Covid and End Times

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Covid and End Times
Monday 8th November, 2021

Today’s Gospel and Culture Blog is written by my guest Murray Robertson. Murray was former Senior Pastor of Spreydon Baptist Church (now Southwest Baptist Church) in Christchurch. He has retired these days but back in 2015 he wrote a book titled “The Future of Humanity-Preaching from Revelation 4 to 22”. Published by Langham Preaching Resources. You can buy a copy at Fishpond for $23.58, from Book Depository for $23.52 or from Amazon for $14.99 plus postage or on Kindle for $9.99.

Covid and End Times
By Murray Robertson

1918 must have been a sad time to be alive. Twenty million people had died in the trenches of France in the slaughter of World War 1. But worse was to follow as over 50 million were to die in the outbreak of Spanish flu that followed. 8500 died in New Zealand alone. Surely it was the end times? Hadn’t Jesus warned that it would be characterised by war, suffering, plages and death? But it was not to be.

Now a century later we are suffering from another worldwide pandemic. So far it is having nothing like the impact of the 1918 flu. This week the total worldwide deaths reached 5 million. This lower number can largely be attributed to the widespread use of country wide lockdowns, and the development of vaccines to counter the spread of the virus. Sadly there was no vaccine to counter the Spanish flu, as the flu vaccine was not developed until 1933.

However the fact that governments now have the power to lockdown whole societies and issue vaccine mandates has raised suspicions in some quarters that we are seeing signs of the end times. Doesn’t the Apostle John in Revelation 13 see a vision of a terrifying beast with the power to “force all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

The very next verse says “This calls for wisdom.” If only this had been heeded down through the centuries, when every crisis has brought a knee jerk reaction that “this is the end times”. What was the beast doing in the vision? It was taking the followers of Jesus into captivity, and to their deaths! For the early Christians this was obviously the Roman Empire. In the vision when the beast lost one of its multiple heads another one grew. This is the nature of the beasts demonic power. When one persecuting state is removed another one emerges. In the last hundred years we have seen the power of the beast in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and China, various Jihadist regimes and other places.

But there is another picture of the state in the New Testament. In Romans 13 the Apostle Paul says “The authorities that exist have been established by God…for the one in authority is God’s servant for your good.” The God given role of the authorities is to establish a state that maintains justice and peace. For the early Christians the Roman Empire that was seen as the Servant of God in Romans 13, had become the Beast from the Abyss by the time of Revelation 13, because it had turned from its God given role to become an instrument of Satan.

Now this calls for wisdom. What is the nature of the State in the various countries of the Western world? Are they repressing their citizens, and leading the followers of Jesus into captivity and to their deaths? Or are they seeking as far as possible to act for the overall well being of their citizens? Given that no one is perfect and all make mistakes, the answer is utterly obvious.

Sadly some churches have become centres of opposition to these two steps that governments are taking. Given that our calling is to reach out to the suffering and the vulnerable these seem strange attitudes to adopt. Imagine if the believers in 1918 had access to a vaccine to fight the deadly virus then.

Some have been complaining that lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus have meant the loss of their personal freedom. Is it possible that in the believing community our ideas of freedom are now being shaped by the American political system rather than the New Testament? Americans’ see freedom in terms of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” By contrast the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5 “You my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

The appearance of the pandemic presents us with the opportunity to reach out to others to help them find protection from the virus, rather than engage in endless speculations about the time of the end.