Osnah
Puritan Board Freshman
This doesn't sound far off from what it was like in the early days of the church under Roman rule. Jesus' words to the churches in Revelation shows us how bad it was for the early church in that they were greatly influenced to not worship the true God.Basically the entire world is under the power of a certain group of people (BIG PHARMA CARTEL) who are causing governments to enact mandates that are literally taking away people's rights to earn a living. And its not stopping. Its just getting more and more extreme. Now they have legislation here in Australia that can arrest and detain unvaxxed people and detain them in quarantine camps indefinitely! In Austria every unvaxxed person must pay a fine or else go to jail. And this is an entire world controlling system that controls world health, world finances and dictates policy and decisions it appears to every country in the world. This sort of control has never happened before in the history of the world or possibly on a smaller scale eg 4 world empires of Daniel 2 and the Kingdom of God subsequently filling the earth. I don't see this Plandemic ending unless Jesus returns and destroys Gods enemies ( and ours atm). The governments of the world have become the peoples enemies.
Under Roman rule your rights could be taken away for not worshipping the Caesar. If you didn't participate in the practices of the trade guilds (temple prostitution, idol worship, and more), you could not work to support your family. I am sure that if you interviewed early Christians, they would say that what we are experiencing today so far is nothing like being beheaded, lit on fire, or mauled by animals as entertainment.
The idea of Revelation is that persecution always happens throughout history. It comes and goes in it's harshness towards Christians, but it is always present in some form. Can we say that what we are experiencing today with Covid and all that it entails is what Revelation is referring to? That remains to be seen. Those that are being 'persecuted' today for not being vaxxed are not all Christians. The vaccine is not the mark of the beast. Is the world working together in some way to take away human rights? That is quite possible so. But at the time of the early church the whole world as they knew it was persecuting Christians.
I agree no-man knows the hour or day of Christ's return except the Father. Jesus does condemn the Pharisees for not seeing the 'signs of the times' however.
If you are referring to Luke 12, Jesus is rebuking those that did not see the 'signs of the time' in that they were unable to discern from Scripture that the Messiah was on earth at that time. In verses 49-53 He tells His audience that He has come to 'divide' and not give peace on earth. In verses 54-56 Jesus rebukes them for knowing how to discern the weather, yet they were unable to discern that He was in fact the Messiah. They should have understood the "signs of the time" in the OT pointing to His arrival. He is saying that Scripture up to that point was pointing to Him. It was not referring to discerning the 'end of days' as we know it.