Last Updated on April 6, 2022 10:27 PM by herald
In the early days of the pandemic and the lock downs, the sale of Bibles went through the roof as an April, 2020 Fox News report indicated. Spooked by the dire predictions of death from covid-19 by the international media, the WHO and the predictions of sundry medical pundits, individuals scurried to buy themselves some “divine protection” by having the Holy Scriptures at their bedside and perhaps, pay some attention to their priceless souls for the first time.
Commensurate with this new found interest in the Bible, churches reported a record number of attendees regardless to whether those services were in-person or online.
Now that the sky has not caved in and vaccines for covid-19 have been found, it would be interesting to find out what percentage of new church attendees have kept up their attendance, virtual or otherwise, taking into account the lockdown rules that have been in play. For that matter, we would be keen to know how many continue to read the Bible, if they ever did at all.
It would be even more interesting to find out how many pastors and priests took time to point out to the faithful and transient guests that this pandemic that has descended upon our hapless heads was not an act of God. We assert that:
The current pandemic is NOT one of the Biblical plagues to be unleashed on the earth and offer Biblical proof of the same.
Let us examine this issue point by point.
Concept of Plague
“Plague”, “pestilence”, disease” and yes “pandemic” are treated as synonyms in the dictionary. To our knowledge, none of the dozens of Bible translations use the term “pandemic”. But they do use “plague” and “pestilence”. As we shall show shortly, the term “plague” is sometimes used in the Bible to mean any affliction foisted on inhabitants of the earth and not just a disease.
Prophecies about Plagues
In the New Testament, prophecies about the endtimes begin in the gospels with the predictions made by Jesus in Luke 21. Apart from being the Redeemer, Jesus was also a prophet. But we leave any discussion of the nature of Jesus’ personage to an upcoming article entitled, “Will the Real Jesus Stand Up?”
However, there are prophecies concerning the endtimes in several books of the Old Testament, notably, in the book of Daniel. If you are of certain age and/or upbringing, you already know that God, acting through Moses, unleashed diseases on ancient Egypt. We are talking here, however, of diseases in “our time”; a time which is often referred to as the “last days” or “end-times”.
In Luke 21 which can be accessed here, Jesus presented a wide-ranging prophetic outlook starting from the point in time at which he and his audience were located. You will note that in his presentation, pestilences are included in the list:
There will be great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences in various places, along with fearful sights and great signs from heaven. Luke 21: 11 BSB (Berean Study Bible)
Consistent with Jesus’ statements, there have been many diseases, pestilences or pandemics across the world. For a quick overview of the history of pandemics, see Pandemics That Changed History.
Endtime Plagues
But it is in the book of Revelation that we find references to plagues that are of a global scope and referenced to the “endtimes”. In Chapter 16, we read of the judgements or sentences passed on the earth. These sentences have two unique and simultaneous features: (1) they are global and (2) they are deliberately instituted by God.
Notice that only the first one is a disease per se. Described as, “loathsome, malignant sores” it targets “those who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image”. We can infer that this disease is global in scope because at this point in time in the prophetic time sequence, the global system described as the “mark of the beast” had already been instituted as described in Chapter 13: 16 – 18 here.
The question we sought to address in this article: Is the covid-19 Pandemic one of the plagues referred to in Revelations chapter 16? can now be easily answered. From what we have shared above, the answer is clearly, “No”, because the global system referred to as “mark of the beast” described in Revelation, has not yet been instituted on the planet.
Of course, there are those who argue that the Internet is the mark of the beast and that “www” stands for 666, if you use the old Roman system of counting. Our understanding is that, although the World Wide Web will obviously play a role in linking people to the “mark of the beast” and while there are currently subcutaneous (under-the-skin) applications linked to financial and other systems in the world, the GLOBAL deployment of such a system for trade and commerce, as described in the Bible below, is not yet in place.
And the second beast [ruler, government] required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark—the name of the beast or the number of its name. Revelation 13: 16 – 17 BSB
Perhaps we are one or two major financial disasters away from such a system being implemented because from what we can glean, it is going to be financial/economic collapse or disaster that will trigger the set up of this global system. The Bible hints at this in the passage below:
“Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” Revelation 6:6 NIV (New International Version)
The implication of this prophetic statement is that food (represented by barley) will become very expensive but those invested in assets such as oil and wine will, not suffer.
We are already close enough and know enough economics, to understand how the massive debts built up by many countries, including Barbados, can trigger such a collapse, for example, through currency devaluation. More on this in an upcoming series of articles.
Now, coming back to our main point, common sense suggests that to attract God’s awful sentence, there must be much more to the mark of the beast than simply being a global electronic system of financial/economic control. For this reason, people should not overreact to events such as the government’s roll out of the national smart card when it does come out, but be vigilant.
Precursor to the Mark of the Beast
The mark of the beast is a subject we will take up in detail later In the meantime, the faithful should already know that, if they are ready like the five wise virgins, they will NOT be here to experience those awful divine sentences when they are unleashed.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that such a total surveillance and control system is already in place in communist China in Xinjiang province. It is a system that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) are all too keen to export, especially to dictatorships across the world. We leave you with this sobering video report below on recent experiences with this system in China.
