Are We Headed for Round Four of Covid-19?

The world has been dealing with the Covid-19 virus for nearly three years. This is one of the longest pandemics in history. We’ve had three major strains sweep over the world, and now a variant Omicron called BA.5 has been very active in a growing number of nations.

I went to the office of my heart doctor and noticed that the staff were all wearing masks again. A nurse told me they went back to wearing masks out of an abundance of caution. Since each new virus quickly makes its way around the world, we may all be back to wearing masks. Some of the Covid-19 strains have burned themselves out with no explanation.

Europe and China are at the center of a resurgence in infections as more people mix at large-scale events and travel, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “We are seeing a much more intense wave of the disease passing through Europe again,” Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said at a media briefing.

The BA.5 has the concern of the WHO because it is said to be the most contagious of all the Covid-19 viruses. Because this variant has had several mutations in the spike protein, all the original vaccines provide very little protection. The death rate from BA.5 is lower than most other strains. At any time, Covid could mutate into a form that has a very high mortality rate.

In the past, I’ve urged people to get the vaccines, but I now see them as pointless. All the current vaccines are focused on the pre-Omicron strains. There is now a three-generation gap which makes it unlikely that they would be useful against the latest strains.

When I said it was generally safe to get the vaccine for the original covid virus in mid-2020, there had already been 2.5 billion shots given out. I would not want to be the first person to get the shot for variant BA.5. We use supercomputers to check for billions of possible chemical reactions in the human body. The real number of potential reactions is in the trillions, so at some point, we are going to run into a major problem.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the dangers of booster vaccines not being given enough testing trials. Some vaccines are now not being given any trial run. They are going from the research lab right into people’s arms. Unless a new strain with a high mortality rate comes along, I don’t recommend anyone to get these new booster shots.

Your good reason not to get a vaccine is the clear understanding that the press and the government will cover up any news of people having a serious adverse event. With any vaccine, there always will be side effects. When Big Brother decides we only report good news, it’s time to be very reluctant about all Covid-19 vaccines.

I found my source that reported two serious events, including one child who developed symptoms consistent with Miller Fisher syndrome, which is a rare neurological condition that is considered to be a variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and another child who was hospitalized with hives and arthritis.

If a more deadly strain came on the scene, I don’t think we would have the financial means to deal with it. We’ve already spent $10 trillion on Covid-19, with millions of businesses driven into bankruptcy. Having gone through three major lockdowns, the world no longer has the capacity for round four.

The Covid-19 virus is just a warning of what will take place during the tribulation. Bible prophecy clearly indicated that there will be end-time diseases that will kill vast numbers of people. Rather than ending on a sad note by quoting one of these plague scriptures, I would rather conclude with the verse that reminds us that God’s grace is always with us:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

–Todd

Memo of Love to Israel

Many who view Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe the United States has a special relationship with the nation Israel. I am certainly of that camp, as I’ve clearly expressed throughout the years.

My own meaning is that America was used by God in the process of bringing Israel back as a nation after millennia of being dispersed throughout the world. The Diaspora began, as Jesus prophesied, in AD 70 when the Romans, led by General Titus, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple atop Mount Moriah. The Jews scattered, but with the promise that they would one day return to their God-ordained homeland, where they would never be uprooted again.

President Harry S. Truman stood against most of his presidential cabinet in supporting the rebirth of Israel, and the nation came into modernity, with its own language of Hebrew still intact even after all those centuries of dispersion. The date was May 14, 1948.

This rebirth is considered a miracle even by many secular historians.

The one bright prospect for this nation of destiny is that the God of Israel will never let that nation be destroyed; we have His Word on it.

This is what the Lord says, “He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.” (Jeremiah 31:35–36)

That being established, God nonetheless pronounced that His chosen people, the Jews, will suffer a period of great tribulation. It will be known as the time of “Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7).

Jesus further foretold this horrendous persecution of God’s chosen. He said the following while sitting atop the Mount of Olives.

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)  

The bottom line is that Israel, the Jewish race, is again destined to become hated and persecuted–this time with satanic vitriol that will make Hitler’s Holocaust look somewhat less terrible by comparison.

Antichrist—the long-foretold, sometimes-spoofed, but 100 percent-guaranteed-to-come-on-the-world-scene tyrant, will implement genocidal policies against the Jewish race that will go far beyond Draconian.

I didn’t make up this prediction. God’s Word, the Bible, says it. I accept that Word as the only truth there is. I and other Christians who know Jesus Christ as Lord love, or should love, the Jewish people–the nation Israel. To Israel, we say, “God loves you; so must we. You are His chosen.” However, neither I nor Israel can change what God has prophesied to take place in the relatively near future.

Despite the current American president and his administration observably moving away from supporting Israel, the American people, remarkably, continue to back the Jewish state. The following explains.

For decades, in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the American public has sided with Israel. In fact, in recent years it has done so by rather hefty margins. Consistent with many earlier surveys over the years, the 2022 Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV) survey of likely voters in the U.S. found that Israel sympathizers out-number Palestinian sympathizers by almost a 2:1 ratio, or 39% to 21%, to be exact. And if we focus upon those with strong feelings—those who strongly favor Israel or strongly favor the Palestinians—the pro-Israel advantage in the American public grows to nearly 3:1 (22% for Israel vs. 8% for the Palestinians).

Adding to this narrative, pro-Israel profile feelings emerge from another key question in the JILV survey. The question asked about competing images of Israel, giving respondents two dramatically opposing choices in how to characterize Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. Respondents could choose to see Israel as “an occupier and a colonizer using modern military power to attack defenseless Palestinian civilians to steal more indigenous Palestinian land.” Alternatively, the likely voters could choose the pro-Israel option: “Israel is a sovereign nation which has the right and the obligation to defend itself from terrorists intent on killing civilians.” So, is Israel seen as an occupier and colonizer or as a nation defending itself?

Once again, the results favor Israel by a 2:1 margin. As many as 51% see Israel as sovereign with the right to defend itself from terrorists, while just 22% see Israel as an occupier and colonizer attacking defenseless Palestinians. (“Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel,” Samuel J. Abrams, JewishJournal, 12/13/22)

This same survey, however, finds that such support is eroding. This erosion comes from the constant diatribe of mainstream news sources against Israel and pro-Palestinian rhetoric within journalism and academia.

So, despite America’s current support for God’s chosen nation, the trend is toward development of the coming time when all nations will turn against the Jewish state. This is seen in Zechariah chapter 12 and other Scriptures outlining the time of Daniel’s Seventieth Week.

It is not altogether pleasant to be among those charged with pointing out God’s coming judgment. But we are charged with showing individuals within Israel the way to escape the coming time of Antichrist’s regime of horror. Accept Christ now. He is Messiah. And one day, perhaps very soon, He will call His people—Jews and Gentiles who accept Him as Savior—to be with Him forever. This will be the Rapture. (That stunning event, in which millions of people will vanish from the earth, can be found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51–55. Jesus spoke of it in John 14:1–3.)

The Rapture will take place before that time of horror—the era Jesus called “great Tribulation” (Matthew 24: 21).

The people of Israel who are unrepentant (the remnant, for most will die in this last holocaust) will accept Christ at the last moment.

Here’s what that future remnant’s Messiah—the Lord Jesus Christ—says:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:9–10)

Israel will then be made the head of all nations, with the resurrected King David ruling as co-regent with the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, atop Mount Zion at Jerusalem for one thousand years–the Millennium! Believe it or not, that is your nation’s great God-promised destiny.

We who love Israel pray that you will believe. And God’s unbreakable promise is that you will indeed believe, as a people.

Here is how to believe now, in individual repentance that will spare you from going through the time of Jacob’s trouble.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

–Terry