By Kerwin Holmes, Jr.

A sensible person sees danger and takes cover, but the inexperienced keeps going and is punished. -Proverbs 22:3

A person’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. -Proverbs 16:9

So, by now, the entire world is enraptured by a present panic stemming from a pandemic from the COVID-19 virus, also known as the Wuhan/Chinese coronavirus. There are many news stations focusing upon this virus and its impact. There are also various data websites tracking the disease and its impact. I find the latter to be more beneficial, and you may consult websites here and here to be up to date on the generic numbers for the sickness and the human beings around the clock being directly impacted by it. Of course, those numbers come with caveats such as access to reporting and access to determining how widespread the viral bodies actually are among the populace (which is nigh impossible to determine at this moment…something that may be a positive more than a negative, given that many cases are not deadly).

What I mean to write here is brief.

I try to write things that are timely. I also try to write when something presses upon my conscience in a singular way. The emphasis is on the word “try.” I have already stated several times that I do not write about every major event that comes up in the world (you will notice that I have written nothing about the numerous North Korea nuclear threats, nor have I written about global warming aka climate change aka whatever-else-it-becomes-to-push-a-religio-philosophical-creed, I have not written about the possible world war with Iran, and I have not written about several other doomsday scenarios that have crossed the airwaves since I started this blog).
The thing is, I do not have that much time in life to spend time pursuing loving my God, loving my neighbor, practicing my work, and being present in my community and still find time to write about every passing doomsday scenario.
Most importantly: I’m a Christian, and I have a bit of an insider view of how the world will eventually come to an end. I also know that at some point my own present chapter will come to an end as it is (though my story will continue).

Death comes. My death comes. It is not a matter of when, so much as it is a guarantee. It is not a factor of how, so much as it is truly and presently coming. Life, as I stated in one blog post that encapsulated some musings I had one day, can be described thusly: We are either living quickly or dying slowly.
I will add something else to that: The prudent learn to do both.

But I write now because I want to say something as a means of sounding what I feel I should say, if not for anyone to hear, then only for the ability to look back and say “Yes, I did make that statement at that time that I felt prudent to make.” The banner on the top of this page right near the title of this blog site is not there for mere decoration. It is there as a reminder for myself (and secondarily, as a reminder to you, cherished reader) to remember Who is in charge of all wisdom and knowledge. It also takes the burden off of myself to have all of the answers. I never will, and I certainly do not now, have all of the answers. But I know the One who does, whether He chooses to disclose them at all, later on, now, or never. And I personally know Him to be trustworthy.

I have written too much already to state my peace, so let me get right to it.

There is presently a debate among those in Christendom whether Church congregations should shutter their doors in adherence to government urges or maintain the practice of the general assembly on the LORD’s Day. I do not write to argue for any case in that debate, which some have used as an opportunity to vent their cruelest passions (whether in a fire-breathing or haughtily passive-aggressive fashion). Sadly, there are some who are the more prominent who have taken the Lord’s call to “Love your neighbor” as a patrol officer’s billy club to bring submission for all congregations to resort to livestreams and smaller, more domestic assemblies. There are a few others who have taken the commandment to assemble as an ox goad against their brothers and sisters as if they were bovines.

Look, God does call us to love our neighbors. This cannot be denied, it is the commandment underneath the first that binds up all of the oracles of God. But at the same time, it is the commandment underneath the first that binds up all of the oracles of God. At the present, there are many congregations, particularly in the United States of America where the civil right of assembly cannot be infringed by any civil authority (a civil right being a freedom granted by the Divine Power that cannot be given nor taken by the government nor any human authority). The government may request that people distance and self-quarantine, but to say that the government may command such a thing goes against the justification of US government power.
You may disagree, and that is fine. Vote in an amendment if you are an eligible US citizen.

So then, there are some elders at certain congregations who have reserved the right to assemble, several with extra steps taken to be sanitary (such as instructing/requesting those in contact with the sick or feeling sick to stay home). That is their prerogative. In the United States, the State has no bearing upon religious liberties or assemblage liberties (see the same link to the same amendment above), and even Thomas Jefferson (who did not have say at all in the writing of the amendment in question) wrote to the concerned Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut who lived in a state where a different denomination, the Congregational Church, was the established state-funded religion that their natural rights to worship as Baptists would not be infringed. Jefferson’s reason was because Congress had created a wall separating the powers of the State from intruding upon the Church. And so, moving forward, the State has no jurisdiction over the pulpit, and can provide no incentive nor trial to those who assemble religiously for worship or who freely exercise and express their religious devotion. And yet, by the nature of the people who religiously assemble being US citizens, they are not to be barred from electing civilians and creating laws that represent their social concerns.
And so, the imbalance between the religious citizen and the State was by design: the religious citizen has say in what her government does to her, and the State has no say in what her religion ought to be or how it may be expressed.

[And before the charlatans and fools come out to speak about religious homicide and such, know that the US government has always had the power to prosecute criminals for crimes, and also often has relied upon the religious virtues of the masses so as to have an inherent social buttress against criminality. The jurisprudential right to prosecute criminals for crimes like murder are separate and confined to the State through the trial by jury. Do not launch that red herring here.]

And that is all what I feel that I have to say about the discussion happening in Christendom. Let each congregation and assembly’s government do what they are led to do by the convictions of Christ, and let us love God with our all (receiving His love first in the process) and from that loving overflow let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Let each congregation do as the elders that God has placed over them decide. My own congregation, that has a sizable number of aged members, has decided to meet domestically instead. Not all are similarly led, and that is fine. Let each not judge the other according to the LORD’s Day but attend to their own matters before God first and foremost.

Now, I turn to the civil matter.

I must begin here by confession. I admit that, presently, I have been relatively calm in the midst of this panic. And I am not the only one. Several of my close friends are also relatively calm, and this is not because we are young and dumb, as some blogs and news media have come to say (and rightly say, concerning some idiots among us).
No. We are calm because we rightly recognize that we will die. We have been living that way, many of us, for years to the day, and days to the year, so to speak. Daily, we walk this earth knowing that the passing moment ushers us closer to our graves, and that any moment may be that fateful step. So the present calamity produces in us compassion for one another in the context of the panic, and yes, a more urgent sense of mortality as a new threat has emerged, but not a panic. Now, we are also fallible creatures who sin. This striving that we have done has by no means been consistent, nor do I expect it to forever be so. Even John the baptizer wondered in his prison cell even after seeing his relative and witnessing the signs of the Triune God. Even Paul the apostle was gripped by despair.

But when the focus was upon God, all things were possible to live…and indeed, very much indeed, they still are.

At present, many of our nations are panicking. And in that panic, some short-term decisions have been made that are less than the surest routes to follow. By example, I personally believe that the US government has behaved unwise in many portions, often at the state level, by shuttering businesses where many rely upon hourly-wages to survive. We continue this unwise behavior by promoting stimulus packages that do not even have the short-term promise of sustenance that we desire, and which definitely lack the long-term restoration effects that ought to be sought.

I wrote my last post at a different time and mood when the distress had not reached its present level (and truth be told, I began writing that one on December 9, 2019– last year). When it was finally posted, I had not an idea how the day after, or the week after, would change our society and even my immediate circumstance.
And yet, what I wrote about “Old Man Dollar” in my short list of grievances reigns true even now…and now (hopefully) we see the foolishness of boasting in such temporary gains.
I personally believe that we are better off mining God’s word, specifically here God’s Law, to see how we should respond to the present distress. We should work to ensure that the needy do have work, even if they need sponsors. We should focus upon creating a system where charity is encouraged, with perhaps shorter hours of work, but a maintenance of some status quo that enables families to be provided for. We should pursue something that equally benefits the common man who may sponsor the labor of a person or family through employment as it benefits the very well-off, so that those with plutocratic means may be incentivized greatly to provide for their fellow man. Perhaps this may be done by waiving government fees and taxes, rather than providing checks to the disheartened and [many] unemployed persons…something that history (see the many American Indian reservations and low-income American neighborhoods) shows us is by no means sustainable or beneficial to the human psyche and family. A jubilee system would be a beneficial model to look toward, such is my personal conviction, and I believe that I have strong reason for it. But, I am no economist. I am simply a man with an eye for those in need and a longing to see a sustainable situation that, yes, will be uncomfortable and will not be a status-quo solution, but which will be more beneficial in the longer run and (by design) keep most families safe and productive.

I am firmly convinced that quarantines should be done on personal basis, and not on city-wide and state-level bases, destroying the lives of our neighbors who have lesser means than us (especially politicians and intellectuals) who still get paychecks from home. And I believe such a principle is Biblical wisdom.

But we must also beware of government vices…vices that push for morbidly dreaded abortion expansions in the midst of so much disease and panic of death. We must be aware of governments so blinded by their own need to be “funded” to control the masses that they readily admit they cannot control, that they still require funding for themselves at the expense of the people. We must beware the government that pushes for its own funding through “necessary” institutions while also restricting (and yes, in this case through the dull-mindedness of those now scrambling to protect themselves after keeping that right and duty from others) the right of their citizens to defend themselves while their law enforcement cannot (language warning in that resource). We must beware of men and women who use the present distress which they cannot control to push for more power for themselves over our lives, as so often has happened in our family’s history (I speak of humanity in common). Rashness cannot help us. Carefulness operates from both sides of the mind (review the two verses at the top of this post).

Let sober and prudential minds prevail, ladies and gentlemen. And if you do not hold onto the Anchor, if you are not His child, I urge you: do hold onto Him now for the rest of your days and be born into His family. For if you do not, even when this present storm has passed, as it will, your present trials may be at an end but your distress never will. For your death comes also, and with that, your judgment.

May men and women everywhere repent, gain life, and live life to the full.

In the peace of Christ.