The years were 1665 and 1666: the place, London, England. The unfortunate people of the city were struggling with the ravages of the Bubonic Plague, which was raining death everywhere around them. Their question, will I be next?
Skipping forward to 2020, another pandemic has snaked its poisonous way across nation after nation. Arizona is a national hotspot of Coronavirus. For the past three days the Arizona Health Department recorded a record number of new cases. In response, our governor ordered the re-closing of businesses that had been opened just days earlier.
The tragedy of a pandemic is serious enough, but we are also living with racial protests, riots, a chaotic economy, political unrest, and we are in the midst of a battle with wildfires that are engulfing thousands of acres of deserts and forests. It’s hard to believe that so much chaos has developed so quickly.
As difficult as these days are, the conditions in London were even more severe. In May 1666, 43 people were reported dead from the plague. In June, the number of deaths rose to 6,137. The next month 17,036 deaths were recorded, and 31,159 people in August! At least 25% of the city was dead, and officials resorted to digging large pits to bury hundreds of people.
Tragically, along with the London Plague, a fire broke out, destroying the homes of 70,000 people. To put that number in perspective, the total population of the city was 80,000. Theirs was an almost unimaginable struggle. Their economy was in disarray, lawlessness dominated the remainder of the city, and institutions were failing.
I love Church history. There is so much to learn from those who have gone before us. Recently, I’ve been wondering how pastors dealt with the devastation that London endured in 1665-66. As it turns out the Puritan ministers often addressed their crisis in a way that may be uncommon today.
Their preaching often centered on God’s judgment and His call for repentance. For example, Thomas Vincent, one of my favorite Puritan ministers, preached God’s Terrible Voice in the City, to his London church. Vincent’s conviction was that there are times when God’s voice thunders through the great storms, plagues, fires, and turbulences of our lives. When He does so, He seizes our attention, shakes our foundations, and bids us to repent and return to Him.
Vincent was by no means alone in such preaching.
William Bridge preached, The Righteous Man’s Habitation in the Time of Plague and Pestilence to his Hoxton Church. (See the link below.) This, too, was a call to respond to crises through repentance and pursuit of a godly life in the midst of trouble.
Thomas Brooks, another London Puritan minister, wrote the sermon, Heavenly Cordial, in which he establishes biblical support for God’s calamity tool to call His people back to Him. (See the link below.)
Is God doing what 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 says?
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.” (2 Chronicles 7:14–15, ESV)
Of course, this was written to Israel and not to the United States. However, we know that the essence of the passage, God’s displeasure and choice to discipline His people, to gain their attention and call them to repentance, is very much a New Testament concept.
“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Hebrews 12:5–6, ESV)
Should the people of today’s church be called to repent and return? Are Christians today are responding the calamities that we face with repentance or is it through neglect?
https://gracegems.org/C/Vincent_Gods_terrible_voice_in_the_city.htm
https://www.gracegems.org/Brooks/heavenly_cordial.htm
https://archive.org/details/righteousmanshab00brid/page/12/mode/2up
