How well do you remember COVID? I still have some workplace supplies, including face masks. Also, with my job, I had to report for testing twice a week, every seventy two hours, and I had training for all the restrictions put on me for dealing with the public. The masks were part of those restrictions.

I’m sure you have your stories, and we are all glad it’s over now.

Among religious people, especially Christians, there were some strong reactions. I just had a conversation with a friend about these things, and I think the convictions are still strong. Ideas that were strong back in 2021 might still be with us. Of course, you may have some convictions about these things.

If you want to know what some Christians said about COVID, when the social restrictions and the push to vaccinate were most active, there is still some information:

I have my memories. My old father died when the restrictions were in force. He was very old, and he died in a special care facility, and we asked if he had contracted COVID and maybe that’s what brought him to the end. I still wonder about that.

We were told that he definitely did not have COVID, and I am sure the hospital did not want to go on record as a facility for old people, with active infections. The authorities would have reacted severely with that place.

I remember the discomfort with COVID restrictions.

So, what are some Christians saying? Some people are talking about One World Government, and the Mark of the Beast.

First we have the Antichrist and one world government:

“That day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God.” (2 Thessalonians 2: 3 and 4)

And then we have the “Mark of the Beast”: Something is promised, and some Christians relate it to COVID vaccines:

“He also caused everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. Thus no one was allowed to buy or sell things unless he bore the mark of the beast, that is, his name or his number. This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, and his number is 666.” (Revelation 13: 16 to 18)

These ideas are persistent, and I think it’s good for us to be educated about the sources. It is possible to see how some people relate modern events to predictions in the Bible.

As you read this, you might have some of these convictions. I’m not trying to judge, what if the crazy ideas turn out to be true? Fifty or a hundred years from now, people may look back and think, “those ideas were true!” or the might think something different.

There are some lessons we should learn here. It is possible to be wrong about our interpretations of Bible Prophecy:

1) What if we are wrong? Is that possible?

When I was a boy, I remember an older man in our church. He told us that around the time of World War Two, many Christians knew who the Antichrist was. They were sure that Benito Mussolini, the dictator in Italy, was the Antichrist.

Apparently they developed this theory into high levels of complexity, and they were sure. Later, after Mussolini was executed, one of them said “The best thing about those ideas is that we didn’t write them down.”

2) What if we are too specific?

We can make a general trend into the only possible truth. We are told, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18)

What we see is something like a stage prepared for a dramatic play. The things that we predicted are now possible, and a few years ago they were impossible. We can see the drama coming.

In conclusion, the people with the “crazy” ideas might be correct. They might see something that was predicted, and that might already be happening.

If those ideas are wrong, they are still partly true. There are many Antichrists in the world, and they point toward the one who will take the lead.

I hope we all understand that history is moving forward, and it is coming to a conclusion. In general, that is a promise in the Bible. We might see exactly what was promised, or we might see the early reverberations, like an echo before the sound.

We were told by Jesus “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21: 28)

I hope we can see that truth in our times.