It is hard to know to which of the various views on the coronavirus we should listen.
To paraphrase A.W. Tozer, what God is saying to His Church at any given period depends altogether upon her moral and spiritual condition, and upon the spiritual need of the hour. What we need are those in America with the ability to appraise the religious landscape as viewed from God’s position and to tell us what is actually going on.1
Up to now President Trump’s most compelling reason for reelection to a large segment of Americans was a bustling economy, but not so to Evangelicals, because the president has honored his campaign promises from 2016:
• Defend religious liberty.
• Stand for the unborn.
• Defund Planned Parenthood. [Blocked by House.]
• Build a Wall on Southern Border.
• Appoint conservative jurists to the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts.
• Reinstate the Mexico City Policy [i.e. block U.S. federal funding of abortion].
• Rescind the Johnson Amendment [alias the pastor muzzle act].
• Recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the American Embassy to the Holy City.
Like the queen being captured in a chess match, the advantage of a bustling economy has been removed from the table by the devastating effects of the coronavirus on the U.S. economy. As a result, Trump’s reelection this fall is no longer a given.
Some independent voices currently are questioning the authority of “city, state and federal politicians shutting down the economy, presumably for our own good. Or at least what they presume to be our own good.”
“Government spending is just another word for private sector spending orchestrated by politicians. All wealth is created in the private sector only for government to politicize spending of this private sector wealth creation to the tune of $4 to $5 trillion per year. The growth once again already happened, hence the ability of Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell et al to spend.”2
A.W. Pink identifies the cunning Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9 as a perfect example of “the dual character in which Satan opposes the people of God and the methods he employs therein – as the roaring lion seeking to devour, as the subtle serpent using deceit. Both Scriptural and ecclesiastical history demonstrate that the latter is far more dangerous and successful than the former. When open persecution fails either to exterminate or intimidate the faithful, Satan resorts to his secret wiles, which only too often corrupt their testimony. Nor is the reason for this hard to discover. Not only is the former method much more easily detected, but fierce opposition casts believers upon the Lord for enabling strength and fortitude, and thus proves a blessing in disguise to them, whereas they are very apt to be less on their guard against Satan’s sly artifices, and if pride persuades them that they are too well established in the Truth to be misled by error or taken in by hypocrites, they more easily fall victims of his snares.”3
The Obama years seemingly represented the roaring lion seeking to devour: inciting racial hatred, allowing Ferguson to burn, letting IRS bureaucrat Lois Lerner target conservative Christian groups, with her then pleading the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee. Though never indicted, she was just the warmup act.
Add in Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s shakedown of Corporate America for the shady Clinton Foundation, AG Eric Holder’s lawlessness, and what comes into view is a two-tiered justice system. Unevenly applied law has a name; it is called corruption.
Christians have entered the devious perplexity of the serpent cycle, beginning toward the end of the Obama Administration, or there about. Russian collusion, impeachment and Ukraine, and now a worldwide pandemic of panic. All need to be observed and differentiated through the lens of Biblical discernment.
For what’s happening in America is spiritual. To spell it out once again: two distinct religions are vying for control of the public square, eternal and immutable Christianity versus transient and mutable Secularism. These two distinct religions cannot coexist as one will ultimately end in the destruction of the other.
Praise His name that we have an Ally, our war is His war, and we can rely on Him.
Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand in America, lending evidence that there is to be a spiritual resurrection of America.
David Lane
American Renewal Project
1. A.W. Tozer, The Size of the Soul.
2. John Tamny, Dear Conservatives, If You Bail Out Everyone You Bail Out No One; article in RealClearMarkets, March 18, 2020.
3. A.W. Pink, Gleanings from Joshua.
