Barricades were quickly erected at the Supreme Court Monday night after Politico reported on a leaked draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the United States. An hour after the Politico report was published a small group of protesters with candles had gathered outside the court. (TGP report here.) UPDATE at end: The crowd of protesters grew to several hundred around 10 p.m. EDT. A light police presence was observed.

News Item May 4, 2022

Last night, the left-wing media outlet Politico did something that no media outlet has ever done: it published a draft of an upcoming Supreme Court decision before the Supreme Court could finish and announce it. The opinion itself is monumental: five conservative justices are seemingly in agreement that it’s time to strike down the 1973 ruling Roe vs. Wade — which made abortion legal across the country.  The publication of such a document has never happened in the history of the Supreme Court, and almost certainly is an attempt by the liberal wing of the Court to stop Roe vs Wade from being struck down by initiating a protest campaign by the abortion lobby ahead of the official ruling. Emerald Robinson  

Isn’t it astonishing — the ineffable prudence and wisdom of God displayed in His judgments — that both in the instituting of such a law, but then again equally also in its (potential) repeal, His rod of punishment and command for repentance are displayed! In fact, since His judgments are progressive, we must recognize that the (possible) repeal and its consequences, constitute an even more severe infliction.

"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 'For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?' For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

I’d say first off that Covid and Roe are apples and oranges. The first really is a global plague, but the second is USA-specific. So far as America is concerned, Covid seems to have been such a plague. But its scope is far wider, so cannot be seen a directed particularly against our country.

I think the perception that it is, results from our innate America narcissism, making it feel and appear as especially “ours” in some manner. Surely, this is in part because previously we have enjoyed the fewest restrictions, greatest freedoms, and most abundant luxuries of any people in the history of the world. Any restriction or restraint whatsoever seems intolerable and unconscionable to citizens of such a nation—even though at our most constrained, we remain among the ultra-privileged on the global scene. Many covet the freedoms we still have in what seem to us unbearable and oppressive straits. With no sign of repentance from sin in sight from either the churched or the unchurched of our country, we seem simply due for more and worse serial judgments on the trajectory outlined in Romans 1-2.

Aside from the apparently immanent demise of our country, the global scene seems not yet to be as bad as our local condition. Perhaps in part because things at large have never been as good as they are here? It’s surely a matter of perspective in some measure. But Covid, as I said, does seem to be among the “pestilences” Christ told us would characterize the course of this age—one of the "labor pains" growing more frequent, intense, and widespread as the End of the Age and the coming of the Kingdom of God approaches.

There is a valid parallel between the plagues of Egypt and the end of the Age — a connection made in the prophetic Scriptures themselves. What was then visited upon one land’s populace will in the end be extended to the entire human population of the globe (except for believers, we who dwell in the Land of Goshen.” Selah.). Israel herself failed to learn this lesson, and in AD 70 bore the severe  penalty that had been prophesied with lamentation by the Lord Jesus Himself. What Christ predicted to the Jewish leaders regarding Israel in Luke 17, He later (speaking to the disciples) extended in scope to all the nations of the earth in Luke 21 (parallel Matthew 24, “The Olivet Discourse”). This is a large part of what it meant for the Hebrews to be God’s Chosen People — and the lesson they are intended to be to all humanity as our natural priestly representative of the nations (Gentiles). If the Almighty would punish His Own so severely, then what shall we pagans expect unless we repent?
of course, the Book of Revelation outlines the final plagues of the wrath of God when they are to be poured out onto a rebellious and unbelieving mankind.

But even before that, things are slated to become quite precarious for mankind even before the Church is snatched away to escape the Great Tribulation (Daniel’s 70th Week). These will be days of great danger, peril, and deception as warned in every single book of the New Testament (except little Philemon). Since pestilences are among the “signs of the times” that we are told to expect more and worse of — then we will surely see added plagues that are more severe than Covid even before we leave the planet. Doubtless these will contribute to the rapid ascent to power of the man of lawlessness, and the final descent of the remainder of our race into the obdurate apostasy and solidarity in rebellion against God described in Psalm Two (among other places).