We live in strange times, with changes that took place to our way of life in 2020 which we would not have thought possible at the beginning of the year. Now we are wondering what 2021 will bring. We are being told that the arrival of the new COVID-19 vaccine signals the light at the end of a dark tunnel. In November Boris Johnson said ‘Together we can get through this winter, suppress the virus until vaccines come to our aid and then reclaim our lives and all the things that we love.’ He implied that this would happen by Spring 2021.
Generally we find there are two main opinions about what happened so far:
1. The majority opinion: The lockdowns are a necessary way of the government defending the health and safety of the people from a dangerous virus which threatens us all. The vaccines are the only way out.
2. The skeptical opinion: The lock-downs and the vaccines are an intrusion on personal freedom, a burden on society put in place to protect us from a disease which 99.7% people recover from.
Whichever view you hold, almost everyone agrees that 2020 turned out to be a most horrible year. Apart from the fear of catching the virus and being ill or dying, people suffered from the lock-downs. Businesses shut down, meetings of friends and family restricted, people stuck at home, isolated, bored and lonely. In many countries people faced extreme poverty and starvation. In developed countries most of life, work, school, shopping, meeting people and so on, was done from home by computer and the Internet. We become dependent on machines and lose human contact, causing many to be depressed, suicidal or alcoholic.
Getting back to normal by early in 2021 does not look so hopeful now. As I write this Boris Johnson has just cancelled Christmas for millions and a new mutant strain of the virus has arisen. Many people are sceptical or resistant to the vaccine and we are told that it won’t be available to everyone before the end of 2021. We face what seems like a never ending cycle of closing down, opening up for a while, then closing down again as the virus continues to spread. Newspaper headlines read ‘Will this nightmare ever end?’
The lock-downs have not eradicated the virus. They reduce infections and associated deaths while they are in force, but only to shift them down the road for a later period. We are told we must follow the science, and science has become the great god we must all bow down to. But not all scientists and doctors agree with the strategy. 44,000 scientists and doctors signed the Great Barrington Declaration, claiming that the measures taken were harmful to ‘short and long term public health.’ Dr Mike Yeadon, a former head of research at Pfizer, says the advisers to the government in the Sage committee justify the repeated lockdowns by using inflated figures of potential and actual deaths from the disease. He suggests only a small percentage of PCR tests, on which the daily figures of Covid infections are based, are reliable. The book ‘Corona, False Alarm’ by doctors Karina Reiss and Sucharit Bhakdi (available on Amazon) gives more facts and figures on the crisis. It claims that the number of deaths is not much more than normal flu deaths and concludes that this is a false alarm inflicted on the world with disastrous results. These doctors also question the mass vaccination of the population, saying that subjecting healthy people to a hastily prepared vaccine which may have some unknown results in the future is a big mistake. Any alternatives to the government line are suppressed on mainstream media, especially BBC news, and increasingly on social media too.
We are told to follow the science, but we are not told to seek for God. God has been left out of the subject by our leaders, including most church leaders. Church of England Archbishops and Bishops say nothing about seeking God or asking for a national day of prayer to ask for God’s help in the crisis. When they do have anything to say it is usually to make some fashionable left wing comment on racism, LGBT rights or condemnation of Brexit. With the possibility of death around the corner, people should be told to prepare to meet their God by repenting of their sins and believing the Gospel, but the bishops of the Church of England will not say anything like that, perhaps because they do not believe it themselves. But that is what God is saying to us today. Jesus’ first message recorded in the Gospel is
‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel.’
Mark 1.14.
The Bible has a number of passages relating to plagues and pestilences. Almost always they come as a judgement from God on a people or ruler who is defying God. Think of Pharaoh and the plagues that came upon Egypt because of his refusal to let the people of Israel go (Exodus 7-12). Or the plague that came upon the Israelite’s who worshiped the golden calf: ‘So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf that Aaron made.’ Exodus 32.35 People may say it sounds harsh to say that the corona virus is a judgement of God, but the world today is under judgement for its sin and rebellion against God. Jesus said it would be ‘as in the days of Noah’ in the last days of this age before His return. In the days of Noah we read that God was sorry that He had made the world, because of human wickedness. For the ‘earth was filled with violence’, and ‘every imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually.’ Genesis 6.5 and 11.
Today we see the nation of China where the virus began, promoting atheism, defying God and putting up its images to its Communist Party leaders. Millions of Christians who want to worship the true God face persecution. We see the western nations promoting all kinds of God defying laws that go against the Bible’s moral teaching and confuse children about sex and sexuality. We see a mockery of God and the Bible in so much of our culture, and a suppression of God’s word in the media, in our education system and even in much of the official church. We see persecution of Christians in much of the Muslim world and a hatred of Israel and the Jewish people in countries like Iran and Turkey. All of these nations have seen their countries ravaged by the virus. If they want God’s help they need to repent and turn back to God.
The Bible contains many passages dealing with the conditions on the earth in a period known as the last days. They speak of a time of unique trouble on the earth. Jesus told of the signs of His return. ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences.’ Luke 21.10- 11. In the parallel passage in Matthew 24, He said these things happening would be ‘the beginning of sorrows’, the first stage in the last days’ scenario which will lead to the time of great tribulation just before His return to the earth. In the time of the great tribulation these things will reach their climax as the four horsemen of the apocalypse ride out (Revelation 6.1-8). In the NIV translation we read of the fourth horseman: ‘I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.’ Revelation 6.8. So it appears that plague is one of the signs of the last days’ judgement which comes on the earth in the great tribulation and causes mass death.
The Coronavirus is not that final plague, but it may be seen as a forerunner of it, especially in the way it is being used now to bring about radical changes in life on earth and increase the power of the government to control the people.
At the beginning of the crisis Bill Gates said that ‘normalcy will only return when everyone on the planet has been vaccinated.’ The UK government has said that the vaccination will not be compulsory. However there is the possibility that it will be used for some kind of Freedom Pass, needed for travel, access to shops, work, entertainment venues and all public spaces. Government Minister James Cleverley has said, ‘Millions of people will have their lives ‘unlocked’ by getting the COVID jab and a card showing they have had it. The vaccination programme will also allow Britain’s economy to be ‘unlocked’. A newspaper headline read ‘No Jab? You’re barred’ after a government minister said that some venues might insist on proof of vaccination for granting entry. Mike Cernovich in the USA wrote: ‘Government won’t force you to take vaccine. Amazon will. Airlines will. Banks will. You won’t be able to buy, sell, or trade without the vaccine.’ A health committee in Israel has been told that the government won’t force people to take the vaccine, but taking it will give you ‘Green Status’ to go freely in all the green zones: ‘They’ll open for you cultural events, they’ll open to you the shopping malls, hotels, and restaurants.’ Whoever is vaccinated may enter those green areas, that ‘safe zone’, whoever is not will not enter.’
Chinese President Xi Jinping told world leaders at the G20 conference that they need a ‘global mechanism’ using QR codes (bar codes on mobile phones) to open up international travel. The International Air Transport Association has already said that it is developing a mobile ‘digital passport’ that would tell airlines if a traveller has been vaccinated against Covid. This could be rolled out to cover everyday life in society, creating something like the ‘health certificates’ being used in China now. These are apps on mobile phones giving a traffic-light style health code. A green code allows someone to travel freely, enter shops and work places and an orange or red code keeps them out. If you get a red code you must isolate at home until you get a green one. The codes are based on data and information submitted to the operators of the system. In a police state like China, this gives the people in charge the ability to control your movement, work, finances, buying and selling, what you say on social media and who you mix with. If something like that comes in on a global scale, it would be another step towards a dictatorial world government…..
True Discernment 
Leave a Reply