A Promise Of Reassurance...

Mmm, let's see. Here in the UK, we have entered a third national lockdown. This new variant of the virus, which originated in the Kent region of Southern England, has spread rapidly across the country, giving us all the frights and dashing hopes of a recovery. It has now become illegal even to leave our homes without a proper reason, although the normal commute to work is allowed, providing that working from home is impossible. 

Covid-19 virus.

Thus, I assume that all the train, bus and taxi drivers, builders, plumbers, electricians, dustmen, landscapers, and other essential members of the workforce have to leave their homes for their shifts, but for the average pen-pusher, remaining in pyjamas and tapping away at a laptop whilst sitting up in bed, thus allowing his business suit and tie gather dust and attract moths as they hang neglected in the wardrobe. And such a cosy lifestyle is not only strongly recommended by our Government, but such a way of living could also be here permanently. Indeed, as if no man could change our national culture so rapidly as a tiny virus can.

And so, news comes in of a Scottish housewife letting a disabled relative into her house. But unfortunately, a curtain-twitcher phones the police and they arrive, two or three of them, and barge into the house to demand what's going on and threatening them with fines. Meanwhile, two young women take a stroll at a park surrounding a reservoir, each holding a paper cup of coffee. The police approach them and fines both of them for driving five miles out of their hometown of Leicester and accusing them of having a picnic.

Meanwhile, at a small village somewhere in England, a snitch gets a pub owner into trouble with the police for letting someone in, and threaten to close the pub down permanently. Another pub elsewhere had its car park full of parked vehicles. Another curtain-twitcher phones the police, and they arrive. In this case, the landlord was let off after explaining that the parked cars were an overflow from a nearby car-hire firm whose business has gone quiet since the start of the lockdown.

And so, the rate of infection rises rapidly, this time way surpassing the April peak of last year. With the infection-rate graph shown each evening on our TVs pointing directly skywards, also both the hospital admission-rate graph and the mortality graph each showing a steeper uphill climb, the nation wonders how much longer all this will go on, how many more will die, is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Thus, any sense of optimism is held under strict scrutiny - if it hadn't dried up already. Even the prospect of a vaccine of three different brands seems to raise very little hope for optimism, except in the media, something quite different from the optimistic view of a golden future for our sovereign independent nation, a view held by Brexiteers.

And talking about Brexit, it was just over four years ago from this time of writing, after the Vote Leavers had won the 2016 Referendum and which was also coinciding with Donald Trump's election campaign across the Pond, when I found myself sitting in a pub with a couple of Christians, along with other Christian friends elsewhere. One issue I have found to be quite striking was that my Christian friends who voted Leave also favoured Republican Donald Trump to take over the Presidency from Barack Obama, rather than his rival Hilary Clinton.

The reason for this was easy to understand. Clinton supported elective abortions, Trump did not. Also, the latter was a very wealthy and successful businessman who, like our own Lord Alan Sugar, held his own US version of The Apprentice, or The Apprentice USA, therefore already well-known nationally. Thus, according to what I might have believed at the time, Trump was the icon of Make America Great Again, that is, under a free market, private profit, and although the American Constitution includes freedom of religion, yet Trump's manifesto would be under the banner of Christianity, as he claims to be a Christian himself. However, I was convinced at the time that his popularity among Christians, both here in the UK and in the States, was due to his stance against elective abortions.

But I was personally queasy about having Trump as their President. Nevertheless, I remained strictly neutral to hold the peace, even when my Christian friends supported him and he also seems well supported by Brexiteers.

And big-name Christian "prophets" - most of them had already died - such as Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Steve Hill, John Wimber, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, John Dawson, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Yonggi Cho, Pastor John Kilpatrick (of Brownsville Assemblies of God, Pensacola) and other leaders of big churches, all, I assume, would have supported Donald Trump had they lived to this day. These leaders had several things in common, one being the Prosperity Gospel, a heresy that a Christian's level of spiritual health is defined by his wealth. Also, some of these leaders, or televangelists, offered personal prayers and promises of blessings for a fee. Thus, had you sent a fee and a prayer request to some of these leaders, you would have gotten a computer-generated letter back with your name on it, with the assurance that you are prayed for and your blessing is guaranteed.

But with so many request forms pouring in, it would be impossible for any single individual to be prayed for, yet the money poured in. One striking example was with the case of a man who sent a request with a considerable large fee to the Oral Roberts Foundation for his wife to be healed of cancer. After receiving an answer that prayers for her healing were already underway, his wife later died. A year later, another letter arrived from Oral Roberts, assuring the widower that after an intimate talk with God, God Himself reassured Roberts that the man's wife will make a physical recovery. Without a doubt, the widower was devastated! He then exposed the money-making scam lurking behind people such as Oral Roberts.

Donald Trump.

It was during that time in the nineties that teaching was going around many churches stemming from John Dawson's book, Taking our Cities for God: How to Break Spiritual Strongholds. Backed by C. Peter Wagner of Fuller Theological Seminary, and Pastor Jack Hayford along with others, prayers began to be offered to break the demonic strongholds over cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles and Miami, among others, including Calcutta, India. For one example, take Miami. On November 10 1989, Larry Lea, backed by 430 pastors and as many as 10,000 Christians, declared the demonic strongholds of Miami to be broken and its people released from such dominion. Particularly with the Strongman of Greed, which according to his own testimony, Lea had received a revelation from God that this stronghold will soon be broken and the wealth of Miami will go to the churches and individual Christians will be blessed with the released wealth.

That was more than thirty years ago, and so far the Stronghold of Greed is still in full power over Miami and as far as I know, the churches hadn't prospered in wealth to a higher level. Further instances of cities supposedly released from demonic strongholds proved to be equally fallacious, as moral decay continues to grow worse and worse during the ensuing decades.*

And here is the climax, thanks to a video made of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland which appeared recently on Facebook. During the 2020 US election campaign, Copeland stood up and declared that God Himself has said to him that Donald Trump will win the next election for a second term of office. But when Joe Biden received the greater number of votes, it was afterwards when Copeland shouted to his audience that the election result was fraudulent and the evil, Satanic forces must be broken in the name of Jesus! He then made a mockery of Joe Biden, which was followed by laughter so heinous that I almost felt my hair stand on end.

Is all this Biblical Christianity? Coming to think of it, what with Trump supporters raiding the Capitol Building and upturning its contents and involving the death of a police officer plus five other people, I can't help gasping when the rioters acted in the name of God and the glory of America! These were the very same people who would discriminate against Muslims, the reintroduction of black slavery if that was possible, and the deportation of other ethnic minorities along with Socialists, "for the glory of a white and prosperous America." And the ringleader was none other than Jack Kidd, an alma mater of Harrow Public School, thus a well-educated Brit and a descendant of an aristocratic family line, otherwise, during normal day-to-day living, an icon of respectability.  

With such prophets making fools of themselves, hence the detailed discussion above, could I look an atheist in the eye and boldly declare my allegiance to Jesus Christ? And would I stand up and declare with certainty a recent six-day Creation is a fact of history? And especially when the majority of my Christian friends who support Brexit also uphold Theistic Evolution?

And so the pandemic worsens, infections and hospitalisations increase, more people die of the virus, the vaccine faces a mountain of red-tape bureaucracy, a president is defeated and false prophets appear like woodworm out of old furniture - Help, stop the world, I want to get off!

But I doubt very much that a really major catastrophe will hit this country, Europe, and the rest of the world.

And that is simply the true saint is the salt of the earth. And even in these distressing times, there are still plenty of us around. And the Scripture I can give is the fascinating intercessory prayer made to God by Abraham, concerning the fate of Sodom - Genesis 18:16-33.

Here God says that if there are as little as ten righteous men in the city, God would spare the whole city for their sakes. A righteous man, according to God, is one whose faith in Him has resulted in God's own righteousness credited to him. It's this faith in God whose righteousness is imputed into his account whom the Almighty is referring to, and there was one standing there, Abraham, according to Genesis 15:6, and Lot, according to 2 Peter 2:6-10. With just one righteous person living in Sodom, it was deemed wiser to remove and relocate him rather than spare the whole city.

Ken Copeland laughing at Joe Biden, 2020.

If you and I are true believers, then we are the ones who, without the need for conscious effort, are keeping evil at bay and preventing the virus from killing everybody. Indeed, the Church is the salt of the Earth, despite being made up of imperfect people. The Church, the Bride of Christ, made up of different body parts placed at the right position in the body to make the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the virus can hit any one of us - Alex my wife was tested positive during the Spring of last year, and she is in the high-risk category due to having cancer.

Another proof that the pandemic will not wipe us out entirely, and that is God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This covenant ensures that they would inherit a particular area of land which will be theirs forever. And no stronger proof of the validity of the covenant is found than in Jeremiah 31:31-36 where God challenges anyone to break the covenant between night and day so that one no longer follows the other, or to measure the Universe and perhaps count all the stars within, or explore the very core of the earth - if any of these impossible tasks can be carried out - then God will break His covenant with Israel for what they have done.

Therefore, there are three active witnesses to reassure us that the pandemic - or any other disaster or natural catastrophe - will not wipe out the whole of mankind. They are the Bible, the Church, and Israel. And these three agree with each other. That is reassuring.

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*From the late Dave Hunt, Occult Invasion, 1998, Harvest House Publishers.