Pandemic for a lot of people means a determination to survive and courage to keep believing as the world relies on its tried and true projects, some heroic, some sour puss, others unhinged and manic.

THE END OF DAYS IS FULL OF TROUBLE

• Deception
• Reports of wars and
• rumours of wars
• International conflict or insurrection
• jurisdictional conflict or insurrection
• famines
• pestilences, and
• earthquakes

With these the party is just getting started.  All these are the beginning of sorrows (birth pangs).  Yet to come:

• deliver you up to be afflicted
• assassinations
• hatred by all nations for Christ’s sake
• many take offence
• betray one another
• hatred

Pandemic puts the spotlight on people: all the people. As a man of African descent it is not easily that people like me can trust that fellow citizens are going to be truthful about washing their hands and reporting their symptoms. It feels like someone is preparing to count humanity. It looks like the typical beastly behaviour – breaking things then come in like a saviour.  At least the progress towards good governance – human style – needs to have population statistics. There are four things that will come out of the coronavirus outbreak: (1) the data of infected vs non-infected people, (2) the vaccine we can expect to be rolled out soon, (3) the potential for draconian actions to address human safety and (4) the intrusion of government into spiritual life and freedom of thought.

Beastly interests vs the thunder

A pandemic forces humans to congregate at home. What do we have to lose? Few people have heard the thunder of the global voice calling for an end to the injustices of religion and politics.  Fewer have heard the pin drop in the parade of good people.  The truly important things about human destiny are not going to be written.  In John’s prophecy the thunder utterances are classified.  You and I need to hear the thunder for ourselves

The seven thunders spoke, and I started to write. But then I heard a voice from heaven that said, “Don’t write what the seven thunders said. Keep those things secret.”

Revelation of John 10:4

Plagues – divine strikes or blows – are not like rain and snow. There are no human remedies, so let us not think we will ever pray a plague away. When this outbreak we will naturally be in a new place. God will still be God inviting people to come to him. If we see a line up for baptism across the affected areas it will be a different world from the one that followed the 911 murders. Let us not contribute to chaos and animalistic behaviour. Some people may feel that covid-19 is none of their business but the spread of concerted action in response is merely a shadow of the discomfort into which our lives will be thrown when the plagues begin. But, not yet!

Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

Luke 6:26

Standout saying in today’s reading

The real prophets get persecuted and killed. The rest get acclaimed by the community – all men, not every individual.

Where is the prophet since John the Baptist?

If you do not know the answer to that question you are likely to be in the snare of a false prophet, not necessarily someone calling himself “prophet” but an authority figure.

The human body knows when it deserves urgent care. The doctor comes later. The spirit has needs too (none if we believe in immortal souls and perfectly fit persons, believers and nonbelievers healed by God) and it has healing and maintenance routines. Conscience, experience and faith build our spiritual health and fitness.   Believing what God has promised is more than sufficient.  Instead we have thought that positive thinking can replace the abject negativity of human righteousness (performing what we think God wants) we have the spiritual equivalent of a contagious and fatal disease. To sum up in simple terms, we suffer from icanitis, and tacking on “through Christ who strenthens me” does nothing to hide our proud foolishness.

Books like this (small booklet) have been part of satisfying the thirst of many believers. Having a number of Bible verses in one place in some kind of order is a huge time saver. But what if the order itself has no structure? Chaos follows. The entry for covenant in this book has two parts: new and old.

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

Hebrews 13:20

If the point is to compare the two then one should use the same measures: the same hearings and questions.

The new covenant is in Christ’s blood. He ratifies it. There is no connection to the Sinai or the Palestinian covenant. It has nothing to do with Israel’s exit from Egypt

Hebrews 8:8-9

8. For finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 9. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, says the Lord.

There is no commandment participation

God’s role is clear – I will. Human participation does not include drilling it into “our kids” for example as the custom was for the old/first covenant.

• I will put my laws into their mind, and
• write them in their hearts:
• I will be to them a God, and
• they shall be to me a people
• they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
• I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
• I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.

The author is not comparing old and New covenant. He is actually making the points he wants to make about obedience about where the covenant placed but he says nothing about the record of keeping those Commandments.

Criteria for the new

• Where written
• Compared to the other
• Same as another
• Who ratifies
• What is its commemoration

The writer wants to say that the law is now written in human hearts but he does not deny that you can’t be teaching people about that. He compares the old to the new without saying they are different. He talks about the ratification of the old but says nothing about the ratification of the new by the blood of the Incarnate Word, not by animal blood being sprinkled on a book. There is no commemoration of the first covenant. The Jew is obliged to do what it says, not celebrate it.

Criteria for the old

• Must obey God
• What it is based on
• Who wrote it where
• With what it is ratified
• People quickly broke it

Hundreds of years later

Following the Sinai failure the precious message from God became talking points until judgment arrived and exiled the Jewish people.

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

Lamentations 4:1

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.

Lamentations 2:9