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We thank God for His revelation in Scripture. What compassion He has for sinners to give them His Word! What a light in a dark world! Apart from God’s Word, we cannot know what is really happening. We cannot rightly understand even those things that we see and hear. We have no power to see the spiritual and eternal things. They are hidden behind a veil that cannot be pierced by our physical senses and natural thinking. The scientists’ electron microscopes and space telescopes cannot see them. The greatest thinkers cannot pierce that veil.
God’s Word tells us what is happening in spiritual realms behind the veil, and it gives us the wisdom to understand what men themselves are doing.
The devil is using the crisis to work out the mystery of iniquity, which is the plan to put his man on the throne of this world and to have all men worship him by that man (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). We see this plan moving forward by the increase in the power of government over men’s lives, by the advance of global government, by the breakdown of the old religions and the spread of religious skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism, by global banking and a cashless society, by creating the desire for a great leader, and many such things. We must understand, though, that the devil’s doings are under the hand of God and can only proceed as God allows. God holds the reins of the times, and though the stage is being set for the devil’s man, he cannot come until the Restrainer be taken out of the way. “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8).
God is using the crisis to work out His eternal plan, which is that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:10). Every “time” or age in man’s history is a time that God made and in which God is working out this glorious plan. Among the countless things that God is doing, He is using the coronavirus crisis to judge men of this world for their stubborn rebellion to their Creator and their presumption that they can live independently of the One in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.” God is using the crisis as a wake up call to His people and His churches, to chasten them for worldliness, to wean them from trusting in things other than God, to turn their focus to eternal things, from partying and selfie-ing and social media-ing and the wasting of countless precious hours on vanity to surrender and obedience and holiness and separation. God is using the coronavirus crisis to remind men of their mortality and to bring sinners to repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ.
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). In our church, we have seen ten souls come to Christ in born again conversion during the lockdown. God is using the crisis to finish His business in this present age, which is to call out a people for His name among all nations. God is bringing things ever nearer to the next big event in His eternal program, which is the Rapture of the church saints, followed by the day of the Lord. Only He knows when this will happen. For God’s people, it is always “at hand.” The coronavirus pandemic and the strange global shutdown response is a big wake up call from God!
The communists are using the crisis to increase their totalitarian, God-usurping power over men’s bodies and minds.
The socialists are using the crisis to increase the power of government and their own power and to make people ever more dependent on government.
The indolent are using the crisis to get more handouts.
The lawless are using the crisis to increase their lawlessness.
The preppers are using the crisis to strengthen their prepper caves and store up more arms and to work themselves into a greater frenzy of fear-mongering.
The conspiratorialists are using the crisis to prove their pet conspiracies and to be consumed with them.
The global warming fanatics are using the crisis to push their myopic, mythical agenda.
The gullible think the crisis is simply about caring, selfless leaders who are saving people from coronavirus.
The hopeless are using the crisis as an excuse to commit suicide.
The covetous are using the crisis to get more wealth.
The redeemed of the Lord are using the crisis to stay focused on God’s will and the business He has given them, and to listen more intently for “the shout”! The following solemn command of the eternal Son of God is in force until “the end of the world,” and that, my friends, has not yet come. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 28:18-20).
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