We are going to turn to the Book of Job and read just one verse. The Book of Job chapter 1 and verse 21. Book of Job chapter 1 verse 1. He speaks his words after hearing about the tremendous calamity upon his wealth and his family. And so Job, when he heard all this, said, naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And the title this morning is Taken Away by God or Taken Away by COVID-19. Taken Away by God or by COVID-19. On Thursday, I was seated in a bus going towards Wembley Central. And I saw the shops closed, all under lockdown. And suddenly this thought flooded my mind. Taken. Taken away. Taken away by COVID-19 or coronavirus. And I began to reflect upon this thought. Taken away what? Shops have been taken away. They are closed down. Jobs have been taken away. Sports have been taken away. Of course, only the privileged one, the premier league players can play, and with them go the adverts for beers and spirits and banks. What is taken away? Partying is taken away. Socializing is taken away. Children's laughter and play is taken away. My house is just behind the school and throughout the day we could hear the laughter of the children playing out. It's taken away. Singing in the church is taken away. So many things that we do normally is taken away. Travelling from one country to the other is restricted and taken away. Even travelling from one county to the other. All this is taken away by whom? Who has taken away all this? Is it God? Or is it men in power? Or is it neither? Is it the virus, COVID-19? Well, the world is shouting out loud that it is COVID-19. Everywhere we read, it is about COVID-19, coronavirus. All the time we hear on the media about COVID-19. And so the world leaders and scientists are saying that this is taking away. This lockdown is because of the coronavirus. When the thought, taken away, flooded my mind, I asked a question to myself, who has taken away all this? Being a Christian, who is a child of God, the first question to come to my mind, and if you are a Christian, it will be the same, is it God? that has taken it away? Is it God that has brought about COVID-19 to take away our jobs, our play, our fun, our socializing, our partying, our travel, our reason to do what we want to do? Is it God? The next step is to look into the Word of God. Is the Bible we read? Tell us? Well yes, in the Bible we read that God does take away such things from people if we rebel against his commands. God does such a thing when people stop believing in him. God does such a thing when people commit horrific sins, adultery and fornication, abortions and witchcraft, blasphemy. And when people show open contempt to God and curse God, God does such a thing when idolatry and immorality become a way of life. God does such a thing when each one does whatever they want to do, and the kings of the earth encourage such a thing. In fact, androsis, homosexuality, killing of children in the womb, encourage to live as partners without getting married. The Bible describes such a state as a nation of whoredom. Israel is an example for all to know that God takes away. God takes away many things when moral corruption sets in by and large among leaders and people. Let us read the word of God, if this be true. We read Jeremiah chapter 16 as our first reading. Let us read from verse 1. The word of the Lord came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons, and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bear them, and concerning their fathers that beget them in this land. They shall die of grievous deaths. They shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried, but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth, and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. For thus saith the Lord, enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, nor bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people. Save the Lord. Even loving kindness and mercy Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried. Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning to comfort them for the dead. Neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. Thou shall not also go into the house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will cause to seize, take away out of this place in your eyes and in your days the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. And it shall come to pass when thou shalt show this people all these words and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, sayeth the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. And ye have done worse than your fathers. For behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart. that they may not hearken unto me." God gives a reason why he sends famine, pestilence, viruses, death, war, and so on. Why he takes away laughter and gladness. He gives a reason why. And when such a thing happens, people immediately want to know if it is because we have sinned. That is the immediate response of people who believe in God. And God says in verse 11, Then thou shalt say unto them when they ask, Why have we sinned? Is it because of our iniquities? Say to them, he says, Because your fathers have forsaken me. Look what the Lord is saying. This is because of your fathers. and you are worse than your fathers, because they have forsaken me. And fathers here include all adults, especially those that lead the family, the head of the family, the head of the cities, the head of the nation. Fathers here include both the religious and the political leaders. They have forsaken me, say the Lord. Now most of the Christian leaders believe that COVID-19 is from God. They say it is from God because of our sins. And truly this nation and the world is immersed in the sea, the ocean of sin. If this be so, what should be our response? What should be the response of the fathers of the religious leaders, of the pastors, of the bishops, the priests, the nuns, the Pope, and the people that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? What should be the response of the rulers, the prime minister, the president, the judges, the police force, the civil servants, the doctors, the nurses, the scientists? What should our collective response be? We should repent. We should come to the Lord in fasting and prayer. We should come to the Lord in humility, repenting of our sins and pleading to save us from this deadly COVID-19, if it is a deadly pestilence. But we have not seen such a thing happening for the last one year in this nation. Hardly any of our church, great church leaders have come out to give a call to the people. Come and pray and let us humble ourselves. Yes, thanks be to God, little groups here and little groups there have met together to pray and seek God and repent and ask for forgiveness. What about the rulers of our nations? What about our Prime Minister, our politicians, our judges, our scientists, our civic servants, our law and order departments? Have they acknowledged their sins before the Lord? Have they humbled themselves before the Lord and asked God to bring healing to this land from COVID-19 or coronavirus? Has the Prime Minister Even during the Christmas season, speak a good word towards the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world? No, instead he mocked Jesus and blasphemed Jesus and compared the vaccine to the Saviour. Listen to his speech on Christmas Day. This means neither the church leaders, nor the political leaders, nor the scientists have accepted moral responsibility. They are not willing to humble themselves before the Lord, yet Christian leaders by and large outrightly have demanded that we obey the government leaders. Now let us remind ourselves as to how the argument goes. Christian leaders, most of them say that this virus, COVID-19, is from God. They say it is because of our sins. And when they say this, they mainly point to the sins of the nation and to the unbelieving government. They hardly speak about their own sins. They don't see God being angry with the church itself. If at all they see that the churches are at fault, it is on the other side of the wall. The charismatic, the Pentecostal, the Catholics, but not the Reformed, not the Puritans, and it can be vice versa. They could be blaming the others. They hide under the banner of their religion. They hide under the banner of their institution. And others hide under the banner of the reformers and the Puritans of the past. It is just like the Jews who hid themselves under the banner of Abraham during the time of Jesus Christ. We have Abraham as our father, they said. They believe that God can do nothing to them since they are from the loins of Abraham. But the Lord said to Jeremiah, tell them, tell them, though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. Cast them out of my sight and let them go forth. So this virus is from God. It is because of sins. However, the unbelieving rulers say this virus is from bats. That's it. Full stop. Since it is from the bats or pigs or some kind of animal, we must now stop our normal activities and introduce new normal to stop this virus. What is the solution? This virus will be stopped when partying is taken away, socializing is taken away, sports is taken away, jobs are taken away, travel is taken away, laughter is taken away, speaking is taken away, marriage celebration is taken away, singing in the church is taken away, even going to church is taken away. For some time, hymn books and Bibles in the church are taken away, full congregation meeting is taken away, and all that we usually do is taken away. So this is the solution. Instead, we must isolate ourselves, wear masks, remain locked in our houses behind doors, and above all, take vaccine. God says, I take away your regular activity and bring a curse upon you because of sin. I do this so that you return to me in repentance. Repentance and change of heart will bring you healing. The rulers say that we take away your regular activity and bring pain and depression upon you because of the virus. or bring solution to you by taking away everything because of the virus. And we do this because you must take the vaccine. This will bring you healing. Now, what are our Christian leaders saying about this? Where do they stand on this? On whose side are they? On God's side or on the scientist and ruler's side? If you say on the rulers' and scientists' side, then you must admit that this virus is not God sent. Right? Therefore, we must all submit to the scientists and rulers, and rightly so. We must obey them. But if you say, as many of the Christian leaders are saying, and many people are saying, that it is God sent because of sin, then the Christian leaders and all God's children must bypass the scientists and rulers and call upon men to repent, to pray, to humble ourselves and continue to worship the Lord as we do. But this time with more intensity, with fasting, with humbling, because it's a terrible thing, isn't it? It's a terrible virus, and it's because of our sins. And therefore, we must be serious in what we believe. We must seek for forgiveness on behalf of the Church and on behalf of this nation. However, what we have experienced during COVID-19 is that the churches were the first to close down, even before the government called for the lockdown. The lockdown was fixed for 23rd March 2020. 22nd was the Lord's Day. So many small and large churches locked their doors on the 22nd March 2020. If you believe that it is from God, then 22nd March 2020, the Lord's Day, was the day to gather and pray to the Lord and seek for pardon. because we were warned in advance about the lockdown. The scientists announced the pandemic of the deadly coronavirus and the rulers brought in their order for a lockdown. And the Christian gave full support and obeyed the government and not God. The great Church of Christ, the great warriors of Christ set aside God and his Christ the King, seated on the throne in heaven, and bowed down to the scientists and unbelieving rulers. The unbelieving government, perhaps, wanted the Christians to go and pray to their God and their Savior. Common grace, perhaps, and the providence of God, perhaps, led the government not to lock down the churches and other places of worship on the 22nd of March. 2020 which was a Sunday. So the hand of God overruled and made our rulers fix the lockdown date on the 23rd of March which was Monday. How did the Christians, both great and small, respond? They said, nothing doing, sir. Prime Minister, thank you. We have no one but Caesar. We trust you. We love you. To show our total confidence in you, we will lock our temples of worship. We know you will do something to save us from this misery and death. Not only did these Christians who locked down their churches insisted, they also insisted that all Christians must obey the government, and they even said that this is the command from the Lord to obey the government. Those that keep their churches open They sang hymns to the Lord and worshipped as usual, trusting in the Lord, repenting of their sins and praying for the nation as a church. They were called bad names. They were considered as bad witnesses. They called them disobedient. They called them rebels. Some even threatened to call the police on them. Many left the church. They said that these rebels don't love their neighbors. So the virus is God sent because of our sins. But we must lock down the churches, pray, pack our hymn books, stop singing, put masks over our face, pack up our Bibles and empty our churches and obey the command that is given. One good preacher told me that these rulers are unbelievers. They don't understand about God, but we must obey them. God has asked us to obey them. Of course, in the thing that Christ has asked us to obey them, we certainly do. Paying our taxes, for example. I know of people who don't pay their taxes, have not registered their business, And yet they had the audacity to tell us that we must obey the government. The Bible tells us about a man called Job. Almost everything of his was taken away from him. He was struck with misery and rotting. He knew that God had laid his hand upon him. What did this just man say? We read in Job chapter 1 verse 21, he said, naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His heart was fixed on the Lord. He believed and honored the Lord in every situation. He did not look for answers in men. His wife said to him, curse God and die. His friends tried to make him believe in their ideas and in their theology. They tried to impose upon him their idea about God, but he stuck to the Lord. for he knew it was God's hands, although Satan was allowed to strike him with pain. David is another example. David sinned against the Lord and God had to punish him. God sent him a prophet called Gad to tell David three things. God offered three things to David. Three types of punishments. One, shall seven years of famine, pestilence or virus come unto you in your land? Two, or shall your enemies pursue you for three months that you flee from them? Third, or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? David told Gad, the prophet, to tell God, I am in great distress. I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great. And let me not fall into the hand of men. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel. Many people died. Then the Lord had mercy upon Jerusalem. David said to the Lord, lo, I have sinned and I have done wickedly. You see the response of a man of God. He goes to God. He wants to fall in the hands of God. Yes, Lord, send pestilence, send whatever. Don't put me in the hands of man. Don't. David, the king of Israel, repented and chose for his punishment a virus rather than he fall into the hands of men. He repented. He knew God is merciful and he will save him. He had no faith in men. If he fell in the hands of men, they would not spare him. He chose to be punished and stricken by God rather than men. and you'll get this information in 2 Samuel chapter 24. Let me give you another example from Habakkuk. Habakkuk, Prophet Habakkuk, oh he says, although the fig tree shall not blossom Neither shall fruit be in the vines, The labour of the olive shall fail, And the field shall yield no meat, The frog shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like Heinz feet and he will make me to walk Heinz feet, sorry. He'll make my feet like Heinz feet and he will make me walk upon my high places. You see that? What did our kings do? What did most of our church leaders do? They chose men to save them. They chose Caesar to comfort them and assure them of their salvation. On Friday gone, just last week, one brother told me about a church having a prayer meeting on Zoom. From 22nd of March, 2020 till today, they have not opened their church. This was their prayer last week, something to this effect. Lord, please open the church so that we can go and worship and have fellowship. Did God come and lock the doors of the church? This generation of Christians will go down in history as faithless, senseless, having no knowledge of God. talkers but not doers of the word. This generation of Christians will go down in history as ones who opted to be in the hands of men rather than give themselves in the hands of the Lord. And if we continue in this manner, if the rulers and priests continue in this manner, God will bring a nation Because that has been the trend of God from the beginning. God will bring a nation. Jesus may not come. Many people are waiting for Jesus to come without repenting, without preparing ourselves that Christ may come for his bride. The bride get dressed up. Isn't it? The pride does not allow any stains to fall on a dress waiting for a bridegroom to come. And that should be our attitude. So if we continue in this manner, if the rulers and the priests continue in this manner, God will bring a nation that is fierce, ruthless, having no mercy. Then you will get exactly what you have asked for. to be in the hands of men rather than repent and worship the Lord as your king and savior. They will literally lock the churches and they will bring it down as it has been done in the same country. Yes, this nation with the red dragon head has infiltrated all nations of the world, especially the Western nation. And Satan is ready to stamp his mark upon his own. Do not be deceived, dear friends. Do not be deceived. If we do not repent and hold ourselves accountable, if we do not make Christ the King, our Saviour and Lord, and obey Him, and make Him alone our King, God will bring this nation to destroy every church, Yes? And then we will be in the hands of men. Prophet Jeremiah says, Jeremiah chapter 11 verse 9, And the Lord said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words, and they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them which they shall not be able to escape, and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense. They shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. so much we can speak about. But dear friends, in whom is your confidence? In whom is your confidence, dear brethren? You know, conspiracy here means treason. A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah. These were the people of God. And this conspiracy is found in them. And the meaning of conspiracy here is treason. It means to be disloyal to your creator, your savior, and to make alliance with God's enemies. God's enemies hate and mob God. They make laws that go against God's laws. For you and me, to make a pact with them is conspiracy. It's treason against our King and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to finish now. The Lord told Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 22, verse 26, They are hid, they are eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves, ravening the prey to shed blood and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. And the prophets have dubbed them with untempered motor, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus said the Lord when the Lord had not spoken. Ezekiel goes on in verse 30, chapter 22, verse 30. And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way I have recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord. I plead, dear friends, I plead that we don't take God lightly. You and I, we don't take God lightly. The whole world is watching the light of the world. We are supposed to be the light, isn't it? How this light has gone off from the church. The virgins have gone to sleep. And when they woke up, they had no oil in their lamps. They ran to the Lord, but the door was already shut. Oh Lord, open to us, they cried. And the Lord said, truly, I say unto you, I don't know you. I don't know you. Taken away. Taken away. Ask again who has taken away all from us. If it is God, render to God what is due to God. Don't betray God and turn to men for your survival. There is conspiracy in the church among the people of God. Repent and come to Christ. Come, fall into the hands, fall into the hands of the Lord God Almighty. He is merciful to save. He is able. Shall we pray?