Coronavirus, What To Do Pt. 2 Series

Coronavirus, What to Do Pt. 2

Restoring Our Heart Toward God’s Covenant

As we enter into this second message, if a child of God is afflicted with an illness or suffers the consequences of sinful choices made by the church or nation, does not mean that person is being punished, it is time for building faith and trust in the Lord. It is like this: When a bomb goes off there is always collateral damage. If a contractor does not follow the engineering plans in the construction of a building and the building collapses, the innocent are affected. They need to seek God, through Jesus Christ for comfort, help and guidance. When the church learns of an individual getting KVOID 19, the church is obligated to pray, mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15) and help them as the Lord makes the way.

God is always dealing with different heart issues of mankind through afflictions, punishments, trials, conflicts and consequences of wrong choices. Any born-again theologian interpreting the whole of Scripture using proper exegesis can tell you, God is chastising the church and punishing this nation for their sins. When pestilence is sent as a chastisement for the disobedience of God’s people and/or because national rulers refuse to surrender to God’s guidance, there are Biblical solutions to be lived out so we may enjoy God’s forgiveness and intervention.

Simply, Coronavirus is a prototype of what has happen in the past, what is now in presence time and what is to come in a later date. A “prototype (s???c, ??) is a foreshadow of things to come. (Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 592). New York: United Bible Societies.) Through the COVID 19 Pandemic, a real pestilence, Satan is laying a foundation for control of which people are surrendering to. Please note: The church is not changing or stopping a prototype – but as we see things begin to evolve toward the end days, we can point people to the teaching of God’s Word and to Jesus Christ. Giving them an opportunity to consider a relationship with Jesus, fore He is the one to trust in as we see the last days approach.

In part one of “Coronavirus, What to Do” we learned: 1.) Why the Lord takes us trough trials. 2.) The type of heart we need in order to hear from God on what needs to be done. 3.) The necessity of having a spiritual heart with “…ears to hear what the Spirit of God is saying.” (Revelations 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:8, 13, 22) 4.) What it means to really take refuge in the God of heaven and earth. 5.) Lastly, to serve God with all faithfulness by not serving the god’s which control the world view around us.

The next step to Biblical restoration of the true church is for Christians to understand and strive to live in their covenant obligations. During Biblical times there was what is known as the Bilateral Covenants. This placed obligations on both parties. The agreement was on one party fulfilling their obligations; If you will [the people of God]. Then [God] will whatever the promise is. (Hamme, J. T., & Laney, J. C. (2016). Covenant, Critical Issues. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.) Our covenant agreement is binding as we walk in obedience to fulfill our part. (Enns, P. P. (1989). The Moody handbook of theology (pp. 631–632). Chicago, IL: Moody Press.) God has never forsaken His part of any Biblical covenant agreement. He does withhold His blessing and/or brings chastisements as we break our part of the covenant. There is a conditional truth to our covenant which is lived out by our behavior. (Huey, F. B. (1993). Jeremiah, Lamentations (Vol. 16, p. 282). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)

For example, in the ESV Bible is a preoccupy Circumcise Your Heart. The Bible says, “…what does the Lord your God require of you, but to draw near to the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the commandments and statues of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God belongs heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.” (Deuteronomy 10:12-14)

We know it is important to have a heart of wanting to live by our covenant obligations because God’s Word speaks to us through Hosea, “As with Adam, they have broken the covenant; they were unfaithful to Me there.” (Hosea 6:7) The word “covenant” (??????? beriy?) means to come to an alliance, be an ally and have an agreement between God and man. – (Carpenter, E. E. (2003). The complete word study dictionary: Old Testament (p. 165). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers; Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship. Thomas, R. L. (1998). New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek dictionaries : updated edition. Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc.)