A powerful prayer – and a powerful reply

The Bible offers us an account of a very powerful prayer, prayed by King Solomon.

Solomon realized that man has sinful tendencies and will likely get off track in the journey to Heaven. So Solomon prayed to God asking for Divine direction when things go wrong.

You can find God’s reply to this prayer in 2 Chronicles 7:14.

The reply is as true regarding the Will of God today amid COVID-19 — as it was thousands of years ago.

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God’s cure

You see… God has a cure.

Not just for the COVID-19 or the H1N1 that was earth’s previous pandemic… God has a cure for death.

John 3:16 reminds us of the beautiful and powerful love that God has for His creation, saying: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

God does not bring sin and its consequences upon mankind.

Mankind chooses sin over obedience to God.

Satan’s Means

Therefore, all those things bringing death to mankind are Satan’s “means” in his ongoing warfare against God.

NOTE: Satan seeks to claim souls in death before they discover God’s love, grace and mercy – gifts from the God who sent His only son to die for their sin.

God’s Gift of Freedom

For believers in Jesus Christ… God’s Son is God’s gift to man and the only gift that offers freedom from the fear of death and the gift of “eternal life.”

Christ offers forgiveness of sin.

And through Christ, we can receive the pardon of God from our death sentence — which was the just penalty for our disobedience.

That forgiveness also brings to the believer the unmerited favor of God…the gift of eternal life… where your soul does not die.

Instead, immediately upon your final breath on earth, your soul is transported into the presence of God.

So … you will once again enjoy a place where man lives in sinlessness and to the glory of the Sovereign God.

God sentenced who?

Though God could justly sentence man to instant death because of his sin, God instead used “the fall of man” to sentence the sin-giver, Satan!

God sentenced Satan to eternal death on the great day of judgment.

Then what happened?

Therefore, God had to expel man from his perfect garden and thrust him out into the unprotected world.

Man would no live in a world where sin and corruption not only prevails, but a world that will devise evil means to claim his physical life.

Perhaps those evil means include “unseen enemies” called viruses…that can bring death to thousands, or tens of thousands. By whatever means, all will surely die.

This is a great time to discover that the gift of God is “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

But…the gift of Death is the insidious act of Satan.

Happens to everybody

Some people die from old age, some from car crashes, catastrophes or disasters and some from cancer and yes, some from COVID-19.

Death is inescapable. Globally, it happens nearly 150,000 times every day.

The CIA estimates that the crude death rate globally will be about 7.7 deaths per 1,000 persons in a population.

I haven’t seen a single outcry in the media about who’s to blame for these “ordinary” dying souls.

In fact, these deaths are so veiled by Satan in the hubbub of normal daily life, we seldom think about it until it strikes among our loved ones.

It’ s happened before.

I understand COVID-19 is a pandemic.

Since the year 165 A.D. the “world” has experienced pandemics… and the “world” will experience pandemics of even greater immensity and intensity in the future.

Have you forgotten H1N1 just 11 years ago? First known as “Swine Flu”… in approximately 1 year, it claimed an estimated 151,700 to 575,400 lives world-wide.

Nobody is really talking about this earlier pandemic – and – nobody is in their wildest estimation suggesting that COVID-10 will claim as many lives.

Everybody blamed God then too.

But nobody can dispute that — before sin — there WAS no death.

The only cure for sin is saving trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who alone was punished for SIN that He did not commit — so that YOU AND I who are deserving of death, might be forgiven … and find eternal life.

Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ may conclude their journey through this pilgrim land in death by COVID-19, but …

COVID-19 does NOT win!

But…be absolutely confident Satan DID NOT WIN THEIR SOUL.

The Word of God assures us Christians:

“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

Stop playing, “pin the tail on the donkey.”

The source of man’s grief, suffering and death… the donkey as it were… is none other than SATAN.

Thank God!

Don’t blame God for COVID-19… but thank Him for another dramatic reminder to:

“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

This is the “Perfect Will of God.”

Amen.