I was reading through Daniel 9 the other day and there were
two verses that leaped out at me as soon as I read them. Daniel 9:13-14 reads:
As it is written in the Law of
Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor
of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining
insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the
calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is
righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his
voice. (Dan. 13:13-14, ESV)
Immediately after I read those verses, I was struck by the
parallels between Daniel’s situation and our own in the midst of a pandemic. Both of us are experiencing a calamity, and
our nation’s response unfortunately seems to be the same as the response of God’s
people during Daniel time.
I want to be clear – Daniel’s situation is not an exact
parallel of ours. In Daniel 9, we are
told that Daniel recognized that the 70 years of Jewish exile in Babylon predicted
by the prophet Jeremiah were almost over.
As a result of his realization, he devotes extensive time to prayer,
confessing the sins of his people and asking God, in his mercy and forgiveness
to restore them to their land. His
prayer can be found in Daniel 9:3-19.
The calamity that has come upon them is one predicted by the
Law of Moses. In places like Leviticus
26 and Deuteronomy 28, the people of God are warned of the curses for disobedience,
which included defeat at the hands of their enemies and captivity far from
their homeland. In his prayer, Daniel
confesses that his people deserved such a calamity – they were aware of the
price of disobedience and disobeyed anyways.
Daniel seeks God’s face, asking that this time of calamity would come to
an end.
We too are experiencing calamity. While it would be unwise to tie the COVID-19
situation to a specific Scripture passage, the pandemic we are experiencing is
the result of sin. In the broadest
sense, since human sin has corrupted each of us as individuals and all of this
world we live in, we can fairly say that sin is ultimately behind the COVID-19
epidemic.
What I was struck by as I read Daniel’s prayer was the
response of his people. Despite the
calamity they experienced at the hand of God, the Jewish people did not entreat
God’s favor, they did not turn from their sins and they did not gain insight
from God’s truth. As a result, the Lord
has “kept ready” the calamity. This phrase
refers to God watching over the calamity and allowing it to continue until the
time allotted to it has passed. Because
God’s people had not obeyed God’s voice, their calamity continued.
We too are in the midst of calamity – a worldwide
pandemic. How have we responded to
it? We have social distanced
ourselves. We have shut down our
economies. We have sought out drugs and
researched vaccines. All these things
are likely necessary responses. But have
we turned to God? Statistics show that
instead of turning to God, we have turned to other things. Streaming services are up 34% as people are
stuck at home and turn to entertainment as an answer. Alcohol sales are up 25 to 40%, depending on
the type of alcohol, despite the fact that alcohol is readily available and liquor
stores remain open. Marijuana dispensaries,
open because they are deemed “essential” businesses, have seen sales spike
between 33 and 75 percent, depending on the state. And pornography use has spiked in the US and worldwide
by 18%, with some major pornography companies seeing the pandemic as an
opportunity to get more people addicted to their “product.”
Let’s remind ourselves of Daniel’s words. God’s people had calamity brought upon them,
and they did not call out for God’s favor, they did not turn from their sin and
they did not seek insight into these things in God’s truth. Sadly, we are no different as a nation. This is a time for us to be different as believers. To use our extra time to entreat the favor of
God. To use this time for gaining insight
into God’s truth as found in God’s word.
And instead of diving even deeper into sin, to ask for the transforming
grace of God to empower us to increasingly turn from our sins and seek the face
of the One who loves us and gave his One and Only Son so that we could know Him
and live for Him, both now and for eternity.
