1. If there’s nothing we learn from the coronavirus pandemic, it’s the fact of fragility of life. Death stalks us. We’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death. #Illuminare
2. It doesn’t help that this invisible killer has a maximum lifespan of just 7 days. Humans on the other hand have an averaged-out span of 25,000 days. In coronavirus terms that’s everlasting life. How does a short life creature end eternal life? #Illuminare
3. Coronavirus is an equal opportunity infector. It has no regard for wealth, power or station. The prime minister of UK got infected, Prince Albert of Monaco got infected, Prince Charles of England got infected, the wife of the Canadian prime minister got infected. #Illuminare
4. As at 10.09 GMT, Thursday, May 30, 2020 the rapscallion of a virus had infected 3,232,532 humans. And the number keeps rising. As at writing this blog it had caused 228,513 deaths. #Illuminare
5. We have a grim reaper in our midst and it’s using an industrial harvester. Throughout April 2020 the virus killed an average of 150,000 a day. But in February the figure was only 1,500. The virus ramped up. #Illuminare
6. Men had to turn to God. No one had a solution on earth. The virus was mutating. #Illuminare
7. What is curious about all this is that the modern man has often imagined he doesn’t need God. As late as April 8, 1966 Time Magazine had run a cover story, Is God Dead? #Illuminare
8. A previous article from October 1965 investigated a trend among 1960s theologians seeking to write God out of the field of theology. (Isn’t that interesting?) #Illuminare
9. Funny thing is, the writing off of God is not new. About 1000 BC David wrote: "Bilious and bloated, they gas, 'God is gone.'" Psalm 53:1-2 MSG #Illuminare
10. According to the 1966 Time article these modern theologians were facing a problem of making God relevant to an increasingly secular society. #Illuminare
11. Obviously someone had not been reading his Bible. God CANNOT be irrelevant at any point in human history. #Illuminare
12. And the reason is simple - the entire history of the world is already written, from beginning to the end. God wrote it. And he wrote himself into it. It’s why you’ll find him in all those narratives in the book of Revelation. #Illuminare
13. Funny that that God they thought was irrelevant in the 1960s suddenly became so relevant in 2020, no thanks to coronavirus. #Illuminare
14. The irony is that those Time magazine articles purported modern science has eliminated the need for religion, only for man to turn to God over a creation of science gone amok (assuming coronavirus was indeed engineered in the lab). #Illuminare
15. The other reason God cannot be irrelevant in human affairs is because he has political superintendence over the nations of the world. That’s his day job. He is not just some deity curled into himself. He’s active in earth’s political arena. #Illuminare
16. Which is why his CV boasts about the subjugation of two particular kings - Og king of Bashan, Sihon king of the Amorites. They were conquered by Moses. Sihon was conquered at the battle of Jahaz, Og at the battle of Edrei. #Illuminare
17. David did extensive study on the subject of God’s sovereignty. In Blog 65 (what we wrongly labelled “Psalms” because we thought all the blogs were music scores), he says God has a trophy room. #Illuminare
18. It’s full of plaques and awards – “Earth Tamer, Ocean Pourer, Mountain Maker, Hill-Dresser, Muzzler of Sea Storm.” Psalm 65:6-7 MSG. #Illuminare
19. That last award is not just about nature, it’s also about political revolution. “You quieted the raging oceans…as well as the commotion made by the nations.” Psalm 65:7. It’s a reference to rebellious nations. #Illuminare
20. Case in point, the Soviet Union. For over 70 years a literal godless ideology prevailed. The revolution of 1917 sought to kick God out of his own national asset. God was banished from the commonwealth of soviet republics. #Illuminare
21. But it all came crashing on December 25, 1991. Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan as well as Uzbekistan pulled out of the Soviet Union. #Illuminare
22. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia had already declared their own independence. #Illuminare
23. Now, in the natural it would seem the collapse came about because of the radical reforms of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but we know from scriptures that’s not exactly true. #Illuminare
24. He was just an instrument. There was someone behind the scene orchestrating the events. He is the Governor of the nations. Psalm 22:28 #Illuminare
25. There are four things David sought to establish: a). God crushes hostile people. b). God is Lord over earth c). God is Lord of godless nations d). The powers of earth are God’s. (Psalm 47:7-9 MSG) #Illuminare
26. Question then arises, did God author coronavirus as an exercise in sovereignty - to straighten out humanity? #Illuminare
27. It’s a valid question, especially given man’s sudden sobriety. There’s no aspect of human affairs the virus didn’t touch. #Illuminare
28. It shut down economies, altered sociology, reconfigured theology, edited philosophy, modified psychology, flummoxed science, redefined work, enervated politicians. The whole world was shut down. #Illuminare
29. Who has the power, authority, and capacity to shut the world down? Or was it just nature mutating, freaking out on humans? #Illuminare
30. Was the pandemic caused by man’s carelessness or recklessness? Or can it be all of the above? #Illuminare
31. If we think in apocalyptic terms, coronavirus cannot be some random stuff – say the bureaucratic enterprise of an overzealous civil servant in Heaven. #Illuminare
32. But is coronavirus an “end-time” pandemic? Does it signify the world coming to an end? #Illuminare
33. Truth is, it does not rise to the order of magnitude of those seven plagues in Revelation 16. Those plagues are in the main environmental disasters. #Illuminare
34. It’s not one of those plagues because the mark of the beast ought to have been in use for those plagues to manifest. The Antichrist would have been revealed. #Illuminare
35. Neither does it compare to the seven-seal sequence in Revelation 5-8. Four horsemen are featured in that sequence. #Illuminare
36. The first seal is the reveal of the white horse rider - the Antichrist. With the second seal the red horse rider unveils war. With the third seal the black horse rider presages famine. #Illuminare
37. With the fourth seal the pale horse rider emerges. He is Death. He unleashes a calendar of death through wars, famine and plagues. #Illuminare
38. The breaking of the fifth seal unveils the martyrs during the tribulation. The breaking of the sixth seal leads to devastating earthquake. It has a cosmological sequence attachment – the sun turning black, the moon red. #Illuminare
39. The breaking of the seventh seal unveils the judgments. Again, since the Antichrist has not been revealed this sequence of events cannot be in motion. #Illuminare
40. Now, when we think “last days” we tend to imagine imminence. Apostle John imagined same. He wrote about “last hour.” 1 John 2:18. #Illuminare
41. Paul was like that too. He thought the rapture was imminent, that he’d be part of it. Which was why he wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “WE that are still alive…will be caught up in the clouds…” #Illuminare
42. But if Paul was already talking about last days in 62 AD and we’re still in last days our understanding of the “days” has to change. It would seem therefore that “last days” is a series of cascading events over a long period of time. #Illuminare
43. Think of the waves of the sea. There are minor waves. Coronavirus will probably qualify as a minor wave apocalyptically. Such peter out. #Illuminare
44. But then there are big waves. They build up and roll into other waves to propel a forward push. And then a crash. That’s the visual of the end times. And the series of event-waves have been building up for 2000 years. #Illuminare
45. Jesus cited those small waves: emergence of false Christs, wars and rumors of war, famines, pestilences (like coronavirus), earthquakes… Jesus said these are early warning signals – “the beginning of sorrows.” #Illuminare
46. In apocalyptic terms therefore coronavirus cannot be more than a warning sign. The main event of the end times is the unveil of the Antichrist. He is the key figure in the end time calendar. #Illuminare
47. But his spirit (his values, religious and philosophical propositions, ideologies and cultural influence) is already here. 1 John 4:3. The rapture will take place before his bodily manifestation. #Illuminare
48. As per approach to end times this is what Paul wrote: “As the end approaches people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending,… #Illuminare
49. …slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion but behind the scenes they’re animals.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Sounds familiar? #Illuminare
50. It would seem therefore that humans are more the signs of the end times than coronavirus. #Illuminare
51. How far are we on the end time calendar? Only God knows. The rapture can take place anytime from now. #Illuminare
52. If you’ll like to give your life to Christ please pray this prayer: “Father I acknowledge that I am a sinner, that Jesus died for me, that you raised him from the dead. Father please forgive me. I accept Jesus today as my Lord and my Saviour. Amen.” #Illuminare
54. *To learn more about how the spiritual realm controls governments and societies, you can read my book, Of Madmen, Senators & Ambassadors. Order at store.lekealder.com. #Illuminare
55. © Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com. #Illuminare
