Will not inflict the horrible diseases

“The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you.” (Deuteronomy 7:15)

 

In January and February this year, the whole world was noisy with the outbreak of COVID-19, Emerging Coronavirus Disease in 2019. The spread of the disease has caused many people to lose their lives. We need to be more careful about what we say and do than ever before, whenever we are confused. In particular, we should be very careful not to have the ideas and remarks that denounce negatively others. It’s not bad in itself to take pride in oneself as a spiritual Israel. But it is an unseemly and foolish thing to undermine God’s righteousness and holiness to act as if own self were God. Please and please, look inside your own life and just do your job.

 

The people of Israel in the Old Testament were specially chosen by God. They were, to their glory, called the Holy People of God. The Lord had chosen Israel from among many tribes on earth as His own people. And God made one important thing clear to them. That is the fact it was not chosen because Israelite were more numerous or righteous than others. It’s just that God loved them, and to fulfill the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their ancestors. And what God asked them to do was to love God and not serve idols, and to keep His commandments. If Israel carries it out, they will have mercy in accordance with the covenant God promised them, God said.

Everyone hates to be in trouble and loves to live in blessings. Therefore, people usually tend to concentrate their attention on the word of blessing. No one would hate to hear this, “God loves you and makes you prosper~ will bless you and enrich grain, wine and oil, and breed your cattle and sheep, and will make sure that not only your men and women, but also your beasts grow healthy.” Perhaps the majority of people will respond with a loud ‘Amen’ to that. But know this, we need to pay price for everything, and all things are naturally accompanied by corresponding responsibilities and duties. It is not a legitimate mind and attitude to expect or gain something profitable while neglecting one’s duties, responsibilities, and rewards. That is called greed, and the mind leads one’s own self to lies and fraud toward life’s failure.

God has made clear to us what man should do. That is to love God, not to serve idols, and to keep His commands. The right way to love the invisible God, is only to believe in Jesus the Savior, the Son of God the Trinity, and to live obediently by the hand of the Holy Spirit. And in order not to serve idols, we must deny all our passions and obey the authority of the absolute God. To do so, we must make the Bible the word of God, standard of life. Those are the perfect ways to love God and not to serve idols. Then we will be joyful with the blessings of all sides in spirit and body.

It is one of the blessings that God does not let a man get sick. We may say man fights disease for all life, because many diseases harm human health anytime. Such the words are by no means wrong or excessive. As we know, various pathogens constantly attack the human body. And it is true God has placed the viruses in the world to act as the cause of the disease. In the old days God allowed bad diseases when He brought out the people of Israel from Egypt. It is the same as before and now. God has absolute jurisdiction over both evil and good in the world. Then one might ask like this, “Isn’t God promoting evil?” But that’s never it, and that is a different issue. A person only suffers pain and punishment in exchange for one’s own sins. We just say: “God presides over all good and evil, as it is done according to God’s principles for justice.” About the outbreak of a disease in these days, it is a very dangerous and foolish idea of narrow mind to claim God is willing to destroy a country and the regime.

 

Faith is fundamentally a personal matter for one’s own spirit-saving. If individuals don’t manage themselves properly, health issues with sanitation and spiritual problems could happen anytime and anywhere. To suffer from or die of an evil disease is due to wrong deeds and sins of the individual. But if we love the Lord and keep away from idols and keep God’s commands, we will not have an evil disease regardless of the surroundings or neighbors. Let’s do our best only for ourselves, society, nation and country.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Feb 23rd 2020)