Originally published on March 27, 2020
“If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain by the sword, with the sword he must be slain” (Rev. 13:10).
True Christianity calls a person to total faith in God. A Christian must believe wholeheartedly that his life and his bodily death are in God’s hands. This does not mean such a one becomes reckless, no, rather, such a person goes through life knowing that his days are numbered by God Himself. He goes through life with deep faith in God. Of course, a Christian takes precautions and care, he also must be a good steward of this earthly life which is from God. Yet, he understands that this life is not his own, nor is this fallen world his home.
For a Christian, even sickness and death are received as from God’s hands (according to His permissive will.) All things are allowed by God and can work for Salvation. Nothing is evil but sin. Thus, a Christian may say, “What do I have to fear? My whole life is known to God, He has measured it before the foundations of the world. He knows my beginning and my end. If I strive to be faithful then I will only die in a manner that God has ordained. I cannot die in any other way.” (This is not a form of “fate” at all.)
According to the Revelation of Jesus Christ, this earthly life has but one purpose; that purpose is to be purified of sin and to faithfully travel on the Way of Christ who is Salvation. Nothing can prevent a person from this, nothing can keep us from Christ the Lord, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39). This includes the current fear of a virus which has gripped our world and even the possible contraction of this or any virus or sickness.
Let’s be sober and precautious, doing what is within reason to take care of ourselves and others but let us never forget that God holds all things – my life and death and the life and death of all those who walk on earth. Please understand I’m addressing mentalities.
At current to whom are the bulk of people looking for salvation from the supposed threat of the Coronavirus?
The Scriptures tell us, and we sing it at the Divine Liturgy, “Put not your trust in princes, in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation” (Ps. 145/146:3). I fully acknowledge the place of proper earthly government. It has its place for now in the fallen world. BUT no salvation can ever come from any government, ever. (Please note I’m all for positive government, this is not an anti-government statement.)
For Christians, the only Salvation, from anything at any time, is Christ Jesus.
What perplexes me a bit (well, honestly quite a lot) is how easily it seems we turn to the government, big pharma, and organizations for salvation. I’m perplexed because these very forces of the Western world that were (and still are) aggressively promoting and carrying out around the globe the mass murder of millions of the most innocent and vulnerable members of humanity in the wombs of their own mothers, effectively making the womb a global death camp, are now those with great concern for the well-being of humanity? The blood of the millions of slaughtered babies calls out against them, it calls out for judgment. Those who were (and are) lauding the positive benefits of euthanasia are now concerned for the elderly and sick? Those who use third world populations as guinea-pigs (many in the “first-world” are but the same) on which to test their “medicine” – causing many deaths – are those who will deal us health?
Even here in America (and most likely in many other places) as they appear to be striving to help people, they are exploiting this crisis for their own nefarious agendas.
Those who have unleashed war, destruction, and death on thousands upon thousands around the world are now counting each human life as dear? Those who did not care for human beings in “third world” countries as they starved to death and were ravaged by disease and sickness and countless other brutalities are now stumbling over themselves to “save lives?” This list could go on and on ….
Somehow it does not add up.
Let us consider the spiritual death which these “humanitarians” have also been promoting. Let us remember that the death of the soul is much more fearful and terrible than only bodily death. They have been exporting to every corner of the world anti-Christian and anti-Traditional “values” (another double-speak label). They have been actively forcing sexual debauchery of every sort; they have been destroying anything good and beautiful in cultures around the world so that they can inject “freedom,” which means only the complete freedom to sin and break God’s commandments. And they persecute those who try to resist this foul corruption. They have been the greatest purveyors of spiritual death and destruction.
And yet I am being told that now these are the very ones I should be trusting? They have had no true care for human life and even worse they have had outright intent to destroy human souls and they are now the ones I must look to for salvation? They now, of a sudden, have only the welfare of humanity at heart? Are we so blind!
Why now is the Coronavirus the worst possible way to die? Why? Ask why? Why are the masters of death and destruction, “those that have done nothing but to build to destroy,” now posing as givers of life? Humanity has been dying in thousands of terrible, sad, brutal ways and they cared not a bit, in fact, they facilitated many of the deaths. Is it not strange that now they are telling people how they cannot die?
Why are those who have had clear anti-Christian intent putting themselves forward as saviors? (As a side, here is a great summary of some of the ideological forces behind the current situation.)
Is not this very anti-Christ spirit reflected in the fact that now society thinks that things like alcohol and marijuana shops (legal in my state and others) are “essential” but prayer in Church is not?
You may dull your senses and get stoned out of your mind but you should not gather to pray to God? Does this strike you as Godly reasoning? (And no, I do not expect such reasoning from these people.)
A type of salvation may come. But at what price? Tell me, will the UN and the EU and the US and WHO and the CDC and the Bill Gates Foundation and Google and so on bring forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior? I believe the answer to be no. But they will bring forth a savior for people. Since it seems that we (I say “we” identifying myself with the world in which I live) are all so ready to put our hope in the “sons of men,” we will also be ready to accept the merely earthly saviors that we are given. And such saviors, by saving our earthly existence will guide us to eternal destruction. For the price of our bodies, we will be willing to sell our souls. We will be promised the world if only we auction off our souls. It seems that this auction has already begun.
Christians, our lives, our souls, belong only to God. The whole fallen worldly system is not worth one human soul.
Christians, our hope is only in God. Only Him will we worship. Only to Him will we look for salvation. Only in His hands are our life and our death. Let us live on this earth accordingly. Let us stand aright, let us attend!
About the author
Husband, father, and Priest.
Schooling: Kharkov State University (Ukraine); Brownsville School of Ministry; St. Tikhon's Orthodox Seminary (M.Div.).
Author and illustrator of St. Patrick, Enlightener of the Irish Lands (Conciliar Press, out of print) and illustrator of The Life of St. Brigid (authored by Jane G. Meyer).
Proprietor and writer at the Inkless Pen Blog, at which, based on the foundation of the teachings of Orthodox Christianity, a wide variety of topics are addressed. Fr. Zechariah has translated some works by St. Dimitry of Rostov and New Hieromartyr Seraphim (Zvesdensky), these translations are also available on his blog.
1 thought on “The Masters of Death Are Now the Ministers of Life?”
Are not our priests ordained by God to heal sickness (Matthew 10:8) ? Why, then, do so many of our priests and hierarchs defer or delegate this authority to a system of medicine founded on empiricism, rationalism and reductionism; a system established by foundations and organizations that are actively seeking the dissolution of all traditional institutions, including the Church as we know it.