By now it should be clear to everyone with critical thinking skills that the COVID-19 crisis has been used skillfully to advance increased control over humanity – whether or not the virus is as dangerous as claimed. However, even before information that undercut the official narrative began to accumulate, countless voices began calling for civil disobedience against the lockdown. Many of these voices belong to believers who reject mask-wearing and social distancing rules while claiming that such regulations are a dry run leading up to totalitarianism.
Let me be clear that they might be right in their overall analysis. After all, many of those same leaders who insisted on the lockdown also openly encouraged the recent wave of unrest as if there was no pandemic. However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns something has troubled me in the attitude of many Christians – including some whom I count as friends. Their responses even made me wonder if they could be trusted to take precautions that infringed on their “rights” if ever there was truly extreme pandemic.
Could it be that a spirit of rebellion has swept many believers away in these perilous times? I can almost hear the question of countless readers: “How can you call it a ‘spirit of rebellion’ if we are rejecting the unjust dictates of evil men?” Many would also remind me of the words of Peter and the apostles: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). We will return to that particular verse towards the end.
I have heard more than one person say that we need to reject the regulations now in order to push back already against the even stricter regime yet to come. This idea may sound logical, but I submit that it is based more on human wisdom than on the Word of God. Two examples are the relationships between David and Saul, and between Jesus and the Roman authorities. We see that both of them not only refused to rebel against obviously unjust rulers, but also encouraged others to submit wherever possible (1 Samuel 24:1-7; Matthew 22:15-22).
A spirit of lawlessness is flooding the world today, and the enemy is doing his best to sweep believers away in the same roaring waters. Identifying his plot may be more difficult when it is tailored to your own bank of the river – that is, when it is disguised by language that appeals your own side of the societal divide. He wants to draw us out to a place where we fight the raging current alone and by our own authority.
The day may be near when a vaccination that includes fetal tissue and a computer chip passport will be imposed upon humanity – forcing all to decide whether to obey God rather than man. We know that this will be connected to the coming “lawless one” and the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-9), but a preemptive response of rebellion on our part is not the solution even when it is directed towards a world that itself is rebelling against God. Indeed, it simply lures us out to an unprotected position like a small group of soldiers independently declaring war on an entire army. God wants to protect us from the spirit of rebellion in order to spare us being taken down by a world in rebellion.
Our primary calling in this battle is to obey God and to submit to his authority. When human authority asks us to disobey God, we must refuse. However, this is not done in a spirit of rebellion towards man but rather in a spirit of obedience towards God. The distinction may seem trivial if the practical decisions made appear to be the same externally, but the difference is profound on the spiritual level. We must not join in the spirit of lawlessness and rebellion, but rather must prepare ourselves for future potential conflict with human authority by practicing obedience towards God. His authority will be our refuge in times when obeying God and man cannot possibly both be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment