
February 4, 2021
A declaration of emergency was made on January 12, 2021 for all of Ontario, Canada. A stay at home order is in effect, and 14.7 million people have been asked to stay at home except going out for necessities such as to the grocery store or medical appointments, etc. Indoor private gatherings are restricted to members of the same household, and single people may meet with only one other person.
Similar restrictions have been placed on Canada’s third largest province, British Columbia, in addition to suspending religious in-person gatherings and worship services. Gathering with anyone outside of your own household, whether indoors or outdoors, is prohibited.
No matter where you go in Canada, similar restrictions are affecting its citizens, and fear seems to be seizing people to a great degree. These restrictions remind me of the testimony Mrs. White shared about the time coming when the church will have to work under discouraging circumstances. I don’t believe the current lockdown is the terrible crisis and persecution that she is referring to here, but it certainly is a reminder to me that we should now be about our Father’s business laying all upon the altar, gaining that experience we will need for the soon coming emergency.
“The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity she will have to do in a terrible crisis under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances. The warnings that worldly conformity has silenced or withheld must be given under the fiercest opposition from enemies of the faith. And at that time the superficial, conservative class, whose influence has steadily retarded the progress of the work, will renounce the faith and take their stand with its avowed enemies, toward whom their sympathies have long been tending. These apostates will then manifest the most bitter enmity, doing all in their power to oppress and malign their former brethren and to excite indignation against them. This day is just before us. The members of the church will individually be tested and proved. They will be placed in circumstances where they will be forced to bear witness for the truth. Many will be called to speak before councils and in courts of justice, perhaps separately and alone. The experience which would have helped them in this emergency they have neglected to obtain, and their souls are burdened with remorse for wasted opportunities and neglected privileges.” 5T 463:2