Covid-19: An End-Times Harbinger

By David Ettinger

A Bunch of Bucks
The United States government has poured at least $6 trillion into stimulating our economy due to Covid-19.[1]

That’s a massive amount of dollars, and in terms of percentages, our largest economic-relief package since World War II.[2] Of even greater concern – whether or not you believe the spending has been necessary – is the very real possibility that the U.S. may never fully economically recover. We already have a national debt of more than $29 trillion, and no financial rising suns lie on the horizon.[3]

The Lord’s Warning
Those are numbers, but what about souls?

I believe every large-scale crisis offers a golden opportunity for unsaved individuals to look at their mortality, consider their eternal destinations, and turn to Jesus Christ to save them from their sins.

However – and I believe 1948, the year of Israel’s “rebirth,” was the starting point – we are drawing ever nearer to the Last Days, and every crisis from here on must be looked at as God advancing His end-times plan leading up to the return of Christ and the establishing of His Millennial (1,000-year) Kingdom.

As such, I see the Covid-19 pandemic as one of God’s many harbingers of those concluding days.

And this despite that the fact that Covid mortality rates pale in comparison to those of other plagues. For instance, Smallpox accounted for a mind-boggling 300 million lives,[4] and the Black Death took the lives of 25 million.[5] Presently, Covid’s death count is somewhat north of 5 million globally.[6]

And though Covid is hanging around much longer than first predicted, there is reason to believe it can be reined in and controlled before the mortality numbers get too much bigger. Therefore, perhaps, we could well be seeing the light at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel.

Even so, there is still the economic backwash, and it will live on well past the last victim has contracted the deadly scourge. As we are seeing – and have seen numerous times in financially challenging days – economic hardship can be just as deadly as disease as it leads to hunger, sickness, violence, and civil disobedience.

A Weakened Nation
It could well be that this gargantuan financial hit we have taken in the States will reap consequences that will greatly weaken us. Bible prophecy teaches that the world is heading toward a one-world government which will become a reality shortly before Christ’s return (Revelation 13).

The weakening of nations is the major stimulant in leading them to do things they would never have dreamed of just a short time previous (such as surrendering their independence to a lone world leader). Therefore, though Covid-19 may become but a memory a few years down the road, its economic aftermath could be an albatross that will cling to the U.S. and drag us down. And it is safe to say that if the U.S. hits the skids, numerous other nations will do the same.

And keep one more thing in mind. We’re only talking about Covid-19. Even if we manage to eradicate this thing tomorrow, something else will come along. It will come along because God is chastising a nation – the U.S. – and a world that is ever spurning His grace, mocking His sovereignty, and denying His existence.

So, regardless of the human origins of the Coronavirus, I believe God has allowed it to fester as a means of punishment. That the lives lost to it cannot measure up to past pestilences is a testimony of God’s grace. In other words, God is sending out warnings, but has not yet completely judged the human race. There is still time to repent.

However, no worldwide repentance is looming, and so God will continue to ramp up His discipline until it is too late. But until it is too late, the Coronavirus’ economic fallout is by all means one of God’s harbingers of His will and plan for the inevitable end of the age. And as bad as Covid and its economic and social offshoots are, what lies ahead will make it seem like a mere head cold.

In the meantime, let us be ever mindful that the time is late, the need is great, and that Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation for a lost and dying world!   

David Ettinger is a writer/editor at Zion’s Hope, Inc., and has written for Zion’s Fire magazine since its inception in 1990.

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[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-spending-on-covid-relief-poised-to-hit-6t

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-11/stimulus-checks-biden-s-war-on-covid-demands-wartime-spending

[3] https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock

[4] https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/disease-eradication/countdown-to-zero/smallpox

[5] https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death

[6] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/

Tagged: Covid-19, End Times Prophecy, God's Judgment, One-World Government, Smallpox, The Black Death, The Coronavirus, The End of the Age, the end-times, The Last Days, The Return of Christ

Posted in: Application, Bible teaching, Christianity, Commentary, Covid-19, Current Events, Dedication to Christ, Deterioration of the U.S., Editorial/Blog, End Times, End-Times Catastrophe, End-Times Judgment, God's Divine Plans, God's Judgment, Moral Fall of the West, New Testament, Practical, Rejecting God, Repentance, Society, The Coming Messiah, The End of the Age, the end-times, The Last Days, The Return of Christ