Covid against Christianity

Covid against Christianity is an opinion by Pastor David Cox about our Covid situation and its affect on Church attendance.

We must live through the situations of life that God sends us. But at the same time, we must discern what it is that God wants, and filter out the “noise” that Satan sends to drown out God’s will in our lives.

The Chinese Covid-19 virus has hit the world. Okay. Got that. So to put things into perspective, of only those who get the virus, 2% die. Why are we harboring and nourishing these fears about death? We are Christians right? We are saved, right? If we die then we will be with the Lord in heaven. That is our hope and belief.

God judges and chastises people with sickness

In the Bible, we find that God uses war and disease to judge people. This is always because they displease God with their lives. See Exo 5:3; 9:15; Num. 14:12 (see here for more verses). God even strikes his own people with sickness 2Sam 24:15.

The point though, is not to fear the sickness, but to fear God who allows and sends sickness on our nation and on our selves individually. God does this to teach us morally, and to rebuke us (punishing us) for our lack of following His will.

God sends sickness even to his children for them to draw close to God

Even though I walk through the valley of death^, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. – Psalm 23:4

God sends problems, tribulation, affliction, AND SICKNESS to his children so that they may go through rough times and build their trust and faith in God. We all sin. In the end, God will cause us to die in the day He wants, in the form He wants. Statistically, normal sickness is what most people die from. Where is this (Covid 19) any different than what always happens? God uses our sinful lives to eventually bring things to a termination point, and we die and go to our judgment. Nonetheless, we should not get demoralized by this, but trust in our God.

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

We are fearful, not trusting in the Lord

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. – Proverbs 17:22

As we live our lives (as Christians, as God’s children) there are some things that God’s children always do. First of all, they trust God for their well-being, as with the rest of their lives and their eternity. God chooses our situation in this world. The word “God” means the Supreme Being that decides our fate. Whether we are born with one eye, or one foot, or very short or very tall, all of that is in God’s hands. Day by day, God decides what will happen in our lives, where we go, what we do, the circumstances that befall us. We get in the car, and somebody hits our car. That is all in God’s hands.

In all of our circumstances, we just have to trust God. To do this is to believe God will take care of us even if bad things happen, it is in God’s good interests behind all the events of our lives.

We do not tempt God

The counter balancing point is that we do not tempt God. By this, the phrase means to take unnecessary risks, just to see God save us miraculously. Many times, He let’s us suffer because we are tempting him. So we take measures for our own safety.

The Balance

The balance here, for me as Pastor, is to go to church. Understand that it is Satan that is using the present situation to remove all motivation from people to go to church. If you are so fearful that you cannot go outside of your house without fear, then that is wrong. Trust God. Use a mask if you will, but trust God.

In the Bible the difference between what Satan does with fear and what God does with fear is very distinct. Satan instills fear like a roaring lion. Why does a lion roar? Right before he pounces, he roars, and that is designed to instill fear and paralyze his prey momentarily until he reaches his prey.

If you watch nature videos of lion hunting, rarely will you see a lion or other big cat attack another animal without that prey animal runs immediately. Even the roaring is rare. But they move even if they are being hunted.

Christians seem to think that sitting at home is the best strategy. It is not.

What are Christians to do under Covid-19?

The first thing to do is to trust God that whatever happens is God’s will, and God’s working and everything will turn out as how God wants it to turn out.

Secondly, we must not allow ourselves to be paralyzed as Christians. We still need to read our Bibles, pray, and most of all be a Christian. That means witnessing for Christ. We can give out tracts, we can talk to people. Should we use masks and face shields, and plastic disposable gloves, and body suits etc.? Use what you think is adequate. But remember, that your protection is in your God, not these things.

I have read articles by surgeons who have 1000s of hours in operating rooms, and the use of masks is to keep your viruses from infecting other people. It is not for your own protection. Remember that. Additionally, I have seen people working with highly dangerous viruses, and they use rebreathers, which is totally different from a mask. A rebreather is a mask that covers your entire face, and every breath has to come through its filters, and exhaled air goes back through those same filters. The filters have to be changed sometimes several times in a short period of time (say 3 hours). I used these when painting with spray paint systems in my younger days, and they are extremely difficult to breathe through.

The bottom line on Masks

If you think you are protecting yourself by using a mask, you are not. That protect is very little if any. With all masks, you are presuming that you are in the presence of the virus floating in the air. If so, the air you breathe that comes in around your nose is bring that virus directly into your body. Masks don’t work. As an obedient Christian of our civil law system, I will use a mask if I have to in order to go into a store or on a plane. But I understand that this is a non-event as far as preventing me from getting the virus.

Should I get the Vaccine?

That is still up in the air. Let me explain a little about the vaccines. Each virus has a certain combination of chemicals and cells that make up that virus. When you are infected by any virus, your body will fight against that virus. For the chemical processes that the virus is using to infected and multiply in your body, your body is producing antibodies. They are matched one to one against the virus. In the beginning, the body sends out general antibodies that it already has in waiting, but as it fights that virus, it produces antibodies from the destroyed virus cells. These are specifically targeted to the DNA make up of the virus. This is all automatic.

But the point in all of this is that once the virus is in your body, your body will respond. That is in about 90% of the people. People with auto-immune system problems like AIDS will have a lot of problems.

In the case of modern vaccinations, they “destroy” the good live cells of the virus and inject them into healthy people’s bodies. So for as much as you want to be free from this virus, the science says that you need to have that virus in your body and your body has to respond to it, to build up antibodies specific to it.

“I don’t want to be vaccinated”

Ok. That is understandable. Point 1, afraid of needles. God help you if you end up diabetic and have to stick yourself daily to know what your blood sugar is and then to inject insulin DAILY. Don’t be afraid of needles. They are part of our modern lives.

Point 2. You don’t want that virus in your body at all. Good. That is very good. But it is unreasonable. We are exposed to the viruses and bacteria of our world, and with uncleanliness all around us, we cannot avoid it. We must keep our own bodies healthy, and do what we have to do.

The virus is all around us. Do you notice that there are “new outbreaks” all the time? These are coming from people who did a real good job of not being out and about in previous months, and finally have to come out of hiding, and they are infected. So staying inside is not going to keep you from every getting the virus, unless of course you can do this for some 10 years or so until Covid 19 is eradicated. But by that time, there will be a Covid 22, a Covid 24, a Covid 29, and mutations alpha, beta, gamma, etc of each one, and they will be worse, more severe, and more deadly that Covid 19. Remember the statistics (which pressure was placed on the medical profession to count anybody that dies almost in these days as Covid 19 death. A motorcycle accident was labeled death by Covid 19). The statistics say that only 2% of the people testing positive for Covid 19 die from it.

Final Exhortation

If you are staying home from church because of fear of getting Covid, then change that fear into trust of God. Will you not get it if you trust God? Maybe, maybe not. But what if there is an earthquake, and you are home bound, then you die from the earthquake. What about the apartment buildings in Wuhan that the people were in quarantine and nobody left their apartment, and the virus went through the building ventilation from their neighbors with Covid into their apartments and they got it.

If you are a child of God, you know that you are in God’s hands. When God decides that it is your time, you will die and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. You accept it as your fate. You accept this BECAUSE you trust your God. Fear is not something that should overwhelm the child of God. Fear of the Lord should overwhelm the Christian, but it apparently doesn’t.