"Actions speak louder than words."

~Well-known, secular aphorism

"For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power."

~1 Corinthians 4:20

At the command of this ungodly world’s spiritually-corrupt and carnally-minded leaders, who've decreed that all nonessential businesses must close down and that all nonessential workers must stay home, the Church, to its enormous discredit, has speedily and readily recognized itself among the category of nonessential activity, embracing an insulting classification which flies in the face of everything asserted by its Doctrine, which at many another convenient time it has proclaimed to be of paramount significance, but has now, evidently under the fear of some dubious contagion, forsaken in unscrupulously complying with an order that ought to leave many believers feeling cheated, confused, outraged, and disappointed. Do professing Christians really believe the work of the Lord to be nonessential to daily life? Their actions most definitely suggest this.  Have they truly fallen so far from the Word and from the Faith? Do they truly believe anything God has promised us?

For my own part, I know no other business to be as essential to daily life and to everyday living as God’s Word of Salvation is to sinful men whom are otherwise to perish far more seriously, as well as eternally, from the pandemic sickness of sin than from such mild symptoms as are reported to be inflicted, upon one's contracting the coronavirus.  Let it be known that the Church, at this time, has not merely closed its doors to the virus but, more importantly, it has closed them likewise to the lost, and in many ways to its own members.  As local and personal fellowship, within the body of Christ, between each individual and every other, is of the utmost importance, many Christian congregants, alas, have now been left aloof to harbor within their hearts unknown levels of uncertainty and fear, unrelieved by the seclusion of their homes, with the more privileged being able, at least, to hear their traditional Sunday message via technological availabilities, and the majority to use their phones to call whomever they'll feel comfortable enough calling; members being divided, in many cases, from such stronger brothers and sisters, both the sight of whose physical presence and the hearing of whose indirect advice, amidst the encouraging brethren, would undoubtedly be a comfort to them at such a time, and a strengthening to what, most probably, is presently, in some degree, a waning and struggling faith.  My own experience with a number of the brethen has confirmed enough cases of this struggle, and my fearless presence—all glory to God!,—paired with such Biblical advice as is now being given, has been seen to be a balm and a revitalization of faith, no differently than God intended for such to serve as.

How is it, I wonder, that the Church fails, with every passing day, to finally recognize itself as having the legal right to remain open under the very orders given by our governors, in claiming that right through a deep and profound understanding of itself to be not merely one essential business among many others, but rather the single most essential business over all else? Banks, hospitals, pharmacies, gas stations, post offices—I've even seen construction workers to qualify—are all considered by our government to be essential businesses; but is it true that the Lord’s business is not considered by His own people as being altogether above these, let alone even among these?  Undoubtedly, the very world which Christians will hope to once again witness to, once this quarantine is lifted, will by then have sufficiently learned of the non-essential nature of the Church by the latter's very own admission.  As this is currently being shown, by many of the people of God, sadly to be so, then why should such a people afterward expect the lost to convert to a non-essential God who cannot save His own people from a low-ranking viral infection, though He claims to do greater things than that for them in His very Word, whose chapters the wicked may readily read for themselves, as they have many times done, and use them to mock the ostensible hypocrisy of God, as advertised by the many professing His Name, which people they shall likewise mock, as they love always seizing the opportunity to do?

Where is our Faith?  Christ said, in Matthew 4:4, that man cannot live by bread alone, and likened nothing else as equally vital to that symbol of what is essential to life but “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”:—not banks, not hospitals, not pharmacies, not gas stations, not post offices, but the Word of God was likened unto our daily bread, which term many Christians are prone to use but evidently do not understand or otherwise do not literally believe.

How can average men belonging to these other, worldly and secondary-essential professions go outside to work every day, during this epidemic, and thus expose themselves to high volumes of customers, and so place their one, precious, earthly life, as these unbelievers see it, at risk for nothing more than a scarcely-sufficient paycheck, while men of God, leaders over the Church of Christ Jesus, scramble to protect their temporal earthly lives from a disease which, in comparison to countless hazards, has purportedly killed so few people as to be unworthy even of mention?  These same cowering leaders have been invested with power by God, according to their faith, as James 5:14 says, to heal any person calling on them of any sickness with which they might be afflicted, and yet these same leaders now shudder at the mildest of epidemic illnesses, and display before the unbelieving world a God Who apparently requires at the hands of ungodly men—and not, rather, at the hands of His own people through whom His omnipotence Has been Biblically shown,—the remedies for sicknesses which He indeed holds in His hands, and which He promises not to bring upon those Who trust in Him, as Psalm 91 so thoroughly lays out for us.  O, how cleverly has Satan—(evidently vastly underestimated)—duped, at large, professing believers, who do not hold to the Scriptures according to the manner which they've been persistently instructed to.  But perhaps what we are seeing is the incipient stages of the Great Falling Away, which the Book of Revelations forewarns us is to happen.

O, how sad it is to listen to certain pastors and leaders and denominationalists describe their insensible belief in a God Who may very well protect them, as they claim, but Who is nevertheless still likely to use their bodies, not as the instruments of life to which we know all Christians are universally called, but rather, in these "uncertain times", as they call them, as instruments of death, as housing and incubating a disease which their own unsuccumbing bodies will then transmit to the old and immunocompromised, thus to render these supposedly "faithful" individual's consciences, (apparently regardless of their own personal belief in God's protection), guilt-ridden with the sorrow of having killed off those around them who possesed faith insufficient to likewise lay hold of God's promised protection.  What a barbaric view of God do these men hold.  And what a sad, elaborate excuse for what is truly their own lack of faith in God's promises to protect His people from the wrath He visits upon the wicked, though He informs us that we will not be spared tribulation and persecution.  God's protection was and is always used to show the wicked that He is truly God, and was and is always a means of generating and strengthening faith, not diminshing it.

God tells us to be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as Doves - Matthew 10:16.  Where, now, is the wisdom of Christ's church?  If the doors to physical buildings, mistakenly called churches, which are owned by the pagan state, and receive benefits according to the state's generosity—if these doors must be closed, how is it that the doors to Christian homes do not stay open to one another, to the church, which is the congregating members, which is the assembling people?  How is it that Christians have bought into the fear and are not able to quietly minister to one another in each others homes at this trying hour, breaking bread in hospitality, in order that the brethren might remain strong, and grow even stronger in their faith, seeing God as their protector, rather than pagan men?  Who said that they need to flaunt their civil disobedience in the face of the world, and broadcast it in some foolish manner?  Who is advocating such behavior?  This servant of the Lord merely emphasizes our duty before God, and that we not be consumed by fear, and that our protection not be in hand sanitizer, and social-distancing, but rather in the ample promises of our God in heaven to His people, to use respectfully, and also discreetly, if occasion calls for it.

"When the Son of Man comes,

will He really find faith in the earth?"

– Luke 18:8

Nevertheless, know that the various duties of the Church of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Lord of all Heaven and earth, Who gives life to the dead, and Salvation to all who believe on His Name—know that the duties given to us by no less than Jesus Christ Himself, Whom this world's leaders remain accountable to, are not in anyway nonessential in nature, and are therefore undeserving to be branded as such, are not to be thought of as such, neither suggested as such, not among believers, and certainly not before the world!  Stand up and follow Jesus Christ boldly in the great commission He has charged us with!