The seven billion plus people living on earth today find themselves dealing with yet another globe-encircling problem. This one has come in the form of a disease known as the coronavirus pandemic, aka COVID-19. This deadly plague is the latest on a long list of individual, national and international disasters that have attacked the human race over the centuries. When people, whether individually, as a group, as a nation or as a global unit find themselves facing another crisis, they invariably ask two questions: 1) WHY am I (are we) facing yet another problem? and 2) WHAT is the solution to my (our) problem? History reveals that there is good reason for asking those questions. Ever since the Almighty sent a flood to kill off the world’s human inhabitants, disease, sickness, financial problems, war, floods, droughts, famines, pestilences, plagues, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, freezes and heat waves, crop failures, invasions and the like have arrived like sea waves generation after generation after generation, ad infinitum. With the arrival of yet another crisis people automatically ask the WHY and WHAT questions.  Yet, after some 6000 years of asking, the answers are as elusive as ever. Why? God tells us.

Unwilling to search His Word for the answers to their WHY and WHAT questions, and unwilling to believe (or even listen to) His messengers who proclaim His answers, the world’s masses continue to ask the same questions generation after generation, millennium after millennium.  History records that each wave of death and destruction produces the same man-generated answers to the same man-generated questions: 1) why is this happening? and 2) what is the solution? Two globally-accepted options are given to answer the WHY question: 1) “mother nature,” and 2) “that’s life.” The WHAT question also produces two answers; they differ depending on whom one asks.

Each of the world’s two basic groups (churched and unchurched) offers its own WHAT IS THE SOLUTION answer regardless of the problem.  The unchurched proclaim that science is the solution to the problem.  However, science has been around since the first mud pack was placed on a carbuncle. Science has improved and developed with each generation, at times with leaps and bounds. Yet those death-dealing problems continue to arrive like clockwork. Science no sooner overcomes one crisis when another arrives and attacks mankind. Though science has existed for thousands of years and has produced incredible advancements, man still finds himself battling problem after problem with no end in sight. Science, though impressive, has failed to live up to its hype.

Among the churched the solution to the current problem is the same as the solution to all past and future problems. When the crisis arrives we begin to hear that such things as faith, prayer, fasting, church attendance, bible study, etc. will “get us through” the current crisis. Regardless of which of the above techniques one employs, the central power behind it is the Lord. Therefore, let us focus on Him as the church’s solution for the immediate problem.

To those who believe that the Biblical God is the solution to the problems that continue to plague mankind, I have a statement and a question. God existed before man was created and has continued to exist ever since. If, as church people believe, God is the solution to their problems, why do those who claim to be his children continue to have the same problems as everyone else? With one-third of mankind expressing their belief in God as the solution to all problems, why do they have the same problems as those who do not believe in Him, or in some cases, openly proclaim that He does not exist? Why do the same crises come upon church people as upon unchurched people, upon both God-blessers and God-cursers? If God is the solution to churchman’s problems, why do those who pray to Him, believe in Him, read His Word, fast, attend church, smile, witness, sing hymns, tithe, preach, build churches, baptize, serve on mission fields, etc. suffer like everyone else? A God worshiper and a God-hater contract the same disease. They go to the same doctor, receive the same medication, endure the same pain, etc. and, three weeks later, receive the same healing. Why do death and destruction not discriminate between the churched and the unchurched? For those who are willing to face reality, GOD IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO MAN’S CONTINUING PROBLEMS REGARDLESS OF HIS RELIGIOSITY OR THE LACK THEREOF. So why is mankind forced to face crisis after crisis? Why does God not spare those who call themselves His people? Why do they suffer and die just like everyone else? L.J.