Constitution-loving Americans have looked on in amazement the last couple months as they’ve seen the Constitution pushed aside and a torrent of new legislation flood the nation.
Not only have new mandates restricted or entirely removed people’s liberties, but they have threatened citizens with criminal offense for disobedience. Even more dismaying is people’s reactions to their newly lost liberties. They toss up their hands and in unison declare, “We must protect ourselves and others from this awful virus,” of course implying liberty must take a back burner to their noble cause.
In California citizens are forced to wear masks, threatened with a $1,000 fine and/or 90 days in jail for noncompliance. Riverside County created an app that allows citizens to tattle on businesses or individuals not complying with social distancing or mask wearing. Drones hover over parks in Los Angeles, shouting at people to disperse. Across the country people have been arrested for taking their children to the park, surfing by themselves in the ocean, or protesting these totalitarian measures on public property. People have been fined for watching a sunset in their cars, because it was deemed nonessential. Conspiracy has become reality.
Therefore, even though I’m not an activist, and consider myself apolitical, I picked up a sign Friday and joined hundreds of protesters at Los Angeles City Hall, which was just one of a dozen large freedom rallies across the state.
“Flatten the fear”
“All jobs are essential”
“I’ll take the 0.03% chance”
“Think outside the box” (girl dressed as a TV)
“Democrats for freedom”
“Give us liberty or give us Corona”
These were just a sample of hundreds of slogan-laden signs, swaying with American flags at city hall. While there were very obvious Trump supporters, for many people it had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with sustaining lives or liberty. There were medical professionals, teachers, Democrats, Republicans, small business owners, disabled, veterans, and a well-proportioned mix of men, women and children of every race and culture.
Police were amiable, even though our governor Gavin Newsom said protesting is a nonessential activity, and so further outlawed constitutional rights. Nonetheless, people came. Unfortunately officers were making more of a statement elsewhere, as the rally in Sacramento saw police arresting mothers in front of their children for refusing to comply with social distancing mandates.
While this seems outrageous, it’s to be expected from people who have no knowledge of the prophetic times we are living in. But many Adventists have fallen in line with these attitudes and are active naysayers of those defending liberties, while they should, in particular, have no fear of a virus. God has promised to protect people from disease when they follow His laws of health, and heal them if they do get sick. However, many Adventists cower at home, promoting fear, while doing little if anything to spread the health message and the third angels message at this critical time. Many say this has nothing to do with intolerance, but public health alone. It seems they are blind and deaf to things that have unfolded around them.
“Heretofore those who presented the truths of the third angel's message have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Their predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom. But as the question of enforcing Sunday observance is widely agitated, the event so long doubted and disbelieved is seen to be approaching, and the third message will produce an effect which it could not have had before” (Great Controversy 605.3).
The irony now looms that numerous preliminary study findings and data show the COVID-19 fatality rate on par with seasonal flu. You might get ill, sure, but your chances of dying if you have a halfway functioning immune system are infinitesimal. Many people might think they had a bad bout of the flu, if they feel anything at all. Even the theory of whether asymptomatic people can be COVID-19 transmitters is coming into question, the theory which led to the extreme push for social distancing.
As we are living in the close of earth’s history, seeing obvious prophetic signs, it makes some wonder how COVID-19 has played a part. It almost seems like it has been a quick test run for what is to come. If you substitute “uphold Constitutional liberties” for “honor the Bible Sabbath” in the following passage, it seems to mirror much of what has happened the last couple months.
“Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government. Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God. In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be misrepresented and condemned. A false coloring will be given to their words; the worst construction will be put upon their motives” (Great Controversy 592.1).
The same things that have happened to those standing for civil liberties today will happen again in regards to the Bible Sabbath in the near future. Satan’s resort is always compulsion. God never forces the will. When we remember this, it becomes easier to judge whether something is of God.
Adventists need to rise above the worldly narrative of fear, sensationalism and compliance. Do not fall in line with tyranny. Liberty is more important than safety. Yes, it’s impossible for these Draconian measures to last forever in their current forms, especially considering what has yet to happen in the prophetic timeline. But these measures have set an irredeemable precedent of liberties being removed in the name of the greater good, and it’s time to wake up and be active in helping hold in check this current of evil.
Mary Hilde is a Seventh-Day Adventist wife, mother of three, journalist-at-large, and current resident of Southern California, where she hopes they won’t have to live much longer.