Throughout large parts of the world, churches have been forcibly closed by governments because of the coronavirus pandemic. A question many Christians and Messianics are asking themselves: Is that right? Should believers yield to the laws of governments that forbid all assemblies, and not just those of Christians? Should they congregate to worship anyway and just trust 'God'? Some argue we should obey because we are subject to the laws of governments (as they interpret Paul [1]) and others say that to do such is a betrayal of the Gospel and demonstrates a lack of faith. What should our response be? What is the correct policy? And yet 43 out of 80 people attending fell ill at a Pentecostal Church revival service in Illinois, of whom 10 who tested were positive for the coronavirus infection. Were they right to congregate? And what does this tell us?

As always, when the World and the Messianic Community (Church) intersect, and sometimes butt heads, the issues can become complex and therefore need to be carefully thought out. We also need to remember the rules of scriptural hierarchy that we commonly speak of in this ministry (Father¹ > Son² > 12 Apostles³ > Apostle Paul⁴) and to make clear distinctions between general^G and specific^S instruction, remembering that specific instructions can sometimes supercede general rules. For example, marriage is the general rule - a commandment - for all believers. However, there are exceptions, specifically, if someone is called exceptionally to be single (as Jeremiah the prophet was) and when believers are advised not to marry in times of extreme persecution when it becomes impractical to raise families. Remember, then, that exceptions are only for specific circumstances and are never general. Not everything is clear-cut or black-and-white.

In general, we are urged to assemble as often as we can, but always we are commanded to assemble on the Sabbath day. However, as we know, Yah'shua (Jesus) made it clear that there are exceptions regarding even the Sabbath and He cites as examples the assisting of animals and people who are in difficulty (Lk.13:10-17). That's why in the modern world we make exceptions for certain professions like medical staff, police and fire-fighters who are in the business of saving life in emergency situations. They are the exception and doubtless you'll be able to think of one two others like pastors and elders who have to work hard on the Sabbath and mothers who have children to take care of every day of the week. Yet the Saviour also says we should pray that in times of persecution we should pray that we do not have to flee on the Sabbath (Mt.24:20), speaking of a time after His death and resurrection (specifically, the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70) and to therefore make advance preparations, rather as we have done up to now in preparing for the Collapse.

Paul encourages regular assembly, for reasons that are obvious, but perhaps the most important reason is because where two or three are gathered in Christ's Name, He promises to be there amongst us (Mt.18:20). However, nowhere are told that we have to assemble in a church building or a messianic synagogue in order to fulfil the requirement to assemble, and indeed the first congregations were house fellowships, as many are today. That is the way we work. Paul goes to great lengths in his letters to make plain that the messianic community or church in its most basic sense is an invisible fellowship that doesn't have to be under a single roof - it's everywhere believers are. That means we can just as well fellowship online even if obviously being in each other's physical presence is the more desirable. We have such incredible electronic communications today and should exploit them to the full. Thus this morning we had online fellowship between Sweden, Mexico and Scotland!

I have been listening to Christians in different denominations agonising on how to administer the Eucharist or Lord's Supper during this time of lockdown. Yes, that is a dilemma for those of the older European churches who believe in a strict clergy-laity division and I can understand why they argue for maintaining Sunday meetings in their church buildings. This is not, however, a problem - or oughtn't to be - for those who believe in the Priesthood of all Believers, and isn't for us who believe in the patriarchal principle that the father/husband is the priest in his own family and that congregations are 'families of families' with an overall pastor-patriarch. As far as we are concerned, then, such a dilemma does not exist. We carry on all the normal ecclesiastcal functions in our home as I am sure tens of thousands of others do too worldwide. Business continues as normal for us plus we have the blessing of the internet for an international house-based fellowship. You can do the same.

Yet you might, however, be surprised why others are insisting that Sunday or Saturday worship services be maintained during this pandemic. And it's not because of the Eucharist because many churches don't even have a Master's Supper. Some of them don't even baptise converts. But until such a time as believers can physically fellowship again, you can, if you have the water, baptise yourself, but even that isn't necessary. You can only be expected to do what you can reasonably do.

A major leader of the charismatic movement, Rodney Howard Brown, who lives in Florida, deliberately violated a new Federal Law prohibiting the holding of large gatherings, a law designed to prevent the spread of the pandemic and was arrested. Some are saying he is a hero of the faith, others that he has violated the law of the land and broken an instruction of Paul which to many Christians means the breaking of a First Order Commandment (which we believe is a Fourth Order one). Messianic Evangelicals do not therefore put the same weight on Paul's instruction regarding the state as most Protestants do, and by that we mean we must obey Elohim's (God's) Laws before man's (Ac.5:29). You'll find an article you can read on that at the end of this talk.

And I will admit when the US Government says it will permanently ban all churches that break this new law, alarm bells go off and red flags wave inside, because this reeks of fascism. I am concerned because we know that the satanic Deep State loves to use crises such as this as an excuse to make draconian laws to restrict or (as in the case of China) openly persecute and ban all Christian activity altogether. The worst of it is that historically we know that freedoms denied in times of war or pandemic are not usually fully restored after the crisis is over. Totalitarianism never yields back to liberty without a fight because men and women, once they have had a taste of absolute power, become addicted to it and simply want more.

Many people don't know that in some countries Income Tax was originally introduced as a means to raise money to finance the Armed Services in the First World War. But the power governments gained in having access to all this sudden influx of money went to their heads and was not something they wanted to forfeit or yield back after the world war was over. Indeed, the last two world wars saw many liberties lost for good and a third one, which we know the élites have been planning for over a century-and-a-half, will arguably take not only more but virtually all the ones that still remain.

We only the other day heard former Labour British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, demand 'world government' to fix the corona virus problem. What a fraud! All of us know that he is a lackey of the criminals who unleashed the virus on an unsuspecting world in the first place, precisely to ushher in world dictatorship, if possible, which is why we have to keep government in check and not lose our resolve during a national emergency or afterwards. Remember the occultic motto: 'Out of chaos, order' - read 'totalitarian order'. So the noises being made by the US government, and some of the laws being enacted by other governments around the world, disturb me greatly. So part of me says, 'absolutely not' to their demand for total compliance at pain of being arrested and having your church banned. Sounds too much like the communists.

However, the bid by governments for ever more dictatorial powers is only one side of the issue. Not only does the banning of assemblies for the duration of the pandemic make practical, common, scientific sense, but arguably it is absolutely the right and moral thing to do provided they don't go over board. One of of the reasons we need government is to protect us from physical harm.

It's also one thing for believers to talk about faith but plainly not only is the faith of all individual believers not equal but is often misapplied and therefore misguided. Appealing to 'faith', as many who want to ignore the new law do, has to be carefully qualified, because the Christian faith is a rational, intelligent faith.

People with large church buildings who are dependent on passing around the collection plate to get tithes and offerings, and therefore require people's weekly attendance to pay their bills, who must keep financially solvent, have a big, practical motive for keeping their church buildings open and filled with people as oftenh as possible. And, yes, when this crisis is over, a lot of individual churches, ministries and even whole denominations, who rely on an economic model for their operation and smooth functioning - especially the megachurches - which I personally consider unbiblical, they are, in many cases, going to go bankrupt. Even if they announce that their doors are open in defiance of government instructions, many of their members are not going to come, again for a variety of reasons - out of concerm for their own health, out of concern for others' health, out of fear of being arrested, but also because they feel they must obey the government for theological reasons no matter what. So like I said, the reasons, for and against, are complex. But which is the right course of action?

I have already involked a number of biblical principles for my position, which is that believers stay at home during the epidemic as the default even if I grant there may, on occasion, be legitimate occasions (such as getting out of a city to a place of safety, though some countries like Norway have banned that already!). Having said that, though, the policy of the United Kingdom of banishing people to their homes while keeping the airports open to travellers from known pandemic zones, without testing them for the virus, makes absolutely no sense at all.

However, the most important reason, I believe, is because Yahweh has given us a common sense, exception commandment in Scripture to assembling. He says that in extremely dangerous times, such as war, pestiline, famine and plague, people should absolutely stay at home because He takes responsibility for our well-being and even the action of others who mean us harm, calling it 'Yahweh's anger':

"Go home, My people, and lock your doors! Hide yourselves for a little while until Yahweh's anger has passed" (Is.26:20).

So I would say, most emphatically, that unless you have received an unambiguous, exceptional revelation, that any instruction by the authorities to stay at home be regarded as sensible and the only considerate thing to do for the welfare of the local and national community. However, you should not just blindly obey without considering why you are doing what you are doing. Your obedience must ALWAYS be to Elohim (God) FIRST. That a government has said you must do something is not reason enough to blindly obey when it is operating outside the basic mandate given them by Heaven, namely, totally restricting your liberty of movement. I just happen to believe the governments issuing this instruction are right in the general sense but only temporarily as a short-term, emergency exigency, even if there is undoubtedly devilry going on behind the scenes which wants to ultimately make this the suppression of freedom and outright oppression when the need for such desperate measures are no longer needed.

If you have already obtained a testimony of, and responded by following, the instructions of the nevi'im (prophets) given years ago to leave the cities and establish places of refuge for such a time as this, then any instruction to stay indoors surely won't be a problem for you, will it, because you will know you obeyed Yahweh in the first place.

Finally, the Bible - and the Torah in particular - does have hygiene rules. It's a reason the Jews of mediæval Europe had a much higher survival rate during the plagues like the Black Death that devastated that continent. The same rules apply to Christians even if they have foolishly flouted them because of being taught bad theology by their priests and teachers. And yet now, by and large, believers are trusting the discoveries of secular medicine and science (as is right) to stay clean anyway, which is what Yahweh told His people to do thousands of years ago. It goes to show you who they trust more and why they are so often poorly prepared because then they become no different from the secular society in which they live.

Today is April Fool's Day, reminding us that most people blindly imitate the world. But if the world is right - and for the most part, it is right in issuing lockdown and quarantine laws (even if it may over- or under-react in some places) - then we are not wrong to agree with it, because as it happens it aligns with the way we are already commanded to live by nthe Creator.

Now I realise that if you have spurned the counsel of the nevi'im (prophets) over the years and find yourself in difficult circumstances because you haven't prepped and haven't left the cities, that you may face dilemmas. It will be harder but if you repent now, Yahweh will be graceful. I hate to say this but this pandemic is just the beginning of the judgments prophesied for so long. The economic collapse is already underway, with GDP in the USA falling by 20 per cent in the first few days of this pandemic. It will likely fall far lower than the 85 per cent level of the Great Depression by the time all of this is over. It will take the better part of a decade to recover if it is allowed to by other events.

However, the situation you find yourself is what it is, we are where we are, and we must make do and trust Yahweh to extricate us or see us through. Not everywhere will be alike. No-one has 100 per cent prepared adequately, as we're all finding out. Once the pandemic has subsided - and I have not been given any dates specifically - not prophetically, at any rate - but my scientific and statistical assessment (which at best consist only of very rough estimates, and at worse could be completely wrong), are that we should not expect this to be over much before mid-May. That's the optimistic forecast.

I hope that having heard this you will at least have taken stock of the situation and considered both the balance of Scriptural counsel and that you will have used your common, scientific sense. What isn't needed is a flat-earth mentality and we certainly don't need to listen to all the muttering of the psychics making themselves out to be 'prophets'.

As I said on another occasion, we don't need corona-virus martyrs who endanger lives needlessly by demanding people act recklessly. There are some very brave believers out there already laying their lives down sharing the Gospel with the sick and dying. Some of their accounts are incredibly moving and inspiring. They did not, however, throw themselves into the lion's den but were taken their by Yahweh through circumstances beyond their control, just as Daniel was.

Parents' first responsibility is to their families so as not to leave their children defenceless in the world. We don't need reckless parents with a martyrdom complex gambling with their children's lives by undertaking rash, wild adventures in blind faith. What is needed here is a healthy mixture of reason and trusting in Yah'shua (Jesus). Act on carefully vetted information from reliable sources (if its available) coupled with personal revelation from the Ruach (Spirit), but be sure to check everything out carefully. You don't mess around in pandemics. There is a sharp learning curve for Western society to be sure since this has been experienced really for a hundred years since the Spanish 'flu of 1918.

To assist with that I am including practical advice at the conclusion of this talk which will be of more value to those whose countries are just entering the worst of the pandemic. It's not over yet, not by a long shot. Containing the virus is the most important thing right now, so preventing its spread through quarantine is the best that can be done. By all means go into intercessionary prayer in the heavenlies but do not in the process throw caution to the wind and ignore sound medical practice. We are blessed with good medical science too.

When Yahweh says, 'stay at home and lock your doors', that's just what He means! It's what He told the Israelites to do in Egypt while the destroying malak (angel) with plague passed them by. He didn't say, 'put blood on yourselves and wander the streets', any more than He's telling Christians they can recklessly invoke the blood of Christ on themselves and act as though there is no danger! He said: STAY HOME! Mark the doorposts, not yourselves! Pray and intercede there with your families under cover. You're supposed to be in the Sanctuary, not in the Courtyard of the Tabernacle. Your homes are your sanctuaries. Don't tempt Yahweh and then wonder why you get sick and die. Many unwise believers have already got sick and died because they refused to take sound counsel.

I hope this has been helpful. I felt a very strong movement of the Ruach (Spirit) this afternoon to share this message with you. I hope it blesses many. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] The Limits of Obedience to the State

Comments from Readers

[1] "The Bible tells us to obey the government, Titus 3:1 for example" (ML, UK, 2 April 2020)

[1a] Author: "There's always a context otherwise a scripture can become a pretext to make it whatever anyone wants it to mean. I address the issues in this article: The Limits of Obedience to the State" (CCMW, Sweden, 2 April 2020)
[1b] "Are you going to obey the government when they tell you that you have to have the mark of the beast? Maybe you are reading that 'obey the government' incorrectly" (MN, USA, 2 April 2020)