GOV. HOCHUL, PROPHETIC SPEECH, AND THE VACCINE

 

 

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is now the acting governor of New York State, informed the congregants at the Christian Cultural Center on Sunday that vaccines against COVID-19 are God’s answer to “our prayers” and urged them to become her “apostles” by encouraging others to get vaxxed:

 

·       “God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers — He made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/kathy-hochul-says-covid-vaccine-is-gods-answer-to-prayers.html

 

She then praised the congregants as “the smart ones” for getting vaccinated:

 

·       “All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are.” https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/gov-kathy-hochul-at-ny-church-be-my-apostles-to-the-unvaccinated-who-arent-listening-to-god/291904

 

How does Hochul know what God wants? She has turned the pandemic into a witch hunt, dividing the God-obedient vaxxed against the disobedient unvaxxed. While Hochul is entitled to believe that the vaccines are God’s gift to bless us, many other well- meaning Christians believe that He is allowing Covid and the vaccines to humble us and perhaps to turn us back to Him.

 

However, Hochul talked prophetically, as if she and the vaxxed have heard directly from God, and the unvaxxed are refusing to hear from Him. Is it possible that her statement is truly prophetic? According to Jesus, it shouldn’t be regarded as such. Instead, we have a Biblical mandate to seek evidential confirmation that she has heard from God. Jesus said that even He is not to be believed without adequate evidence:

 

·       “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,”(John 5:31-37)

 

Elsewhere, Jesus stated this warning more succinctly:

 

·       “If I am not doing the works [miracles] of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38)

 

According to Jesus, Hochul should not be talking for God, unless she has the evidence to back her up.

 

Instead, too much remains uncertain about the virus and the vaccines to treat the unvaxxed as villains, threats to society, and greater spreaders than the vaxxed. Perhaps a greater measure of grace and tolerance is more appropriate.