Testing Is Not Trusting

Okay folks, I been seeing a lot of news articles showing that there are quite a few large congregations still joining together en masse to worship on Sundays. There are varying opinions on this from obedience to lunacy. Although commendable from an obedience to Hebrews 10:25 standpoint. It's dangerous. Doing works for the sake of works or going to church because we feel obligated isn’t Christian behavior per se. We're missing the point of Hebrews 10:25 when it says to not forsake gathering together with others.

In the context of COVID-19 this is a really bad idea. We cannot tell who is actually infected because we either can’t get everyone tested or because they show no symptoms. We therefore must assume everyone is potentially infected. To gather closely together is an invitation for mass infection. This can be deadly to those with risk factors such as the elderly or those with cardiopulmonary conditions.

This isn't being faithful, its being socially and ethically irresponsible. There are plenty of biblical precedence of people being isolated from a community for the good of a community and those being quarantined or separated are being quite faithful. We have the technology to meet albeit indirectly. The truth about the elderly in our midst that don't have computers is if we take precautions like masks we can check on them and talk to them. I do so with my mother. She is one of my ministries. But gathering in large crowds right now is just a poor idea. Perhaps even unbiblical because putting the weak or infirm in jeopardy is frowned upon in the Old and New Testament.

Exodus 22:22-23 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry…

Psalm 82:3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Isaiah 46:4 Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

1 Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

I’ve been told I am condoning the restrictions of religious liberties by saying this. No. I’m using commonsense. Something it seems many Christians throw directly out the window when they come into the faith and say, “Let go and let God take over!” Uh, no. God wants you to own your behaviors not blame Him for your stupidity. Hence the reason you can still be held accountable for your sin.

In the laws about skin diseases in Leviticus 13 there is a very clear statement about potentially contagious conditions.

Leviticus 13:45-46 A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp.

The infected man is being told to verbally identify himself as a risk to others and warn them by yelling “Unclean!” This warning allows people to keep their distance from him. His outward appearance is a visual warning as everyone else knew this levitical law too. How do we know its distance that is the desired effect? It says so in the next verse. He is to be outside the camp until the condition passes or as long as ‘he is unclean’. Its is implied there is a risk involved here. Even if, at times, the risk is not directly visible or is invisible to the unaffected/uninfected.

2 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 26 brings us another example in the terrifying and contagious disease of leprosy (Hanson’s Disease). A long-term infection by a bacteria that can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damage may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, which can lead to the loss of parts of a person's extremities from repeated injuries or infection due to unnoticed wounds. Regardless, the disease was terrifying to the ancient world. The prescription even for a ruler like King Azariah/Uzziah? Because he was disobedient in not tearing down high places (places of pagan worship) he was afflicted with leprosy and part of the treatment was stated:

2 Kings 15:5 “…The Lord afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house.”

2 Chronicles 26:21 ~ “Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was over the king's house judging the people of the land.

He was deliberately quarantined for the remainder of his life in separate quarters to prevent transmission of the bacteria/infection to others. Conversely, we are not to deliberately put people in harm’s way. Especially if we know a situation is dangerous to them.

Psalm 37:32-34 The wicked lie in wait for the righteous, intent on putting them to death; but the Lord will not leave them in the power of the wicked or let them be condemned when brought to trial. Hope in the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are destroyed, you will see it.

I have news for those in the Church in what I've referred to as viral denial. Coronavirus COVID-19 is killing a lot of the elderly. Any precautions possible to protect them should be utilized. To do otherwise is to just be foolish and unwise. 

Jesus clearly showed by example that one should not purposely put one's self at risk when he was speaking to the Devil in the wilderness. How so?

Matthew 4:5-7 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

The setting here is the second temptation. Satan took Jesus to a high point of the temple. Satan wanted Jesus to demonstrate His trust in God in a spectacular way by challenging God's faithfulness to Jesus. Not unlike the risk we would be taking going into a potentially deadly infected church. Jesus flatly denies Satan this opening to challenge God. Period. Scriptures prohibited putting God to a test, not because He questioned God's faithfulness to His promise. Satan tempted Jesus to test God through Jesus' actions. Satan was tempting Jesus to act as if God was there to serve Him, rather than the other way around. 

Israel had faced the same test and failed in Exodus 17:2-7, Numbers 20 (Water from the rock). It is wrong to demand that God prove Himself faithful to His promises by giving us what He has promised on OUR terms. The proper way is simply to trust and obey God as shown in Deuteronomy 6:16-17. So, to the foolish gathering together in this deadly time in the world be warned. You are testing God.

What did Jesus mean? Simple really. Testing is not trusting. It is sin to test God. By purposely joining together in a church potentially infected with COVID-19 is literally challenging God to meet you where you are at in terms of your faith. Challenging God to come forth to prove your faith correct. That is a sin and always ended poorly in Scripture. To me it is no different than the snake-handlers tempting fate daring the snake to strike them. In a way, you’re snake handling…daring the viper to strike. Not an enviable position to be in physically of spiritually.

Thou Shalt Not Covet Toilet Paper

Yep, its true. The ancient people essentially horded bread, meat, toilet paper and Purell hand sanitizer too. Ok, not toilet paper or hand sanitizer but definitely meat and bread. How do I know? Exodus 16 said so. The Israelites once out of Egypt in the desert wilderness away from Pharaoh immediately started complaining to God about not having food and possible starvation.

Exodus 16:2-3 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

So, God provided for their needs. He gives them explicit instructions on how to plan ahead.

Exodus 16:4-5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

Why does God do this? Moses tells the people why.

Exodus 16:6-8 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. …. Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him.”

The Lord also provided meat.

Exodus 16:13 That evening quail came and covered the camp…

God instructed them to gather… verse 17…“just as much as they needed”. They were then told by Moses that, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” They were not allowed to horde the quail and manna. In this way they would need to rely on God for provision. This of course is echoed by Jesus in Matthew.

Matthew 6:25-27 ~ “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

In other words, plan ahead a little but don’t be a certifiable moron hording toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bread, meat or milk.

Of course, true to human nature the Israelites ignored sound advice given to them for their own well-being and followed their own poor decisions to their own detriment. This is surpassingly like people being advised to stay in their homes during the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The fallout of this is a vastly higher death toll than should’ve been necessary.

Exodus 16:20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So, Moses was angry with them.

So, the pattern of disobedient behavior continued. Somehow humanity seems to always extrapolate the wrong conclusion from a scenario/incident. How often do we assume that because a person has not been punished it is okay to do something wrong? God’s silence is often mistaken for his approval when in reality it is God restraining his hand of judgment.

But then came the Sabbath.

Exodus 16:25-27 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”

In truth the Israelites went out again the seventh day. In the Sabbath when they should’ve been resting as commanded by God. Why did they go out? The same reason people were beating one another over the head for toilet paper and hand sanitizer. They were hording. Why, because they didn’t trust God to provide for their needs. They attempted to take things into their own hands. They tried to control the outcome God intended. What happened when the Israelites kept hording and taking for themselves? Spiritually their hearts were corrupt. God inevitably punished them for their disobedience,  ungratefulness and complaining.

Numbers 11:31-33 ~ Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.

So why was hording considered an offense worthy of being killed? It’s because hording isn’t an act of survival. At it’s heart it is an act completely repulsive to God. At its heart hording is greed and worse a complete distrust of God. You therefore assume and make God a liar. It also has you acting the exact opposite the way God wants you to. You become a taker not a giver. You try to control. You try to play god.

Stop hording people. Bread, meat, toilet paper. What's the difference? Look outwards right now not inwards. Help others and love your neighbor as yourself. Realize God's always on his throne...therefore you don't need to be on yours.

Coronavirus: The War on Two Fronts

Life Saving Patrol

1893

Edward Moran

Oil on canvas

36 1/8 x 54 1/2 in.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

I am posting this because it is a parable that speaks to those types of people that have had a generally cavalier attitude towards COVID-19. The attitude that says to one’s self, “It can’t possibly happen to me. I’m too healthy. I’m not in any of the high-risk groups!” Thereby missing the problem and the point completely. Your focus on yourselves is exactly what makes you and the virus so dangerous. You likely miss seeing that you are probably an asymptomatic carrier that will kill family a member(s) that is older or has a compromised immune system.

We all need to have a sea-change of thought. The COVID-19 virus isn’t about self. Its about others. Its about doing the right thing. I see the proper change in a few and the number is increasing but not enough. The totals of infection bear this out. The death toll sadly adds the explanation point like a hail of bullets. Your government isn’t going to save you. God is. Your behavior is the best indicator of what you are inside. What do you wish the world to see? How do you want to be seen when the crap goes down? Do you want to be the one who gave for others or took from them? Callousness or compassion?

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On a dangerous sea coast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and gave of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life-saving station grew.

Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in the club’s decorations, and there was a liturgical life-boat in the room where the club’s initiations were held. About this time a large ship wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So, the property committee immediately had a shower house build outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split among the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s life-saving activities altogether as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station. So they did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another life-saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

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Complacency and careless attitudes can kill. Complacency and carelessness are deadly. We as people have always prided ourselves on always remaining vigilant to any threats at our borders or within our populace. The current enemy is now inside our  borders and also within the bodies of many of the people. The war is now being waged on two fronts.

Viral and viewpoint. Diseased bodies and diseased thinking. At times our thinking is just as dangerous as the disease. Sometimes our thinking is the disease. Thinking can be a mitigator or a propagator of a virus' spread or of ideas.

1 Corinthians 7:1 ~ Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God

As in war we need to come alongside our fallen brothers and sisters and assist them to get them off the battlefield. Part of that help is remaining vigilant to the enemies both without…and within, both physical and mental. It is extending a hand to lift others up from the depths. Save them from drowning in their own bodies and sometimes in their own thinking. Nursing them back to health. Putting aside our differences and forming a single spear point to break the enemy. Creating a phalanx to protect the weak.

James 1:8 ~...a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

James 1:22 ~ But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

1 Peter 5:8 ~ Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

What Are You Made Of ?

There is that of God to be seen in such a day as cannot be seen in another. His power in holding up some, his wrath in leaving of others; his making of shrubs to stand, and his suffering of cedars to fall; his infatuating of the counsels of men, and his making of the devil to outwit himself; his giving of his presence to his people, and his leaving of his foes in the dark; his discovering [disclosing] the uprightness of the hearts of his sanctified ones, and laying open the hypocrisy of others, is a working of spiritual wonders in the day of his wrath, and of the whirlwind and storm.

We are apt to overshoot, in the days that are calm, and to think ourselves far higher, and more strong than we find we be, when the trying day is upon us. . . . We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there. 

~ John Bunyan: Seasonable Counsel; or Advice To Sufferers

We must understand that there is more to learn and more of God to be gained in our times of trial. In our times of suffering when our meddle is being tested. John Bunyan who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress understood this. Believe it or not, God is usually closest to us in times of adversity and affliction. Times like now when we are awaiting the COVID-19 surge to sweep over the land like a Destroyer. Because of the acuteness and extreme of our dread or pain...we don't or can't see God right next to us. We must try to see Him during this time and what He has to teach us. It builds a faith that is capable of enduring death and will not fold up under the first sign of pressure and misery. God resides directly in the heart of the storm. Right in the heart of chaos and destruction lies the calm before the other side of the storm is upon us. We must face the storm to get to the respite that is in the center of it. God IS the storm AND the calm in its eye.

The ability to endure hardship. Outlast it.

As a whole we sorely lack this in a feel-good hedonistic America. We are not interested in the content of one’s character only of facades and pretense. Only outward appearances. This became brutally evident the last few weeks when people went off the rails as their lives went into disarray. Pull back the veil of order and structure in American live's and the semblance of order evaporates like a puff of steam. Like vanity…temporary and fleeting.

What's more…if our faith is way it should be it will be able to endure hardship and struggling with a sense of grace that can only come from God. With a wry sense of humor. A sense of humor even when facing death(s) as they begin to wash over our lives like high-tide. It is in these struggles that we build our faith like progressive resistance in the world building the strength that is perseverance. It is when we are walking in the Valley of The Shadow of Death, struggling to keep not only our sanity but our lives...that we pick up the materials and resources we need. The materials to scale the mountains and reach the pinnacles God has placed before us to conquer.

If they forced Christ to struggle...how much more will we struggle and suffer if we are willingly follow in His footsteps. 

He was tempted...we will be tempted. 
He suffered...we will suffer. 
He died...we will die. 

Christians that don't suffer are not Christian. Christians that do not die to self will not rise again as new creations. These two principles are inseparably linked. To live is to die to self and to die to self is to live. The Christian must be consoled with the fact that there is always the glorious culmination after death in the eternal reward. 

One must never lose sight of this fact. That is why we are repeatedly called to persevere in the faith until the bitter end. Perhaps dying a thousand little deaths in humility. Perhaps gaining a thousand little rewards in the mundane things in life like the love of our parents or our children. Sunsets and sunrises. Our child’s birth. Their first steps. Their first words. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

It is in the desert that a flower appears so much more beautiful because of the absence of life that appears to be lacking around it. It is in the pressure that the diamond of faith is born. It is in the unremitting pressure of suffering and struggle that the ugly coal and carbon of death is best squeezed until there is no more darkness in it, only light. What emerges is beauty personified in a glorified life. Life that is the image or impression of God.

Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Dark days are upon is. We will not be able to avoid them as a nation or world. We must not allow the surge of darkness to overwhelm us, dragging us under like a tidal wave. When the fire is blown towards us, overtaking us, we will stand only singed but not consumed. We need to, as a people, walk through this death to gain what we will need for mountains that we will need to climb in our latter days. We must suffer well and we will overcome this better equipped to face all that comes before us later on. In the struggle we will be transformed.

Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

God never promised us a pleasant journey. He promised us a pleasant destination.

Breathe

It is ironic that Passover and Easter are nearly upon us starting on Wednesday, April 8th, 2020 and Sunday, April 12^th, 2020 respectively. Passover is essentially the celebration of God delivering the Israelites out of the land of Egypt via the tenth and final plague in which the Destroyer is sent to strike/slaughter the first born of the land that do not have the blood of the Passover lamb over their doors. Make no mistake, the use of this language is meant to convey that not only was death coming…it would strike or be painful. It would be the destroyers plague (Exodus 12:13). We are not told the exact vehicle of death but it will need to move through the air in the land. I imagine suffocating to death is extremely uncomfortable and painful. 

Exodus 12:21-23 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door frame. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

Stealing one’s breath away…just as the cross robbed Jesus of oxygen. This happened because could no longer take breaths with his body weight being suspended from his arms. He would’ve needed to raise himself with his arms each time he needed to take a breath until exhaustion and final suffocation. The is how crucifixion kills.

Mark 15:37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last (breath).

As we see Passover approach this year, I see tens of thousands essentially dying through a similar mechanism. Inability to breathe. Breath. The very thing God breathed into man to give him life in Genesis 2:7.

Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Breath of life or Rûach / רוּחַ in Hebrew or πνεῦμα / pneuma in Greek from which we get the word pneumatic and pneumonia. Pneumonia, the very thing inflicted upon those that contract the Coronavirus. The COVID-19 virus itself isn’t the thing killing people right now. It’s the pneumonia that is filling up their lungs and suffocating them by inhibitiing the exchange of CO2 waste with O2. Pneuma and rûach also refer to the spirit of God or the Holy Spirit.

These ironies are not lost on me today sitting in my home writing this under a State mandated quarantine. The paradox of sitting in our homes two weeks before Passover 2020 waiting for a plague of suffocation to pass over us. Do we need to paint the blood of a paschal lamb above our door frames? No, we don’t, Christ came to abrogate that need in the Jewish law. Jesus is the Passover Lamb or sacrifice that the Paschal lamb of Exodus foreshadowed. Enough of the ancient irony lets get back to the modern ones…

This year, perhaps nowhere so much as in Christian (and Jewish) homes –will we surely note, at least in our minds, how different this Passover/Easter is from all others in our lives. In the shadow of an airborne death a resurrection from death or slavery will be celebrated. Death brought by a destroyer of life…a plague. Celebrations of  freedom and renewed life brought back from death by the Spirit (pneuma/ruach) of God in both cases. God is reliable in His promises. If he has said it, it will come to pass.

For many, Passover and Easter will be a much smaller and intimate affair in 2020. Indeed, according to the latest US government directives aimed at fighting the COVID-19 coronavirus, gatherings of more than 10 people are strictly forbidden. In Pennsylvania where I live some counties aren't even allowing people to leave their homes just as the Lord told the Israelites in Egypt. 

With Americans not known for their prolific birth rates, that means about the number people that can easily constitute an small immediate family with perhaps one or two secondary relatives or grandparents. A family, the basic building block of a Church. It must just be a coincidence that we're so heavily focused now on the very unit that God told the Israelites to keep within the home during the time of the first Passover. A family during the 10th Plague. The death of the first-born. A plague that entered the unmarked homes of both non-believers and believers alike that did not obey God. A plague that entered through the air and then departed taking with it the breath of the first-born. The exact medium of transmission of a virus. A virus that inevitably stop one’s breath.

The irony that for at least a few weeks this virus is freeing at least some of us from labor/fiscal slavery or it frees us from life completely through death. It is temporarily relieving the burden of some of our debts in the postponing of taxes until July 15. The offsetting of a debt by the direct payment of an unearned income. Just as Christ did on the Cross. Settling a debt we could not pay nor did we deserve.

Many of us will cease to gather at least for the time of Passover and Easter to remain protected within our homes with our families. A large communal gathering won’t be safe this year. This modern-day plague is sending us back to olden days, back to our roots....house churches. It is literally making us go full-blown Old Testament and 1st Century Christianity. 

In keeping with this idea of revisiting our past and our roots I posit these last ideas. This year life and death will resonate. It will resonate with the story of the 10th plague that killed the first-born of the land. A plague inflicted by God via the Destroyer on the Egyptians. A plague that would force Pharaoh to free the Israelites. But that freedom came with a cost and started with what can only be viewed as a quarantine in the Jewish homes. What came after was the believer’s ultimate freedom and deliverance once the price was paid.

The story of Easter is the story of an imprisonment in sin that culminates in the death of Jesus only to be overturned in the freedom of the Resurrection. Death no longer holds sway over us. The prison that was death no longer has any control over the believer of the Resurrection. Jesus submitted His body to what looked like the prison of death on a tree to pay a debt we could not. It would've been a permanent terminal quarantine for a mere man but was but a temporary quarantine for Jesus’ physical body. A body that would then be placed in a what appeared to be a permanent grave only to be lifted on the third day by the Spirit. The Pneuma. The Breath of God.

Even an atheist can see that there are enough paradoxes here that it suggests there might have been a plan. A plan that would’ve taken the of power of a Sovereign Being to orchestrate as it affects people worldwide in the same way. I suggest that power was from a Sovereign loving God. A sovereign loving God that allows me to rest and breathe easy at night because I know He’s in control of all things good or bad. The Old and New Testament in the Bible told me as much. The Bible which is a book of words that were Divinely breathed out.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Coronavirus (C-19): The American Damascus Road Experience

In the Book of Isaiah we see a nation so fallen and depraved they cannot tell right from wrong. In so doing, those in Isaiah’s time are victims to the very evils that they allow to gestate in the bowels and of their nation. They are in wholesale rebellion against God and even try to justify it. Frankly, it is the same as the world around us today--especially here in a Coronavirus C-19 infected America.

Isaiah 59:10 ~ Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.

Isaiah then goes on to tell the reader the exact reason for the blindness of the people.

Isaiah 59:12-15 ~ For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.

In Genesis 19 we see more of the same. Humanity that has totally turned their back on God. They are merely hours away from complete destruction along with their cesspools called cities. Just like today in San Francisco, Seattle or New York City. They, like us are lost in spiritual blindness as cities and nations. In Isaiah 59 we see more and more lost in their sins groping blindly continuing to pursue said sins.

Genesis 19:11 ~ Then they (angels) struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

We are on the eve of the destruction in Sodom and Gomorrah in this scene. The men of Sodom begin to threaten Lot by pressing “hard against Lot” to get past him so they can rape those inside. It is at this point angels intervene by dragging Lot back into the house and slamming the door. These townspeople are then supernaturally stuck with blindness. What is exceptionally disturbing in the scene is that these men wearied themselves trying to find the doorway AFTER being struck blind. The blindness had no effect. It is here we see the insanity, irrational and entrenched nature of sin. If not for the supernatural intervention of the messengers of God, these same people would've exhaust themselves pursing their rapes.  They are lost or given over to their sin (Romans 1) to the point that they blindly grope for the doorway that they can't even see (Isaiah 59:10).

In the end these men will not only be struck with blindness but all of Sodom and Gomorrah will be wiped from the face of the plains (the earth) in God’s consummate judgment. People will die en masse.

We need to realize these passages very much speak to us today in a virus infected nation/world. The force of evil will stop at nothing to subvert the will and purpose of God. It will infiltrate our places of worship and social gatherings in an attempt to shut us down, silence us...kill us.

Overt rebellion against a perfect God should be beyond comprehension of a rational person but people totally given over to their sin and stupidity do some really dumb things. They always end up paying dearly for it. They pay with their lives. Either now or later. I see this now  in America in March 2020. Spring breakers, 50 people congregating at Rita's Water Ice in Boyertown, people wantonly disregarding warnings at cost to life or limb, etc. The same twisted rationality that we  saw in Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is the same as we will see in Paul getting struck blind on the road to Damascus. This of course is probably the most visible and well-known example of God punishing someone through being struck with affliction besides (the) Destroyer in Egypt. Paul is mercilessly pursuing, persecuting and killing Christians in a psychotic orgy of violence. It is in the process of wanton persecution that God directly and dramatically cuts Paul off. His life instantly changes. It is at the sight of the Christ Himself that Paul is brought to his knees and ceases his murderous pursuits. In the blinding light of God’s holiness even the hardened man can be snapped back out of the darkness. God’s light can reach even the darkest deepest crevasse of evil.

The blinding of Apostle Paul is ironic. His disobedience of the Word blinds him but obedience to God appears to mitigate the blinding. Once Paul does God's will...he sees. He is healed. It is as if, like all the other blinding incidences in the Bible, the truth or word of God like blinding light incapacitates those that refuse to see it's truth. Yet, the same exact word that blinds them can heal the blindness when the heart changes and turns to God. So too C-19 I believe. The thing used to destroy can be used to heal. A weapon turned into a tool. A sword turned into a plowshare.

God does not wish us to die. He is patient so that none may perish (2 Peter 3:9). It might take knocking the living daylights out of us though. I believe COVID-19 is doing this for some in America. But...based on firsthand observation...not many. More so I see the groping, the blindness that I saw in Sodom and Gomorrah. There are few things more unsettling than losing one's way in life or making a mistake and not learning from it. 

John 9: 4-9 ~ As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So, the man went and washed, and came home seeing. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” Some claimed that he was.

So… the question arises in this quarantined C-19 life in America. Has God struck us senseless or blind via C-19 to get our attention?

I believe He has. We need to look at the map of our lives in quadrant C-19 and determine where C-19 is trying to lead us. I honestly believe (figuratively) that C-19 is a road marker or map coordinate for where we should've been at this point instead of where we are. C-19 is showing us how far we wandered off the path. God has done it to put us back on the correct route in the right direction. 

It is a national Damascus Road experience.

God is trying to get our attention and literally giving us directions. Do you think its such a good thing that God had to work so hard to get our attention? God does not want us wandering blindly to some inexplicable place. He has a instructions for us and a map. The Bible. 

He wants us as sons and daughters. Do we need to wait for another catastrophe in our lives or will we change direction onto the correct path without all the drama? I personally prefer a life of less drama. I like maps. I like directions. I don't like being lost. I don't like when others are lost either. We live in a fallen world and life is already dramatic enough. I’d rather not add to that drama. I have kids for that.

Besides, we all know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah don't we?

apocalypse / αποκάλυψη

In the Bible and Greek literature apocalypse / αποκάλυψη means to unveil or reveal truth. Especially revelation of truth about salvation. It is also used of events by which things previously hidden from view are made visible to all, both persons and entire nations or peoples.

It literally means to lay things bare in all their flaws, foibles and shortcomings. Conversely, it can be to reveal the beauty, the excellence or perfection of something (such as God in comparison to man). I find it ironic we are indeed going through an apocalypse in the strictest definition now. Albeit not the one everyone assumes is the only one, the one alluded to in the last book of the Bible...Revelation. That is only the final one. What this apocalypse is revealing is an instructional truth that acts as a signal for a change/correction to immediate and future behaviors for us all.

A warning shot over the bow.

Revelations are often given directly by God to the individual via knowledge of Scripture and/or indirectly. Indirectly it can be evidenced to others by actions of those affected by the Spirit. Actions such as grace, love and sacrifice. These characteristics reveal much to others about an individual. It is a pulling back of the curtain. It reveals the truth of others. It is also a revelation of one's self.

This pandemic/plague has certainly done that for America. It has also done it for each of us individually hasn't it? What are you going to choose to reveal to others? There isn't just one apocalypse but a countless myriad of individual ones leading to the only final revelation that matters to the Christian.

Christ.

What The Bible Says About COVID-19: Preparation Not Panic

[I will be honest up front. The Bible says absolutely nothing about coronaviruses or viruses specifically. What it does say should give people pause. It should have them reflect on themselves. The image in the mirror should startle us.]

As of March 23, 2020, at 7:15PM EST, there have been a total of 349,211 worldwide confirmed cases of this novel coronavirus with 14.790 deaths worldwide. These totals are decimating Northern Italy and spreading like a field fire driven by wind across the globe. A divine hand brushing across and earthly chessboard knocking pieces to the ground.

The virus hit the world with force when the Chinese began reporting a mysterious virus causing pneumonia-like symptoms infecting many of its citizens in Wuhan in January 2020. We now know that the novel coronavirus of 2019–2020 (COVID-19) originated in bats and jumped the species barrier into the human population (probably in a seafood market located in the Wuhan province).

When I first heard people talking about this outbreak, I was confused by everyone calling it a coronavirus because that term is a broad term to describe an entire family of viruses. The coronavirus family is known to infect a wide range of animals and humans. It includes the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s and the MERS outbreak too. This family of viruses can cause many different symptoms affecting the lungs, liver, kidneys, GI tract, and nervous tissue. COVID-19 is a respiratory infection spread by aerosol droplets.

In history, outbreaks of pandemic diseases, such as the Black Plague, Ebola or the coronavirus, have prompted many to ask why God allows or even causes pandemic diseases and whether such illnesses are a sign of the end times. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, describes numerous occasions when God brought plagues and diseases on His people and on His enemies.

Why? Why does he allow them? There are a few reasons.

“…to make you see my power” ~Exodus 9:14

God used plagues of Egypt to force Pharaoh to free the Israelites from bondage, while sparing His people from being affected by them…

“And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt ~Exodus 12:13

“If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” ~ Exodus 15:26

What we unequivocally see in these passages is God’s sovereign control over diseases, afflictions, the world and man.

God also warned His people of the consequences of disobedience, including plagues.

‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve.” ~Leviticus 26:21

And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. ~Leviticus 26:25

On two occasions, God destroyed 14,700 people and 24,000 people for various acts of disobedience.

“…but 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.” ~Numbers 16:49

“…but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000” ~Numbers 25:9

Korah was leader of a rebellion against Moses, God’s chosen. It ended poorly obviously. Had not Moses and Aaron intervened the death toll would’ve been much higher. The plague that killed 24,000 was instigated by sexual immorality and idolatry. The idolatry with the Moabite women and mixing Baal and Yahweh was vastly more of an offense than the sexual sins but either could’ve resulted in their deaths. The Israelites were a covenant people and they had en masse turned their backs on God. After giving the Mosaic Law, God commanded the people to obey it or suffer many curses, including something that sounds strikingly like modern Ebola.

“The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation . . . which will plague you until you perish” Deuteronomy 28:22.

Although it is sometimes hard to imagine a loving and merciful God displaying such wrath toward His people...few look at themselves and take honest stock of their actions. What does God ask of men? Do we obey? What are the repercussions if we don't? The Bible is redundantly clear. The wages of sin is death. There is a recourse though. He came as an infant in a manger. He lived until 30 years old. He had a profound three-year ministry. Was wrongly accused. A victim of an unjust trial. Then He was summarily executed by being crucified. God’s punishments always have the goal of repentance and restoration in mind. The suffering and death serve to point us in a specific direction. To His Son.

In COVID-19 (and other diseases) we see God using the disease, viruses or disaster to draw His people to Him. He uses plagues to bring about repentance or at least the desire to come to Him for shelter as children to their Father. Whether it be willingly or in fear. We will all turn to something for an answer. God prefers it be Him but of course many will not and new plagues will befall those that turn their back on him. Some of those plagues will be eternal.

When we look to the New Testament we see Christ on grandiose display.

Jesus healed. Where the King is so too the Kingdom. Wherever the King or Kingdom was, there was restoration back to the way things were before the Fall of Man in Genesis 3. God wants the best for us and he sent the King to do just that.

Jesus came to heal every disease and every sickness. In Mark we see the faith of the people is what healed them. Jesus also gave authority to the Apostles to do the same.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. ~ Matthew 4:23

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. Matthew 9:35

For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. Mark 3:10

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Matthew 10:1

Just as God in the Old Testament used plagues and disease to show His power so too Jesus healed as an exhibition of the same power to verify that He was indeed the same God. They were One and the Same. Trinity. Jesus gave the same power to the Disciples via the Spirit that indwelled them to validate that their ministry was from Him, from God.

So, the Bible gives us our answer. Viruses or plagues are judgment. Viruses or plagues give God the vehicle to confirm his sovereignty. He allows the viruses/plagues to illustrate his power. Does he wish people to suffer? Does he wish people to die? No. Man’s actions create the need for the reaction. Violations require judgment of injustices (sins) by a just Judge. Who better than a perfect God?

God still allows sickness for His own purposes but sometimes disease, even worldwide pandemics like COVID-19 are simply the result of living in a fallen world. A series of past events or sins culminating in a divine hammer of justice. There is no way to determine whether or not COVID-19 has a specific spiritual cause but we do know that God has sovereign control over all things as the Apostle Paul told us and that all things work out for the good of those who will love and obey Him.

“…and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ~ Romans 8:28

“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” ~Romans 11:36

The spread of sicknesses like COVID-19 is a signal of pandemics and things to come. Do I believe this is the End Times? No. But we’re closer than we’ve ever been. Jesus referred to those future plagues associated with the last days. Revelation 11 refers to those days too but is much more specific. Jesus said: 

"There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven."  ~Luke 21:11

John the Revelator wrote: 

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers there. But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months. And I will empower my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. These witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone who wants to harm them must be killed. These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish. ~Revelation 11:1-6

Like I said, Revelation 11 is very specific. As in clinically exact. Revelation 16 alludes to similar events in the form of seven plagues which can be construed as viruses but it’s not clear. I’m not currently seeing either as being unquestionable evidence of the imminent end of the world. Not to say I won’t though. The appearance of pandemic diseases may or may not be tied to specific judgment of sin. Only God knows which plague for what sin. I could innumerate the sins, they are manifold for mankind not the least of which are abortion, genocide and the blatant idolatry of making empirical reason and science alone god.

I am not like my fervent and zealous brethren. I will not make exacting truth statements that COVID-19 is one of the seven plagues of the angels in Revelation 16 or that this is a definitive sign that the tribulation is upon us. Scripture is not clear on this. I must be sensible about not saying COVID-19, SARs and MERS are proof that we are living in the end times. What I will say is that all these things point to something more important. Not how we should be living if God comes back soon but rather…are we living in a manner that would allow us to go home with Him if he came NOW. Did we accept the atoning sacrifice as it was foretold in Scripture?

As COVID-19 has clearly shown to 5829 people as of this moment, life is tenuous and God can cut us down at any time He chooses. COVID-19 is just another reminder in a long list of reminders in history. Are you ready?

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

How should Christians respond to COVID-19? First, chill-out. God is in control. Second, be wise. Take reasonable steps to avoid exposure to the disease and to protect and provide for your family and others. This is especially true for the elderly as COVID-19 seems to target them disproportionately. Lastly, love people and talk about their eternity since we’re all going to be around forever from this point forward in one place or the other. If you truly love those you’re talking to, you’ll prefer that they be with you in Christ. As with food and supplies we need preparation...not panic. This includes spiritual preparation. Walk boldly with a humble heart and most of all...fear not. God is still on the throne and He's still in control.