Plagues and Pestilence in 2020

 

Have you read Revelation 6:1-7 lately?  If not, I suggest you do it before you read the rest of this post. What we are watching in the news right now looks like a dress rehearsal for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The bad news this year has been of biblical proportions.

We all know we are facing a world-wide plague with the coronavirus, but did you also know that the rise of dicatators and pestilence is also in the news?

Locusts of all things are ravaging East Africa!

Locust numbers exploded late last year, encouraged by unusual weather patterns amplified by climate change, and swarms disbursed eastwards from Yemen, with Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia the hardest hit countries.

The first invasion that terrorized farmers in a region where 20 million people struggle for food has given birth to a second wave of insects just as new-season crops are being planted (Reuters).

The BBC photos of the locust invasion are astounding.

Plagues and pestilence have become so bad that even the New York Times is running articles on what various religions teach about the nature of the coming Apocalypse.

Conservative Christians have to admit that even though we BELIEVE the events of the book of Revelation will happen someday, it did not seem real—until now.

The rise of a one-world leader.

How could it be possible for a singular leader to rise and unite the world and how would it be possible for the world to give him so much power? Ask the people of Hungary where this week their parliament ceded its complete authority to its Prime Minister, Vicktor Orbin, allowing him to rule by decree—indefinitely.

Monday, the situation in Hungary deteriorated further, with loyal parliamentarians mustering a required two-thirds majority to allow Orban to rule by decree indefinitely and without any parliamentary oversight (read more here).

In a crisis like this, the future Anti-Christ could rise easily.

Plagues and pestilence.

Check. This one is already happening right under our noses.

Famine and death.

One natural result of pestilence is famine, and that can be increased by multiplied pressures on a world already operating in extreme levels of fear. The press seems to foment those fears by using inflammatory language and repeatedly seeking to promote discord. They need to be careful what they wish for. They might sell a few more newspapers or airtime, but the conflict they are stirring up can be serious indeed.

The people of New Orleans were warned of the destruction a big hurricane would bring. It did not seem real, but it came. Worldwide pandemics have happened before. Many churches closed for as many as eight weeks–in 1918 because of the Spanish flu. Here we are again. Now we are being warned about the potential worldwide impact of even a small nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India. You don’t think that could happen? A little-noted article from ANI on March 17, 2020, said this,

A nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan that uses less than one percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal would have severe consequences and long-lasting impact on the global food security that will be unmatched in modern history, a research article said (Read the rest here).

I have no intention to scare people and I am certainly not saying we are already there, but the Bible is true and the events of the Apocalypse are not wild speculation. They will come to pass.

This world and its inhabitants will give account to the Creator one day (Philippians 2:10-11).

In this middle of all this, we have a message of hope and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. One remarkable characteristic of this pandemic is the astounding lack of fear I have found among Christians. It’s not that we do not take this seriously—we do. It’s that we are not panicked and we are not afraid. We understand that God is control of all and we trust ourselves to His tender care. I hear prayer requests, but those requests carry the same urgency that any other request had prior to the present crisis—not in a careless way, but in a trusting God way.

We hope that others will see our hope. Sin has horrible consequences, but Jesus took our sin guilt on Himself on the cross and we can find forgiveness and assurance of His eternal love in a relationship with Him. We know that for the forgiven the path just ahead might be dark, but the end is glorious.  Jesus is coming.

Let your light shine.