January: First Sabbath: Nkayi; Fourth: Auckland, Inverness, New Canaan.
February: Second Sabbath: Dingwall; Third: Stornoway; Carterton; Fourth: Zenka.
March: First Sabbath: Sydney, Tarbet; Second: Ness, Portree; Third: Halkirk, Kyle of Lochalsh; Fourth: Barnoldswick, Fifth: Ingwenya, North Tolsta.
April: First Sabbath: Laide; Second: Chesley, Gisborne; Maware, Staffin; Fourth: Glasgow, Mbuma.
May: First Sabbath: Aberdeen, Donsa, Grafton, Leverburgh, London; Second: Achmore, Kinlochbervie; Third: Edinburgh; Fifth: Chiedza.
June: First Sabbath: Perth, Shieldaig; Second: Nkayi, North Uist, Santa Fe; Third: Lochcarron, Uig; Fourth: Bulawayo, Gairloch, Inverness.
July: First Sabbath: Beauty; Second: Bonar Bridge, Staffin, Vancouver; Third: Applecross, Auckland, Fort William; Fourth: Cameron, Glendale.
August: First Sabbath: Dingwall; Second: New Canaan, Somakantana; Third: Laide; Fourth: Farr; Fifth: Stornoway, Zenka.
September: First Sabbath: Chesley, Sydney, Ullapool; Second: Halkirk, Munaka, Portree; Third: Tarbert; Fourth: Aberdeen, Barnoldswick; Ingwenya, Tauranga.
October: First Sabbath: Dornoch, Grafton, Lochcarron, North Tolsta; Second: Gairloch; Third: Leverburgh, London, Odessa; Fourth: Edinburgh, Gisborne, Mbuma.
November: Second Sabbath: Glasgow; Third: Chiedza, Singapore.
December: Third Sabbath: Bulawayo, Santa Fe.
The Free Presbyterian Magazine
Volume 125
May 2020
Number 5
Covid-19
A disease which was almost unheard of at the start of this year has become almost the sole focus of our news media. Covid-19 seems to have subsided in China, where it began, and is now most prevalent in Europe and the United States; in the United Kingdom (at the time of writing) deaths in hospital from this illness are over 6000. No one knows what the final total will be, or even if the disease can ultimately be brought under control.
The fact is that the UK, in common with other nations with a Christian heritage, has, for several generations, increasingly ignored the Most High, the Creator of all things. Ezekiel could look back on the wonderful heritage that God had given to Israel and Judah, a heritage which included holy commandments to direct people’s conduct and a pure revelation to show them how – though they were guilty of breaking these commandments – they might be forgiven and brought back into fellowship with Him.
Yet their heritage was now very largely ignored. So the Lord said, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great”, and the serious fact lying at the centre of such iniquity was that they were assuming that “the Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not” (Ezek 9:9). It is not that the people had spoken these actual words but, as the Lord looked down on them and saw into their hearts, He could see that these words represented their attitudes: they were acting as if God did not see them and would never take to do with them for their sins; they were going on through life as if God had forsaken the earth.
William Greenhill, a Puritan minister in London, wrote, “Men entertain atheistical thoughts of God, that they may go on more securely and fully in sinful courses. They filled the temple with idolatry, the city with perverseness, the land with blood, and say, ‘The Lord seeth not’. When atheism hath got possession of a people, that people runs riot into wickedness, fear of a Deity ceaseth, and the door is open to all profaneness. Atheism is worse than idolatry; this robs God of His worship, that of His attributes and being.”1
One might think of twenty-first-century idolatry in the UK and elsewhere
1Greenhill, An Exposition of Ezekiel, Banner of Truth reprint, 1994, p 226 (on Ezek 9:9).
taking the form of adulation of sports stars and well-known figures in the entertainment world. These are forms of idolatry, but we should be conscious of another kind of idolatry: a godless fixation on national wealth and individual prosperity. The wishes of voters leads governments to focus on boosting the economy year after year. Most people have been setting their hearts to what they can eat, what they can drink, what they can put on – focusing on their possessions and the things they imagine will make them happy, while they totally neglect their souls and the salvation that their souls so desperately need. But because of the spread of Covid-19, we can be sure that national prosperity and the income of many citizens will be significantly lower in 2020, and perhaps for several years into the future. It is as easy for the Lord to demolish such idols as it was to cause the Philistine idol Dagon to fall and be broken in pieces. And “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8:36).
God was calling for repentance, through the prophets, and the people were ignoring His call. Instead of repenting, they were going further and further away from Him and further and further into idolatry. These departures from God did not happen in a single generation; nor did the declension in countries like the UK, that has brought so many of them to their present near-atheism, happen over a few years. One can trace this near-atheism back particularly to the increasing acceptance of the theory of evolution, especially since the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859. Then and afterwards there were many ambassadors for Christ calling sinners to repentance. In God’s mercy, some who heard repented; they turned from their own ways and looked by faith to Christ. Yet many hardened their hearts and went on in unbelief – some of them keeping up a form of outward religion and others drifting away from it with the increasingly-blatant unbelief of the age.
Yet God still speaks. He speaks to those who take up their Bibles and read; He speaks to those who hear the preaching of the Word. And after, perhaps, many years of hearing God speak in these ways, we should be asking ourselves: Have I profited spiritually from any of these opportunities, turning from my own ways and looking by faith to Christ?
God also speaks in His providence, not least at a time like this, when Covid-19 is causing so much fear, especially because of how it spreads so readily – much more than, say, seasonal flu does. This is reflected in the number of people who have died and in estimates of those who will yet die. A Scottish Episcopal Bishop has spoken of people beginning “to realise that we need each other”. That may well be true, yet there is no indication (at least in the report of what he said) that we need God and that we need Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners. How necessary to flee to
Christ, while He is near, while our opportunity lasts for finding Him as the one Saviour of those who are still under condemnation because of their sins!
In the midst of much uncertainty, one thing is certain: God knows everything, and He is in total control of all that happens. God’s children may therefore trust in Him, coming before Him in prayer. They may pray for themselves and for their families and friends, in particular for protection from Covid-19; yet they must submit to whatever may be His will for them, while recognising also that all things will work together for their good. God’s people are to pray also that it would please Him to bring the present pandemic to an end, and to bless the efforts of those who are working on developing a vaccine against it and an effective treatment for it. Yet they should pray particularly that God, in His mercy, would cause multitudes of sinners to hear His voice in this providence. In the face of God’s judgements, we should plead, “In wrath remember mercy” (Hab 3:2). We should not despair; God is altogether able to bring sinners to seek Him and to provide all the means necessary to achieve that end.
Various Churches in Scotland, including the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church, called for national prayer on March 22, in view of the Covid-19 outbreak. The prayer that was published for the occasion itself did not indicate who it was to be addressed to, but presumably Roman Catholics were at least as likely to pray to the Virgin Mary as to God Himself. This prayer included, appropriately, petitions for blessing, guidance and wisdom for “political leaders and decision-makers”, and for blessing, guidance, strength and well-being for “health workers and key workers”. But, throughout the prayer, the real problem was not what was said but what was not said. There was no confession of sin and no petition for forgiveness, no sense of spiritual need and no request for grace to repent and to believe in Christ, no awareness of the need for salvation and to be prepared to pass into eternity.
In addition to the call to pray, people were “asked to light a candle in their window. . . as a visible symbol of the light of life, Jesus Christ”. But if we use symbols in our worship, they must be appointed by Christ Himself, speaking through Scripture. Yes, Christ spoke of Himself as “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), but He never directed His followers to light a candle to represent Him. In these solemn days, when we are reminded so forcefully of the reality of death, we need to consider most seriously what lies beyond death and the necessity for a living, spiritual religion through the work of the Holy Spirit in our souls. We must look to Christ, who died for sinners and rose again – as He is revealed in the Word of God. This is no time to take refuge in a feeble imitation in which non-scriptural practices loom large.