Page 30 - COVID-19 and the Church_eBOOK_Color_07.16.2020_Neat

to declare these catastrophes as God’s way of executing
judgment upon the wicked; even within the church.

One pastor called the coronavirus, God’s Death
Angel. This reasoning leads others to ask the all-important
question— “Does God really use sickness and disease to cause
suffering for the sins of humanity?”

All across America and in other regions of the world,
church leaders and their members scoffed and laughed
at the COVID. Comics joked about it, singers sang about
it, and millions of others poked fun at the coronavirus.

Pastors defied government orders to close their
church doors for just a few weeks during the pandemic.
Millions of trusting parishioners were put at risk. I
wondered why that was. Why would a sincere man or
woman of God deliberately, and defiantly risk the lives
of the members of their congregations?

I thought about that for a while. Then, I thought about
how some churches have thousands of members gathered
together in their impressive sanctuaries, auditoriums and
stadiums for a single Sunday morning worship service.
Thousands, to tens of thousands of parishioners, could
easily represent hundreds of thousands of dollars per
service; maybe millions.
With that thought in mind, I considered the fact
that some churches hold as many as three (3) identical
praise and worship services each Sunday morning. That’s
not including their Sunday evening or weekday services,
programs and various auxiliary gatherings.

So, it stands to reason that their cause for not
shutting down may not be about faith in God at all…
but about dollars and cents. For some churches, the
monetary losses could be great.