Plague, pestilence, and disease in the Last Days

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians... But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands... I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life... If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve... If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me... I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands" (Lev 26:13-25).

"I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him" (Eze 38:22).

"This is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths" (Zec 14:12).

1. Tuberculosis, long the scourge of man, was almost a thing of the past by 1980; now, new and highly-resistant strains of the disease are ravaging certain prison and medical populations.
2. AIDS is a disease caused by a virus that attacks the human immune system. It is transmitted by sexual contact, through almost all body fluids and blood products, and through shared hypodermic needles. It has sprung forth from nowhere during the past 15 years. Over 17 million people are infected worldwide, and no cure is anywhere in sight.
3. Necrotizing fasciitis is brought about by a mutated streptococcus, the so-called "flesh-eating bacteria". Early and positive treatment within the first few hours may save a patient from its wildfire spread.
4. A virus know only as X arose from the primeval rain forests of southern Sudan in 1993, killed thousands of people, and then disappeared. Nobody knows when or where it may reappear nor how to treat it if it does return. The Ebola virus of Africa is being nervously monitored by scientists concerned with its virulence and lethality.
5. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome was discovered and described in the US in 1993, only two years ago. It is a rodent-borne virus spread through droppings, saliva and urine. It is especially lethal; out of 99 cases, 53 have ended in death.
6. The so-called Legionnaires' disease regularly threatens collections of people exposed to conditioned air under certain circumstances, eg, as when confined in the close quarters of a cruise ship -- or a convention.
7. Cholera has lately grown into widespread epidemics in both India and Russia.
8. Diphtheria in Russia is growing again due to poor sanitation and shortages of vaccines.
9. Malaria, caused by protozoans injected into the blood stream by the bite of certain mosquitoes, was long ago wiped out in the US. But it still causes one million deaths worldwide each year.
10. Smallpox, thought to have been defeated worldwide in the past few decades, presently exists only as a purposefully-maintained viral culture at sites such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Debate rages over whether to kill it off and have done with smallpox forever or keep it as a "museum piece" for future medical observation. As long as it exists anywhere in the world, it has to potential to be used in a terribly lethal form of "germ warfare".

1. Cities are expanding to cope with the 97 million annual increase in the world population, and many city inhabitants (particularly in the "third world") live in crowded and unsanitary conditions.
2. The increase in travel provides the potential for passing on diseases.
3. Excessive or incorrect use of drugs has encouraged bacteria to mutate and gain resistance. By a process of natural selection the stronger micro-organisms survive an unfinished course of antibiotics, and the next generation of organisms all become stronger, and possibly able to survive a full course of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance has become widespread, and pharmaceutical companies are under mounting pressure to produce a new generation of drugs to combat infectious organisms. Some scientists fear that a crisis could occur unless urgent steps are taken to tackle the problem now.

• When Pharaoh refused to let Israel go, the hand of the LORD brought a terrible plague on the livestock of Egypt (Exo 9:3,4).
• When God was angry with the report of the unfaithful spies who went into the land of Canaan, then He threatened to strike down all Israel with a plague and make a new nation from Moses alone (Num 14:12), a threat which Moses -- acting as a mediator -- turned aside.
• And when Israel turned its back on God, then He sent against them His "four dreadful judgments -- sword and famine and wild beasts and plague" (Eze 14:21).

• Influenza was a grievous plague for the large and growing cities at the beginning of the 20th century. A world war that had thrown millions together in awful squalor and the increasingly rapid movement of humans to all parts of the earth, together with an ancient malady of farm animals, all came together at the right -- or wrong! -- time. Various sorts of "flu" had been around for thousands of years. But it took the end of World War I, in the spring of 1918, for the pandemic to erupt. In scarcely 18 months over 59 million perished, more than three times the toll of the Great War itself.
• In the 18th and 19th centuries civilizations were devastated by the dreaded silent killer consumption, or tuberculosis. The reason: Many lived in filthy, overcrowded, damp conditions with poor air circulation. This was a fertile breeding ground for the chronic infectious disease.
• Major plagues are largely related to lifestyle issues. This was clearly the case when Columbus and his men returned from the New World with a New World venereal disease, syphilis. There it had been somewhat dormant and held in microbial balance, but when introduced to a Europe emerging from the ravages of the Middle Ages, it spread insidiously. In the beginning, syphilis infected the promiscuous from all walks of life. The introduction of syphilis into Europe was a biological swap with the American Indians for the smallpox virus. It is estimated that the "Great Dying" killed over 100 million in less than 100 years. The epidemic destroyed the Aztec and Incan cultures and created a wild, random dispersion of remaining natives.
• But all biological and viral disasters throughout history are dwarfed by the bubonic plague. Historians speculate that the main bacteria originated in Mongolia among rodents. Traveling Mongol traders carried the disease to India and China. From there it spread through a Europe primed for disaster by the stresses of population and overcrowding in squalid living conditions. Over a 300-year period, one half of the total population died in generational cycles. Several Biblical "plagues" bear a remarkable resemblance to the bubonic plague.

• The accessibility of nuclear materials in the third world, among Muslim nations and others, continues to grow as the old USSR continues to crumble.
• Radioactive nuclear wastes are stored in fragile environments throughout the world, where leakage due to container defects or natural phenomena (ie, earthquakes, volcanoes) could lead to cataclysmic natural disasters.

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty... Surely he will save you... from the deadly pestilence... You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked" (Psa 91:1-8; cp Eze 9:4-6; Rev 7:2,3; 8:7-9).

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near... Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:28,36).