How  many times have I seen a bumper sticker or heard someone say: “God is my co-pilot.”  That makes for a feel-good sight or religious sound-byte.  But the attitude behind the slogan is the reason the world, including the church world, has suffered the ravages of God’s wrath for some 1900 years.  Cement this in your mind: GOD IS NO ONE’S CO-PILOT.  He is either the pilot of one’s life (“airplane”) or He is not in one’s life.

My grandson being an Air Force flight instructor and an F-15 pilot, and having done a bit of flying myself, I know what a co-pilot’s job entails.  I also know what the pilot’s job entails.  The pilot is in total control of the airplane.  The co-pilot has one job–to fly the plane if the pilot can no longer fly it.

Before the flight begins the pilot is already in total control.  He files HIS flight plan with the officials at the airport.  HE determines WHERE he is going to go and HOW he is going to get there.  It is the pilot, not the co-pilot who determines IF there will be any stops along the way, WHERE the stops will take place, HOW LONG the stops will entail.  Within professing Christendom man is the pilot who makes all of the above-mentioned decisions and carries them out.  The church member’s co-pilot is simply along for the ride.  He is expected to always be on call to step in and take over the situation if the pilot fails, which he always does.  In fact, failure is guaranteed him because he has chosen to occupy the wrong seat.  The most recent end result of this “tail wagging the dog” scenario is all around us, forcing us to wear masks, to social distance, to miss work, to go to the hospital, to line up for miles to get vaccinated, to continuously wash hands and clean counters, etc.

The “God Is My Co-pilot” attitude has been expressed hundreds of times by anyone who has  heard or read where people have been interviewed following a disaster in which God has poured out His wrath on sinning man.  Such is the case with the current curse from on high–the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such was the case in the past when the world faced such things as the flu epidemic, world wars, tornados and hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, etc.  When interviewed, the “victim” of such crises, often wearing a cross, will tell the reporter how bad the situation is, then say something like: “But God is in charge.  He’ll pull me through this crisis.  He has the situation under control, etc.”

But one will not hear a “victim” say anything resembling truth, like: “I deserved this.  I have not obeyed God He is justified in punishing me.  I’ve learned my lesson.  I will obey Him from now on so that He will not have to hurt me to get my attention.”  The reason no one utters such Biblical Truths is because no one believes it.  And if a so-called “victim” does believe it, he will not admit it publicly because he knows he will become a religious and social outcast, EXACTLY AS THE LORD WARNED WOULD HAPPEN.  Read Persecution using that word as the key.

Man, including churchman, has made himself the pilot of his life and remains in that position until a problem arises.  Only THEN does he look to his so-called co-pilot whom he proclaims will “pull me through this.”  Contrary to his opinion and proclamations, God is not in charge of his life and therefore does not “pull him through” the situation.  God treats church man the same as any other sinner.  He lets man work himself out of the crisis if, that is, he survives it.  Man has made himself his own god; he is the pilot of his “airplane” (life).  All is well until he flies himself into a storm of his own making.  THEN he calls upon his supposed heavenly co-pilot to bail him out of the situation.  Noting brings out the name of the Lord like a crisis.  The problem is that man has the wrong co-pilot.

Both the Father and the Son are called “Light” in the Scriptures.  When surrounded by darkness religious people call for a light, not knowing that the Lights are the Ones Who sent the darkness into their lives.  People afflicted with Covid-19, or who are viewing the ravages of a tornado, hurricane or other type of “natural disaster” are quick to proclaim that God will take care of them because they are “victims.”  No adult is a victim.  As God prophesied, man receives what he earns: “As a man sows, so shall he reap.”  A man who sows the wind and will reap a whirlwind.  This is made abundantly clear in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 which should be diligently studied, believed and applied to every aspect of one’s life.  God tells us why by recording and preserving what He did to ancient Israel because they disobeyed Him.  As the Apostle Paul stated, the Old Testament was recorded and preserved as an example for those who would be alive during the end times.  Paul tells us that these are they “upon whom the end of the world will come” (1 Cor. 10:11).  As Scripture reveals, the end times began on the Day of Pentecost 31 A.D.  We are now living in the time identified by the prophet Daniel as “the end of the end times” in the Hebrew language.

Like Adam and Eve, man has assumed rulership over his life, but then expects God to bail him out if he makes a mess of things, which he invariably does.  Then his co-pilot is supposed to “save the day” once again.  Afterward, having survived yet another God-orchestrated disaster, man returns to business as usual until the next crisis arises, at which time the cycle is repeated.  The lesson God repeatedly teaches is rejected.  As I have been told, “God would never do that to His people.”  Which is true.  The problem is that those who call themselves His people aren’t His people.  That co-pilot in the other seat is indeed a god–the “god of this earth” (Rev. 11:4).

If only man would take the co-pilot seat and allow the Biblical God to “fly his (man’s) plane.”  But this does not happen because man is in a turf war with the Lord.  The turf is man’s life.  Whoever rules the turf makes the turf rules.  If God is in charge of man’s life, He makes the rules.  Man cannot allow this.  His pride will not allow him to accept a secondary status.  Man, being influenced by the great deceiver, believes that he knows more about how to live the “Christian life” than does the God who created life.  As a result, all-knowing man expects God to sit down and shut up until His services are called for.  When the call comes, the wrong god answers it.

God allows man to run his own life, face his own self-made catastrophes, work his way through them, create medicine and weather-predicting technology, build powerful weapons, etc. in order to survive the curse his so-called co-pilot pours out on him.  Eventually, man gets past the problem.  Then it’s back to business as usual.  And when the next curse arrives, man once again looks to his co-pilot for help, UNAWARE THAT HE IS ASKING FOR HELP FROM THE ONE WHO SENT THE CURSE.  And so it goes.

The Lord demands to be in the pilot seat.  Those who hear His voice and humbly allow Him to take charge of their lives will be rewarded with eternal life in paradise from which he (man) will one day rule the universe with Jesus Christ.  Read God’s Very Elect: Future Caretakers of the Universe.  Key word–Caretakers.  There is one and only one solution to the problem that is mankind.  Man must bow down before his Maker, learn His Word/Truth/Gospel, which is God presenting Himself in print.  Man then must believe that Word and obey it.  There is no other solution to man’s chronic spiritual condition.  Holiness is strictly an individual matter.  There will be no group salvation.  God is not in the Catholic/Protestant Church System.  One must come out of that two-headed monster and stay out if he/she is to have any chance for salvation.  Read Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1 for proof.  In Revelation 3:14-22 Jesus is speaking to the Laodicean (end-time) Church.  Read and heed what He is today saying to religious man living in the Laodicean era.  L.J.