Is COVID-19 God's Judgement on America?

I've heard certain people claim that plagues, like COVID-19, are a judgement of God on America. They have the mistaken idea that the Bible was written to us twenty-first-century believers as well as to the people of earlier times. But is our modern world so important?

Certainly we should be expecting Christ to return. He urged his disciples in Luke 21:28 (BBE) to be watchful. "But when these things come about, let your heads be lifted up, because your salvation is near."

I personally remember how the false prophet of a house church I attended figured that Canada was mentioned in Holy Scripture. Psalms 72:8 (BBE) was his proof text. "Let his kingdom be from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth."

Canada does stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Saint Lawrence River to what could be called the ends of the earth. Little did that scripture twister know that this wasn't a precise description but hyperbole.

People need to recognize that the Bible is centered around the Middle East. That's because it's where God's nation of Israel and the Christian church began. Of course it doesn't ignore people in surrounding lands. Christ commanded his disciples in Matthew 28:19 and 20 (BBE) to, "Go then, and make disciples of all the nations, giving them baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: Teaching them to keep all the rules which I have given you: and see, I am ever with you, even to the end of the world."

Some folks will argue that God punishes nations. That was true in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Christ fulfilled the law and the prophesies concerning his incarnation. Luke 16:16 (BBE) explains, "The law and the prophets were till John: but then came the preaching of the kingdom of God, and everyone makes his way into it by force."

The whole purpose of redemption was, is, and will always be about God giving his son a people. We read in 2 Corinthians 15:28 (BBE) that Christ will someday submit himself to the Father. "And when all things have been put under him, then will the Son himself be under him who put all things under him, so that God may be all in all."

It really doesn't matter which nation we come from. A time will come when Christ will judge the entire human race in one massive sentencing session. Empires come and go but the gospel continues until that last sheep, metaphorically speaking, is brought into the fold.

On Thursday, if Jesus doesn't come first, I hope to post about God and a cure for the CCP virus.