For the church - What is Covid-19 and how should we deal with it?

Have you asked yourself about the time we are living in: "What's going on?" "Why is this happening?"  Many ideas have been shared, many of them contradictory to each other. 

Covid-19 is either a naturally occuring virus in a fallen world, an attack on our world by the evil one, or a punishment allowed by
or inflicted by the One True God.  The problem that I have is that the various ideas are put forth so dogmatically, as if that idea is the only one, the right one.  They all cannot be true.  Which one is true?  The only way we could know that, is through a divine revelation, one that's not possible to question.  When ideas are put forth and all 3 claim to be the 'word of the Lord', you can be sure that some of the claims are false, or none of them is the absolute truth.  That is state of the matter as I see it. 

I do not know what this is.  The Lord has sent plagues because of sin and disobedience.  No one rebuked the plague.  They had to repent in order to stop the plague and receive forgiveness and healing.  There have been natural disasters.  Storms, famines,
pestilences were often simply what occurred in a fallen world.  Jesus did rebuke the wind and the waves and they obeyed Him!  But Paul never rebuked the storm that destroyed the ship he and all the others were aboard.  He did receive assurance from the Lord's angel, that His life, and the life of all the others would be spared.  There was a terrible famine in David's time.  Neither David nor any of the prophets rebuked the famine.  The Lord revealed that the famine was a punishment for Saul's sin, a violation of a covenant made earlier.  Agabus, a New Testament prophet revealed that there would be a famine.  No one rebuked the famine (or the prophet), but instead, those who were able sent relief where it was needed, to Jerusalem.

The Lord said to Solomon, "If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and 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, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer
offered in this place.  For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.  As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, even to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, `You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.'  "But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.  As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, `Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?' And they will say, `Because they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.' " (2 Chronicles 7:13-22) 

If you think this is directly an attack by the evil one, deal with it as such.  Exercise your authority in Jesus' name and believe in the power of the Greater One that dwells within you.  Just don't expect everyone else to accept that what you're doing is the only right way to deal with this crisis.  All believers, and even unbelievers like in Nineveh, can cry out to the One True God, and plead with Him for His mercy.  He may or He may not
continue to give mercy and show mercy every time.  His people's sin became so great, the apex of their iniquity being the shedding of innocent blood, that the Lord ultimately said He would not forgive.  There was no remedy for His people.  Only defeat and captivity for 70 years -- 70 years that the land would observe its
sabbaths.  Are we as a world, as a nation, as a church, as a people at that same point?  Will the Lord still forgive?  Is there any remedy left for us as a nation and for our world?  I don't know.  All we can do is to cry out to the Lord, or deal with this matter as we believe we should.