Corona virus. Covid-19. Wuhan flu. Whatever you call it, it is certainly wreaking havoc all over the world. Quarantine and social isolation, events cancelled, businesses shut down, stock markets crashing, and death tolls rising all over the world.

This is a strange time we are living in. Frightening, scary times, the likes of which has never been seen in our history. But there have been other times like this in history throughout the ages, dating all the way back to Biblical times.

Times of pestilence, disease and famine abound in the Bible. The first thing so many ask during times of trouble is:"Why would a lovng God allow this?" As if God is powerless to control whatever is going on in our lives, and in the world around us. As if these circumstances are just haphazard. As if God is not Sovereign over all.

While no one can claim to fully know the mind of God, His word gives us many clues to His character and His purpose. When we look at Scripture, we see that God allowed such hardships to turn people's hearts back to Him. We were created by Him, to have a relationship with Him. But our sin-filled hearts are so prone to turn away from God, toward our own desires. We worship the things we enjoy, rather than One who created us. And just like He did back then, God may be allowing us to go through this time of pestilence to turn us back to Him.

You see, whatever we put first, ahead of God, becomes an idol to us. Anything that takes the place of Jehovah God Almighty in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives, becomes sin for us, because God wants us to worship Him alone. Yes, we can enjoy other things, but they must never be our first priority, we must never worship these things.

In three short months, just like He did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said, "You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down Civic Centers. You want to worship actors, I will shut down theaters. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don't want to go to church and worship Me, I will make it to where you can't go to church."

Maybe this is right where we are today. But there is hope. God never leaves us hopeless. You'll notice in Biblical times, whenever His people turned back to Him in faith and repentence, He always heard their cries for help and always brought them back into His presence. His word says:

God never changes: He is the same now as He was back then, and He desires a personal, meaningful relationship with us. The key to having this close, personal relationship is turning from our wicked ways, our worship of other things. He wants us to worship only Him, not the things of this world, for He alone is worthy. Anything else that we worship and give glory to is just an idol, a false god. And our holy God will always punish idolatry. He gave us the Bible to learn from, so that we can know Him, and understand that He is Sovereign over all: He alone is God.

Remember the former things of old:
for I am God, and there is none else;
I am God, and there is none like me,
(Isaiah 46:9)

Maybe we don't need a vaccine nearly as much as we need to turn away from our idols and turn back to God. Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the ONLY thing in the world that really matters. Jesus.