I have heard many people lately wishing we could “just go back to normal” in this Covid drove world of today. I would suggest that “normal” is the reason we are here in the first place.
If Covid has proven anything to us, it is how easy it has been for mankind to be manipulated and controlled by domestic and global powers. The masses have become spineless, fearful corpses of what humanity once was. People used to cry for and value freedom and independence. Sure, it has been rare to find true freedom from tyranny in this world, but today we find the masses pursuing and easily yielding to the governments that have been placed over us.
Yes, governments serve a purpose under normal circumstances and society needs some sort of order, truth, and justice in sorting out the conflicts of men. It has been very rare that those governments have been purely for serving the people it is called to serve. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. While power is the number one addiction of powerful people even over money, never before has humanity succumbed to its evil and slimy conclusion such as they do today.
In the Biblical history of mankind, when man fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, we lost our direct communion and trust in God the creator. Very quickly humans grouped up into families, clans, and then made claims on lands as “theirs” which escalated into dividing humanity into races, regions, and ethnicities that we still live with today. Paganism became the norm on earth and man worshipped images of themselves or the animal kingdom since they no longer knew the God who created them. Humanism rapidly replaced any form of seeking a god outside of themselves.
God’s chosen people since the covenant with Abraham were different from the rest of mankind. They were led by prophets and men called by the one true God who led them out of captivity that they had chosen by a continuous cycle of disobedience to their God. You look at Israels’ cycle of miracles to disobedience and you wonder how God could put up with them. Obviously, God’s love is dominant over His righteous indignation and judgment of man’s antics. His grace and mercy are no more evident than in His continuous forgiveness of these “chosen people”. This mercy now extends to us, Christ’s church.
So, in the time of Samuel, the last priest chosen to lead Israel, the people looked around at all the other regional clans and “nations” who were run and controlled by a “king”. They were fearful of many of these nations who seemed so united under powerful human kings, so they thought “we need a king too”. As seems to happen often in history, God gave them what they wanted since they had lost trust in following God directly through His chosen spiritual priests and prophets. He gave them Saul as their first king out of the smallest tribe of “Benjamin”, perhaps with the idea that a man from the least popular tribe might humbly lead and serve the people instead of himself. This is the beginning of “statehood” that has since taken over governance of the whole earth ever since.
Of course, as we read 1Samuel, we see how quickly Saul succumbed to the tyranny of power and did not respect Samuel the priest nor the God of Israel, and instead did what he wanted to bring power and glory to himself. It only took two to twenty years (depending on what historical source you accept) for his earned demise when he lost in battle to the Philistines, and falling on his own sword paved the path for David to become king…which as it turned out had been God’s plan all along. God blessed the reign of the imperfect David from whose linage the promised Messiah would come which is Jesus of Nazareth.
We are now living in the final form of statism that started with Saul, David, and Israel. Humanity is run by nation-states and humanism. Men trust governments over God and their ways over God’s ways. That which used to be right is wrong, and that which used to be a sin is now called normal and righteous. Even this experiment of a constitutional republican democracy we call the United States of America is in its final days as a powerful and rich nation founded under the authority of Biblical Judeo Christian ethics. Biblical prophesies have no clear mention of the USA as a player in the end times and I have my own ideas on why that is which I will not go into here. I will only say that we no longer have a constitutional government and are destined to succumb to the global elitists of the world who have so easily run over constitutional governments worldwide in the name of socialism, secular humanist leadership, and “protection from Covid”. There is no “going back to normal” for America. We have already given up our country to a system of welfare, debt (both national and individual), and a spirit of consumerism where even the poor live better than the rich in many lands based on a system of credit. America, in general, has become a fattened pig ready for slaughter…and we are slaughtering ourselves based on our obese, slovenly ways of life. We have willingly given up our freedom and independence for the promise of security and safety…of which we will soon have neither. We are already slaves to the flesh and the culture we live in.
So, when people say “I want to go back to normal”, I have to ask what is that, and is it truly the way God wanted us to live? To have the life God created for us, we would need to go back to the garden and make the right instead of wrong choice in obeying God.
The good news is that we can go back and have the life God intended for us. Maybe not in the physical realm of this world, but spiritually we CAN choose to live righteously and choose good over evil. We cannot do this in ourselves, but only as we seek God with our whole hearts, spirit, and yes, the flesh. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us as born-again believers in Christ to live holy lives as He calls us. We don’t have to be slaves to the flesh or this world’s systems. God calls us to come out from among the world and live sanctified for Him.
Going back to normal will only mean repeating the past cycles of sin and slavery to this world. Instead of a life living “high on the hog”, God is calling true believers to a life of sacrifice and even suffering. We will suffer for righteousness’ sake. We see this everywhere true faith is exhibited and on the rise in this world. People today are being maimed and killed for proclaiming the name of Jesus in their towns and nations. Increasingly we are seeing persecutions of the church and Christians in the USA. Through persecution, we are actually seeing growth in many churches that proclaim the true Gospel of Christ. I think those days may be short-lived as we see the day of Christ’s return approaching. The Bible tells us that persecution and hardship will rise for those who profess faith in Christ in the last days. Many will fall away or “turn aside”. If you measure your faith by how much of the world’s riches and style you have, you will have a much higher price to pay come that day of persecution and taking away of what you have. Don’t get attached to anything in this world.
Those who want to return to the “good ole days” don’t understand that in most cases, those days had nothing to do with the life God created us to live. We allowed the prosperity of those days to deaden us to our sins and gluttony. We became lazy because we didn’t have to depend on God for our daily bread since we had a time of tremendous prosperity. We quickly worshipped the created instead of the creator. We became servants of this world instead of living as a human sacrifice for our savior.
So, instead of saying or wishing for “normal”, we believers need to be excited and thankful for a time in which we are tested and tried for what and whom we believe in. These are exciting times to live in and to be called according to his purpose.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12)
So we take no pleasure in unrighteousness or sin. We stand fast in the faith while praying for everyday miracles of reconciling souls to salvation. Our days on this earth are getting shorter which means we don’t hold on to the “normal”, but rather proclaim the day of the Lord and His soon appearing.