me and many others how serious things really are. He also chooses saints and even ordinary people.

  16. Patricia for most countries I think if the people knew just a quarter of what was done with their taxes in their name there would be MASS revolutions!

    It is often confounding how evil forces can united, despite there conflicts, for a common cause yet good people quibble over meaningless details to prevent a coalition. (I don’t think the LGBTQ people and the muslims for instance would work together if it wasn’t for their mutual hatred of Christianity)(my quote was a paraphrase of something a famous pastor said regarding not signing the Manhattan Declaration) Satan’s people seem more determined to do their lord’s bidding than we are to do the Lord’s bidding. As Yeats said: The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

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