Well, friends, how did you like being jailed at home? Incarceration within our own walls was supposed to be a small price to pay to be protected from the world pandemic of the coronavirus. No going to church, no concerts, no school classes, no sporting events, no handshaking, no income, no nothing! As I write this, I am making the assumption that most of those restrictions will be lifted by the time you read this. At least, I hope so. Some questions must be raised. What was really going on? Was it legitimate? Was it effective?
Was quarantine effective? Without doubt, it was to some reasonable degree. If one is ill with a communicable disease and stays sequestered at home, the likelihood of that person sharing with others is diminished by a considerable degree. That the coronavirus is a deadly disease cannot be argued. It clearly is.
Was the sequester a legitimate remedy? Consider the fallout. The collapse of national economies, no jobs, no interaction with friends and family, and in some states, draconian restrictions on all activities and even the sale of ordinary items that have no connection with the disease that sit side-by-side on shelves with other items that are necessary. It surely is a remedy if everyone stays at home and never ventures outside. There would be a very minimum spread of anything, but would the cure be worse than the disease?
We are told we can shop if we take the appropriate precautions, such as wearing masks and washing our hands and sanitizing things we touch. Aside from the masks, those are things we should have been doing anyway. Some of the pictures on the Internet of masked shoppers at Wal-Mart and other big box stores bring much needed humor to this otherwise joyless time.
A lot of time and pages have been used to discuss the causes and ramifications facing us. One single day in mid-April, several articles on just one Internet news page (GOPUSA Eagle) raised these questions or facts:
‘Liberate Minnesota’ Rally One of First: More To Come—Demonstrators opposing Gov. Tim Walz’s Stay Home orders rallied outside the governor’s residence in St. Paul Friday amid a growing national backlash against business closures imposed by state governors to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Minnesota and Michigan are not the only states where this has happened. By the time this article moves through the channels to be in your hands to read, surely there will have been several more, even as several states are beginning to open their doors to something more normal.
Has The Lockdown Worked?—Why are governments the world over rendering hundreds of millions of their citizens jobless, impoverishing at least a billion people, endangering the family life of millions (straining marriages, increasing child and spousal abuse, and further postponing marriage among young people), bankrupting vast numbers of business owners and workers living paycheck to paycheck, and increasing suicides?
Leftist Newsrooms and Their Puppet Masters Agonize Over Airing Trump Taskforce Briefings—After CNN’s John King described a video played at President Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefing this week as propaganda, the response was predictable. So why is CNN airing it? The moment intensified a debate over how much unfiltered airtime the president should get virtually every day during a pandemic.
Kansas Police Say They Will Enforce Gov. Kelly’s Order Limiting Religious Gatherings—Authorities in Douglas and Geary counties say they are prepared to enforce limits on church gatherings this weekend as set out in Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s April 7 executive order, issued to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Dress Rehearsal For a Police State—The telltale signs of something truly sinister happening to America were seemingly subtle when they began. At first, they were so overshadowed by the scary prospect of the Wuhan Flu pandemic that many people willingly ignored them. But as disturbing incidents continued and escalated, their ominous pattern could not be ignored.
Media Prefer Hating Trump to Helping America—The liberal media are urging Joe Biden to form a shadow government to upstage President Donald Trump’s crisis response effort, which illustrates its consuming partisanship—and its insufficient attention to the health and welfare of the American people.
OUTRAGEOUS! Nancy Pelosi Says Let Them Eat Ice Cream—Nancy Pelosi, ice cream, and cluelessness. That’s what happens when Pelosi channels Marie Antoinette and says, “Let them eat ice cream,” while small businesses are struggling. Rather than working on legislation to replenish the Paycheck Protection Program, Pelosi is giving tours of her high-end ice cream collection in her luxury freezer.
Let’s get one item off the table. This article is not to defend or condemn Donald Trump. Despite the rhetoric of a large number of loud-mouths in the media and government, he did not create it or cause it. While several governors have tried to make him the fall-guy for blame for lack of resources to fight the virus, the cold, hard facts show that the federal government did what was needed in a timely fashion. Several of the noisy states just might have lacked a little in their own preparation and found it easy to blame someone else.
It seems the media circus has been well coordinated to keep our attention from the real issues that need to be seen. America is a real problem for the progression of the socialist/communist ideology that needs to cover the globe to allow a future one-world government to be installed. When Hillary Clinton did not become president in 2016, many were caught by surprise. They thought they had everything lined up for their Utopia. Donald Trump was not one of theirs!
The last item referenced above—Nancy Pelosi’s ice cream—is just a small hint. The “far left” in the political spectrum saw only one thing of concern: getting rid of a duly elected president who wasn’t part of their agenda. When the nation was getting heavily ramped up for a “pandemic,” they only saw Donald Trump as the enemy and an opportunity to forward the leftist agenda. What did they do to try to meet the needs of the American people? What did they do to fulfill their constitutionally mandated duties? Not much. Their view of everything was through the lens of their hatred for all things Trump.
According to The Times of Israel website, April 18, 2020, Isaac Ben-Israel, “a prominent mathematician, claims the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 Days—no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it. He said, ‘I have no explanation. There are all kinds of speculations. Maybe it’s related to climate, or the virus has a life-span of its own.’” At this point in time, it appears that he is correct. He also added that an average of 140 people die in Israel each day. While the virus has closed down the Israeli economy, it is responsible for only one or two of those daily deaths.
The debate will rage on, bringing to mind this scripture: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together …” (Psalm 2:1–2).
Now to the real crux of the matter. Since before the first word was ever written on a clay tablet or whatever media came first, there has been a war between good and evil. Satan, the first rebel, has had a plan to overtake God that has moved slowly but very steadily through the millennia. He has always had his faithful soldiers that include not only the fallen angels but also many humans who refuse to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of those humans are in position to move forward in many elected offices. Most of the nations of earth are not favorable to biblical belief. They are pagan, communist, or secular. The few nations with a Christian heritage have been under attack and slowly are being taken down by the media, entertainment, educational systems and changing governments. Several of our state governors have gone so far as to prohibit drive-in church services where people stay in their automobiles and listen on the radio, posing no threat to anyone. Forget the constitutionally protected freedoms of assembly and religion. They have no use for the Constitution. The virus could be a very convenient stepping stone to a police state.
The future may hold considerably different lifestyles than we have known. Restrictions under the guise of protection against disease may not only be our future but will surely expand if there is no major push back from the citizenry and legitimate science to replace the fear and shrieking voices that dominate today.
The Book of Revelation is totally relevant today. Consider these verses from Revelation 12:9–12:
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
These verses deal with the end of the seven years of the Tribulation when God will put Satan out of our misery forever. He surely knows how close things are to the sound of a trumpet to call all of the Lord’s own to be with Him. He knows that the seven years that follow is described in the Scriptures. Imagine you are the devil. What would you do? You wouldn’t be sitting on your hands; you would be wasting neither time nor energy on anything that didn’t get you closer to your goal. Don’t forget: all disease and death is a result of Satan tempting of Eve, who tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Facts come in handy. As of April 18, 2020, the United States population was approximately 330,617,969, and the current population of the world was 7,778,685,305. Of these, 2,320,723 had been infected worldwide. At the time the website was checked, 754,011 cases had an outcome with 594,536 (79%) recovered and discharged and 159,475 (21%) died. Of the remaining cases, 1,511,543 (96%) had mild conditions, 55,169 (4%) were serious (www.worldometers.info).
As of April 18, 2020, the death total in the United States from coronavirus was 38,779. Increasingly, evidence is coming to light that many deaths have been conveniently attributed to coronavirus, but it was not the primary cause.
From seasonal flu, at least 14,000 Americans have died, and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019–2020 flu season, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Remember, flu season begins in the fall of the year and continues into the following year. More than 26 million Americans have fallen ill with non-corona flu-like symptoms (USNews.com). Seasonal flu is responsible for approximately 646,000 annual deaths worldwide per year (https://www.medicinenet.com).
Compare that to the following worldwide death statistics for four and one-half months—January 1 through April 18, 2020 (www.worldometers.info):
- Mothers dying during childbirth—92,102
- Seasonal flu deaths—144,751 (does not include early season 2019 deaths)
- Coronavirus—159,475
- Malaria—291,944
- Suicide—319,253
- Traffic fatalities—401,711
- HIV/AIDS—500,308
- Alcohol—744,290
- Smoking—1,487,784
- Cancer—2,244,025
- Hunger—2,382,324
- Abortion—12,659,252
We seem to lack concern about several of the above items that could be controlled with even a small percentage of the effort given to COVID-19. Why? Some of those items represent incredible profit for the producers and tax revenues for the states. Truly the current concern about a pandemic plays well in Satan’s efforts to take untold millions into a Christless eternity. If you haven’t asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and you were to die today, God’s Word is clear: Heaven is not in your future no matter how much good you may have done in this life. Jesus died to take the penalty for your sins. He paid the price. Have you thanked Him and asked for His forgiveness?
That the Wuhan coronavirus is a deadly disease cannot be argued. It clearly is. That God is still in control is not up for debate either.