Palm Sunday is certainly different though, not unusual this year as pestilence goes. The world is under siege by a new strain of microscopic viral elements that is sickening and killing human beings by the thousands across the earth. Right out of a science fiction movie scientists are scrambling to find a remedy and governments to quell panic and effect policies such as social distancing that are hoped will slow the spread of the Coronavirus or Covid-19. Meanwhile, the unsaved “where’s God in a crisis” crowd spew their blasphemy and closely related scoffing professed Christians deny He has anything do with much less to say in the midst of it. Really?
Each year for nearly 2,000 years we Christians have commemorated Palm Sunday as the one and only full on public assertion by Jesus of Nazareth to be Israel’s Messiah. He did so not with words, but the actions of fulfilling the prophet Zechariah’s prophecy of how He as the Messiah would one day enter Jerusalem--“Lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey,” (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11, NKJV). Later in the same week He as the Messiah would be arrested, tried and condemned to death by crucifixion fulfilling yet other prophecies of His action to save His people from their sins. God resurrected Him on the third day after certifying His successful mission (Psalm 22)!
From just the foregoing it is clear God speaks with not just words, but actions past and present as Scripture attests (Psalm 19:1-6; Romans 1:18-23). He is speaking to all the earth right now for those that will give heed! However, as the prophet Isaiah some 700 years prior cried out, “Who has believed our report” in response to Israel and the world’s unbelief at what God accomplished in His Son, Jesus Christ, to save all from sin and eternal death (Isaiah 53, NKJV), so, today, many even among professing Christianity refuse to hear Him speaking not just in the current Coronavirus, but the many foretold latter day calamities occurring in the world (Luke 21:9-11; Revelation 6:1-7).
So, what is God saying? The Coronavirus is a major magnitude “shot across the bow” to the world that God has turned a corner on His forbearance with mankind. As the Lord led me to write in social media posts that began March 15, 2020 blowing the trumpet of warning He gave me in 1986 (Ezekiel 33:1-9; Amos 3:6-8), He foretold “such things as we are experiencing in our world today would occur and uptick in the rhythms of a pregnant woman’s birth pains as Christ’s return nears (Matthew 24:3-8).” “Gracious, merciful and ‘longsuffering,’ God has given mankind nearly two millennia to get saved by Him through the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; 2 Peter 3:9, NKJV).”
“Time is about up!” “God has presently humbled the world with microscopic organisms, but worse is coming not because He hates and wants to destroy mankind, but to cause stubborn rebels that refuse to repent to look up and recognize Him as He to whom all must give an account as sinners (Isaiah 45:22-24)!” For He in love “commands all men everywhere to repent” to be saved from His coming set day to judge the world for sin (Acts 17:30-31, NKJV). This is why no God called preacher (Romans 10:14-15) should be refraining from preaching the Gospel or Christian witnessing Christ (Acts 1:8) during this Coronvirus outbreak or any calamity while comforting and helping the affected.1
Because of rampant disobedience to even the most basic commands and instructions of the biblical faith along with overflowing falsehood and apostasy, Christians and their churches are being spoken to by God too!2 Professed Christian pastors and teachers where guilty are called to repent from their own agenda, messaging and false teaching building followings, legacies and church empires.3 With many cancellations and churches not able to meet for services, God in remedial judgment has called a timeout and is making this a time for us to consider our practice of the biblical faith as stewards4 and what the Church is truly about under Christ as Lord; repenting as needed!
In a March 17th social media post I wrote, “Churchmen, this time of righteous social distancing required by governments is also God’s merciful advance look at what not being able to go to church looks like. Will you be instructing your household from the Bible and leading them in worship as God expects or has your exclusive dependence on the local church to do this for you made you clueless about how to do this as the Lord led me to write would be the case for many if there is no church to go to?”5 If not, you need to repent from your dereliction at home and co-dependence on the local church. Likewise I wrote, “Church leaders you know you are guilty and need to repent to whatever extent you have caused men and women to depend more on you and ‘the church’ than on the Lord!”
Moreover, “the world as we have known it is never going to be the same again after this Coronavirus episode. Will you be leading the church you serve to return to what in too many cases is sin in disobedience as it regards not teaching men to lead in their house or allowing them to do so in God’s or will you repent as you ought setting an example (1 Timothy 2:8-3:13; 1 Peter 5:1-4)?” As the Lord Jesus showed, God from the beginning of His Kingdom cause in the Gospel has been reaching and restoring men as His crucial assigned leaders (Matthew 4:17-22); a fact I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.6 There is much to repent from! The issue is will you hypocritically go into these holy days beginning today refusing His gracious chance to do so?
(There will not be a post on Resurrection Sunday. I will be taking it off to do as I do annually to celebrate the triumphant resurrection of my Lord and His grace to save a wretch like me on the same occasion in 1977--some 1,944 years later! Lord willing, my next post will be on April 19, 2020.)
1 Some falsely teach contrary to Scripture God is not behind this or any other calamity and only seek to comfort and help. See the January 3, 2016 post, The Never
Changing God and Now Is The Day Of Salvation posted December 4, 2016 both under the category, Call To Repent. Preachers, read also my January 10, 2016 post,
God’s Appointed Preacher, under the category, Instruction.
2 Take your pick of the many posts the Lord has had me to make under the category, Call To Repent, looking for reasons rooted in sin and disobedience He is calling
professed Christians and their churches to repentance!
3 Pastor, reflect deeply on the September 27, 2015 post, Empire Building On God’s Program, under the category, Call To Repent. You have no biblical mandate or ex-
cuse to build an empire; only your ego and selfish ambition drive you as those of old (1 Samuel 15:10-12; Daniel 4:28-30; Acts 20:28-30) and God has humbled you.
4 Read my recent two-part post, Torn Between Two Masters that began on March 15, 2020 under the category, Call To Repent.
5 Read the two-part post beginning January 5, 2020 Revelation’s Seven Churches In Time, under the category, Bible Prophecy. Also, the Lord led me to write a free one
sheet resource, Men Leading Family Worship At Home. It is intended to help willing Christian men step up to lead worship in their house during this Coronavirus pan-
demic and going forward as part of their regular spiritual leadership responsibility in the home in addition to leading the family out to participate in a local church when
that option is available. Get this free resource now in the Strong Man Store!
6 Get a print copy or digital download of the book at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can
also get a print copy in the Strong Man Store.
It is not easy living as a Christian in the world on a normal day. It is much harder doing so in days that have quickly become anything but normal! We Christians face all of the same heightened challenges, adversities and hardships as our unsaved neighbors here in America and abroad during the current global Coronavirus pandemic. In a biblical worldview, our understanding of how and why such things are happening and intimate relationship with the Almighty God ultimately behind them are supposed to help us cope better than most.1 However, as hoarding toilet paper says much about the nation’s character, so the constant exhortation not to fear from preachers about that of Christians.
This is especially amazing to me since so many Christians profess to fearlessly believe in a sudden “rapture” that if it were to happen as imagined, would be an event so jarring to their families and others left behind in the world there would be no repentance or recovery in this Protestant version of purgatory, only fatal despair. As bad as it is at this point, we Christians are still here en masse and will be until death by whatever means or Christ’s unexpected sensory overloading appearance to deliver His persecuted remnant yet alive in a calloused, wonder weary world fully given over to evil. This is as the Bible objectively read and applied foretells (2 Thessalonians 1:3-12)!
As authentic faith in God has always been required of His righteous ones on any day to successfully resist the devil’s “fiery darts” that include fear, strength will be equally required to stand fast through all of what is coming upon the world going forward (1 Corinthians 16:13; Ephesians 6:16, NKJV).2 Human beings do not naturally possess the spiritual strength necessary to long endure and persevere through prolonged hardships, adversities, troubles and tribulations that are common to our life experience on earth much less the cataclysmic events foretold in His Word that God in His timing is bringing upon the world as the birth pains of His Kingdom.
Praise be to God He has built the availability of His strength into the human experience expressly for those in relationship with Him as redeemed sons, disciples and servants by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:14-16)! Drawing upon and living moment by moment out of the superior strength God by the Holy Spirit supplies to our spirit is our normative experience by design. We were made to be indwelt by God forever, but sin caused separation from Him (that is, spiritual death) to be mankind’s shared reality (Ephesians 2:1). Taking the initiative, God in Christ has restored His life and strength to us who believe in Him (John 10:10; Colossians 1:9-14).
The strength of God is without contest supernatural as is all of biblical Christianity and unique to Him. Out of His inexhaustible omnipotence God through Christ created and sustains the heavens and the earth for us, His eternal sons, assembled to Him and Christ as Lord--every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in His image (Isaiah 45:11-13; Colossians 1:15-23)!3 This same power as His strength is constantly renewed in us as we by faith purposely wait on the Lord for and actively seek it in times of need (Isaiah 40:27-31; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). We are to even gain a bold faith in Christ from being repeatedly strengthened by Him (Philippians 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:16-18).
Through the supernatural strength our God supplies us then, we are more than amply equipped to please Him and do His will; to cope with the everyday trials of life and those more severe that come suddenly which at first glance seem to be overwhelming. Nevertheless, through His strength we are enabled to stand if we keep our heads and call on Him in faith; not giving into unbelief and the fear that somehow what we face is bigger than God. As it is written, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And again, “For with God nothing will be impossible,” (Genesis 18:14a; Luke 1:37, NKJV). And since by the Word of prophecy we have known and know what God is up to and what is coming upon the world, we are all the more ready for extraordinary events that occur (Mark 13:23).
Indeed, as our Lord warned, far worse events to include the global persecution of Christians on the earth and in the heavens that have never taken place before are coming (Luke 21:7-12, 25-28). Are we already fainting in fear with this Coronavirus? As He taught in the Gospels and shows in His Revelation He recently led me to write about,4 Christ expects us to proclaim the Gospel and witness Him until He returns; persevering to the end in strength, obedience to His Word and loyalty to Him (Luke 21:13-19; Revelation 3:8, 11). Therefore, in faith and with “this treasure” of the Spirit of life and strength in us, let us like the faithful apostles and saints before and around us overcome this world and its ruler as well as ace the tests to doubt God through fear (2 Corinthians 4:6-11; 1 John 4:4).5
1 Taking Bible prophecy seriously as we ought, no Christian should be shocked at the increasingly severe events in our world. See my September 29, 2019 post, God
Almighty In A 21st Century World, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
2 For more on standing fast in the times, read my November 25, 2018 post, Standing In The Evil Day, under the category, Encouragement.
3 I write about the aspiring strong man and great woman of God in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. Get a print copy or digital download of the book
at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can also get a print copy in the Strong Man Store.
4 See the two-part post beginning February 16, 2020, Christ’s Message To His Faithful, under the categories, Bible Prophecy and Encouragement.
5 The Lord led me to proclaim a timely six message series, The Hour Of Testing, now available in the Strong Man Store that instructs Christians on God’s biblically taught
purposes behind why He tests His people and fully explores the prophetic implications tied to the coming hour of trial our Lord speaks of in Revelation 3:10.
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