The coronavirus will either begin to slowly recede from blaring headlines or burst forth in new micro-epidemics, depending on whether there are resurgences here and there or (prayer need) eradication. It will remain in the news, in some form, though, for many months and years to come. Is it a prophetic “warning”? Will it morph into an actual chastisement (a term reserved for larger events)? Might the way coronavirus has all but halted air travel be a fulfillment of predictions from many years ago in Spain that foresaw an event wherein planes suddenly froze in the air? (In other words, have prophets who related what seem like outlandish images been receiving metaphors, as opposed to visions of actual events?)
Wherever the contagion goes from here, there is much to glean from it already. And in the realm of spiritual warfare, metaphors there are.
Contemplate, for instance, how viruses are similar to evil spirits.
Both are invisible. Both enter unseen — not noticed at first. Both grow: proliferate in us.
Both can come from others.
Both can also come from places.
Both cause few or no issues with some — huge problems with others.
Both aim for the breath of life.
Both attack when we least expect them.
Both look for weaknesses to enter, sin in which to grow.
Both cause results in accordance with our “immunity.”
Both are incurable by medical scientists (a virus can be treated — its effects mitigated — but because, unlike bacteria, it is not technically a living thing, it cannot be destroyed by antibiotics).
Both are thus “half-dead”: animate and inanimate.
A virus can be transmitted from animals. Demons are described as half-human, half-beast.
In Africa, a Christian “prophet” named Emmanuel Makandiwa who foresaw this epidemic described it as a “demon on the rampage.”
It will be cured only when God — not science – empowers something to eradicate it. (If He wanted, God could so empower an aspirin.)
Viruses recur, as do demonic attacks, when we don’t get to the root of the problem.
Viruses can cause almost any physiological effect.
So can evil spirits (note how many different illnesses Jesus cured through exorcism).
Both viruses and demons can affect the mind as well as the body.
Both can be contagious.
Both can cause spasms and seizures.
Both can cause frothing at the mouth.
Both find fertile birth in pagan lands.
Both can be passed down (at least by way of genetic susceptibility) through the generations.
Both can leave a person quarantined — “isolated.”
Both afflict the good and evil alike.
Both are stealth.
Both aim for the heart.
A person can harbor a spirit but show no signs of it (what in virology is known as being “asymptomatic”).
Both can infect entire societies.
Both target the old and infirm.
Both concentrate in urban areas.
Both look for sloth.
Pride weakens the immune system.
Prayer is like a face mask.
Holy Water is the sanitizer.
Prevention is the best medicine.
According to an Catholic mystic/deliverance minister from Ireland named John Gillespie (see: The Miracle Ship), the parallels are profound.
“John has seen many demonically infected people,” writes the author, Brian O’Hare. “He has seen the ruin possession can bring to lives and, if unchecked, to souls. Only the body is capable of being possessed, of course; the soul continues to be free. But too long an exposure to the vile machinations of the devil can weaken the will and thus the soul becomes endangered. John warns that we must always pray for protection against any form of demonic incursion, to avoid practices that might allow the devil in, and to make regular use of the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.”
Immunity? That comes from pervading your home with prayer.
It comes with love.
Every time you think of someone, pray for that person instead of just thinking (often negatively) about that person.
In that way do you stave off the enemy of this time.
