Uncovered.

 "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the people's according to the number of the Sons of God, but the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted heritage".

Deuteronomy 32:8-9.

In his daily word studies, Pastor Chad Bird made a fascinating insight into the issue of plagues this week. To quote from the study: "Plagues are God warring with and defeating demons. The gods of the nations are the masks of demonic forces, who hide behind religion to deceive the world. So it was in Egypt, when, right before the 10th plague, the Lord said, “On all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments” (Exod. 12:12).

In the past ten months or so months, we have been surrounded by a barrage of media which has sought to 'inform' us to the reasons - the who, what, when and why - as to the rise and spread of a virus across the globe, but none, at least outside of the occasional reference by a Christian, have sought to examine or take seriously the manner of definition we find here.

When we soberly consider the key unpacking of the reality we face now given by the Lord in the latter half of Genesis chapter 3, one vital truth is clear - we are living in the midst of a war (Genesis 3:15).The invasion of sin into our lives is the instrument which allows that war to be evident and common to us in our time here. Numerous times in scripture, then, we see that the events played out in the material (i.e. the plagues of Egypt) are expressions of the larger war between the Lord and the 'gods' that men now serve as rebels against the Most High. The verse quoted above in Deuteronomy shows us the essential consequence upon the everyday of such contention (see also Ephesians 6:12). Moses is concluding his time as leader of the people, who are now finally close to entry into Canaan, but before he passes his final words, he conveys to them a recounting of God's works for their fathers through the means of a song.

The story if familiar - God seeks to be tender and caring, but the people spurn such love and scoff at such goodness, following 'gods' that allow them to become careless and ignorant of their poverty with their true redeemer. The consequence is that God allows both the poison and the poverty of such 'devotion' to become evident, so that all flesh and all powers might realise their folly - to bring a reckoning that allows for genuine change.

The record Moses refers to here can be traced all the way back to the very time of creation - the 'days of old', the 'years of many generations' which the fathers and respected elders of the people recalled so well.

We like to think of ourselves as so sophisticated, so beyond the past, but in reality, nothing, in respect to our wayward tendencies and the 'gods' we chose to venerate has changed.

The gods of our religious values today are equally as bent to the satisfying of our whims and appetites. Never has the world seen a moment when so many believe that what makes them well is merely 'having enough' of what they deem satisfying nothing beyond their immediate wants. We quickly become capricious, even violent, when others seek to take away our delusions of equity, but what are we to do when the entire world becomes a zone of quarantine and death? Where is the benevolence, the comfort, of our gods then?

The hurried response we make is to 'put our trust in chariots', as Egypt did to stem Jacobs children's departure, but the method of their severance from slavery also became the means for God's judgement upon such folly (Exodus 15:21). We therefore need to see the battle for what it is - God's call to our time to turn from the temporal to the eternal, and His affirmation over all other 'gods' - and seek to make sure that we are placing that kingdom, which cannot be shaken, above all such folly.

The 'truth' being shaken in our times is subjective secularism. This has made us self-referential and is now proving itself a religion far more mercenary and adulterous than Marxism was in the last century. In that respect, it may be the Devil's final throw as it is seeking to fully resurrect the lie of the fall - to make us creatures entirely turned in upon ourselves, hence, a plague that amplifies that trait in the form of severance and isolation, cutting us off from genuine care and love for God and each other, which makes us see our fathomless poverty.

So what is the answer? Where is the hospice which brings us mercy in the very midst of such terminal trouble?

There is only one point in time and space, beyond the moment of our final judgement, where this cycle of our folly is invaded and broken. It began with the birth of the promised 'seed' (see Genesis 3:15) that would crush the foul seraph that enchained us - the one who, by becoming sin for us, takes our death into Himself and bears it in the vile cruelty of crucifixion, to grasp the true moment when all sin, all death, all judgement, all cruel gods, are broken by His ascension as King in the very point that should have surely concluded in defeat. There, as one of His Apostles tells us, He stripped all such power and authority and made peace for us that we might know something more than the destitution of a world plagued by the misery of severance from its true maker and Father.

So the world is laid bare before us. 

Either this truth grants us confidence amidst these present trials, or we are deemed to live in a realm of chaos, where our every breath is no more than an accident, and we have no more value than a virus or a random particle of dust.

The present troubles, as Chad's posting reminds us, is to show we are not alone, and that it is not yet over - the Lord is seeking to rouse our dying world!