"Our nation and the nations of the world have throughout recent
history been on a collective course of anti-God thinking. It seems they’ve
arrived at the same time at the destination to which such a course couldn’t do
other than lead.
The COVID-19 or coronavirus is but the vehicle that has brought us swiftly to
the end of this journey into madness. Every national governing body and the
people they either rule with authoritarian dictatorship or govern democratically
are bound tightly by an entity so infinitesimal as to require a microscope to
detect it.
A worldwide, altered mindset has fully blossomed. All nations are bound up in
fear. It is fear that seems to have a life of its own. It is paralysing the
freedom of action and movement of the most liberty-loving, liberty-endowed
people to have lived upon the planet.
Fear is the symptom most manifest in this pandemic that sprang, apparently, from
the centre of perhaps the world’s most massive dictatorship. The fear continues
to grow, not abate, despite all of the many draconian measures foisted on us by
bureaucratic “medical experts” entrenched within government. “Shutdown” seems to
be what these demand, no matter that this outbreak doesn’t come anywhere near
the virulence of the various strains of flu that assault and kill hundreds of
thousands each year.
It is, I think, a legitimate pondering to think on Paul’s warning about those
who forget God, or turn against the Creator of all things. The apostle, under
Holy Spirit direction, has some rather relevant wisdom for our current
situation, in my view.
We’ve considered that wisdom many times within these commentaries. We are
forewarned that when a person or people turn their thoughts from the governance
of God toward doing what is right in their own eyes, the ramifications are dire.
The ultimate results are…well, let’s let the Apostle Paul tell us once more:
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil
things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without
natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that
they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but
have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1: 29–32)
We back up to one verse before this list of accusations to see where all the
rebelliousness leads.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. (Romans
1:28)
We think of these chilling, scriptural warnings as applying only to the most
egregious sins—in our “looking through a glass darkly” view of things.
Homosexual activity is the sin we most associate with God’s condemnation here.
But, these represent things much more profound. These are characteristics of the
whole of lost, sinful humanity as time progresses deeper into human history.
These are, no doubt, things that prompted the Lord to end, then start things
again, with the Flood of Noah’s day. These are the characteristics of the
generations since that are going to bring about God’s final judgment and wrath
during the Tribulation.
Certainly, in one way or the other, this generation exhibits these
characteristics so anathema to the God of Heaven. We have witnessed these get
worse, just as Paul predicted. “Men and seducers have grown worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived.”
I believe just the last five years of the corrupt political process and all
attendant to it prove Paul’s prophecy as moving toward fulfilment. The evil
manipulations and collusion at the highest levels of America’s supposedly
patriotic intelligence agencies make the point vividly and graphically.
The argument could be made that the great fear gripping the nation and the world
is the result of pulling away from God at every level. Because of this virus
that is nowhere near as virulent as the flu bugs that assault each year, the
globe is suffering from a paralysis that has altered normal life as it’s been
known to this time.
In effect, the global mindset has been altered. I think this has been done
supernaturally. Most now act and interact from what Paul calls in the KJV a
“reprobate” mindset. There is, observably, the inability of governments and
peoples throughout the world to think straight in this COVID-19 matter. The
collective fear that makes everyone act contrary to reason it has brought about
is the true contagion that infects the planet. We’re continuing to see the rise
of this altered mindset.
God’s prescription for the reprobate mind is as follows:
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the
land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isaiah 1:18–20)