Intervention: Responding to COVID-19
Jim Laffoon

On December 31, 2018, at 10 pm, while attending a New Year’s Eve service, the Lord spoke to me about a great crisis that was coming to the United States. He showed me that it would come within 17 months. As I sat there praying, I saw the New York Stock Exchange and money markets beginning to sink. As New York continued its slide, California was flipped up in the air, and the entire nation began to slide into economic chaos. People began to cry out about recession and depression. Just as the turmoil in my heart reached a crescendo, the hands of the Lord reached out and caught our nation. I knew then that the United States was rapidly approaching a tipping point, and the Church was the answer.

By the following Friday, the Lord began to clarify the intervention He desired. This clarification began with the Holy Spirit reminding me of the story of Aaron being used by God to mitigate the terrible plague described in Numbers 16. I use the word “mitigate,” because 14,700 people died before Aaron’s bold act of worship and prayer was used by God to end the plague.

… and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces. And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, and put fire on it from off the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.” So Aaron took it as Moses said and ran into the midst of the assembly. And behold, the plague had already begun among the people. And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped. Now those who died in the plague were 14,700, besides those who died in the affair of Korah. And Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting, when the plague was stopped. (Numbers 16:44–50, ESV)

We know that the severity of the plague mentioned in Exodus 32:25 was mitigated by Moses’ intercession before it ever started (cf. Numbers 32; Psalm 106:23). The plague of Numbers 25:9 was stopped through Phineas’s intervention—after 24,000 people had died (cf. Psalm 106:29–30). Why were all three men from the tribe of Levi? Obviously Moses was Israel’s leader, and the other two were priests, but I think there was a deeper reason. The consecration rituals and purposes of the Levites are described in Numbers 8:5–22; verse 19 is germane to this discussion. In this verse, we find there was something in the lives and ministries of the Levites, not just the priests, that was directly related to keeping Israel free from plagues. What does this have to do with us?

“And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel when the people of Israel come near the sanctuary.” (Numbers 8:19, ESV)

The answer is, “Everything!” If the Old Testament priesthood and the Levites had the power to mitigate plagues, what about those God declares to be His Holy Priesthood?

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9, ESV)

What about us—and the movements we represent? I am convinced that if we will unite and rise up as one body across the United States, we can mitigate this plague and prepare the way for the move of God’s Spirit we all desire. This, however, will take more than a conversation. Could it be that God will use us to birth a movement of prayer that captures the hearts of America’s preachers and the people they lead? In an hour when the only buildings we have left to meet in are “temples made without human hands,” may the homes of the people we serve become houses of prayer!