As Pestilence Continued to Sweep the Globe, Mankind Continues to Poke God in the Eye, a Strong Delusion Has Been Placed on the Ungodly
Revelation 2:23
I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds…
Russia still has the third highest number of COVID-19 infections in the world, behind the US and Brazil, but it’s not the only deadly outbreak it has to worry about.
In nearby Mongolia in a region near the Russian border the rare, ancient bubonic plague, or known in history as the ‘Black Death’, has surfaced once again, causing Mongolia to place areas of the Western region of Khovd province along the border on lockdown.
Two cases have been confirmed after lab test results. Two brothers, 27 and 16-years old are currently at separate hospitals in the western province of Dorj Narangerel after they ate marmot meat.
Via Siberian Times
The older brother is said to be a “very severe condition” and had “multiple organ failure” according to the Mongolian Ministry of health. He is being treated for “marmot plague and secondary lung disease”.
The bubonic plague can kill in 24-hours and includes the fast onset of fever and the painful rapid swelling of lymph nodes under the arms, in the neck, or in the groin. The bacteria can also infect the lungs in a rarer form of it.
The brothers are believed to have caught the disease while skinning and cleaning the marmot. Typically its spreads through fleas that live off of infected rodents. Health authorities in the region have long warned of the dangers of eating marmot due to the potential of catching the plague. From time to time individuals in the region have caught the plague by eating raw marmot meat.
Fearing a potential outbreak of the disease which in the 14th century wiped out one-third the population of Europe, Mongolian health authorities have begun aggressive contact tracing. China’s Xinhua news reports that at least 146 people have been isolated at local hospitals after having contact with the infected brothers. The health ministry further said it’s identified, 504 second-contact individuals.
The quarantined areas of the province are reportedly not allowing vehicles or residents from outside. It’s commonly estimated that rare but renewed bouts of the bubonic plague infect about 2,000 people a year globally.
GETTY
A Mongolian couple died from the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot meat, causing a six-day quarantine to be declared in a western province of Mongolia earlier this month.
Ariuntuya Ochirpurev from the World Health Organization in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia told the BBC that some in the area believe the raw meat of a marmot, a type of large rodent, has good health benefits.
According to Ochirpurev, the 118 people who had come into contact with the couple were all isolated and treated with antibiotics. As of Tuesday, the quarantine had been lifted.
“After the quarantine [was announced], not many people — even locals — were in the streets for fear of catching the disease,” Sebastian Pique, an American Peace Corps volunteer living in the region, told Agence France-Presse.
Ochirpurev told the BBC that the couple had eaten raw marmot meat and kidney. Marmots are a known carrier of Yersinia pestis, the plague bacteria.
According to the Washington Post, the man, 38, and his wife, 37, died of “multiple organ failure” caused by the plague. The Post reports that the couple left behind four children, from 9 months to 14 years old.
A Yorkshireman’s take on life, death, and eternity
Pestilence
Pestilence
I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
Numbers 14:12 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/num.14.12.ESV
I thought this verse from my daily readings throughout the year was timely, with the pestilence of covid-19 galloping round the world. God threatened pestilence on His people because of, wait for it… grumbling! Thankfully, this verse- God’s threat- isn’t the end of the story…
Moses intercedes for God’s people, and God relented from His threat. There’s definitely a lesson for us here- intercede for the world as fear and anxiety- and death- sweep the globe! President Trump has called today a national day of prayer for America. All Boris could do in the UK was to say that many of us would lose our loved ones before their time.
Thankfully we have a greater intercessor than Moses. The Lord Jesus Christ is our great high priest, the Son of God. And it’s not like He has to twist God the Father’s arm to be gracious to us because God is love.
The main lesson from this pestilence isn’t fear, panic, or anxiety. Neither is it complacency or conspiracy theories. Instead, we are to come to the throne of grace to plead God for mercy upon ourselves, our communities, and the world.
“God, how we praise You for Your grace and compassion. But we also recognize Your holiness and judgments in the earth. We cry out to You in Your wrath at this rebellious world to remember mercy. In Jesus’ name, amen”
Or PLAGUE, in the Hebrew tongue, as in most others, expresses all sorts of distempers and calamities. The Hebrew word which properly signifies “the plague” is extended to all epidemical and contagious diseases. The prophets generally connect together the sword, the pestilence, and the famine, as three evils, which usually accompany each other.
The glandular plague, which in modern times has proved so fatal in the East, is the most virulent and contagious of diseases. In the fourteenth century, it overran Europe, Asia, and Africa, and 25,000,000 are estimated to have died of it within three years. Like Asiatic cholera, it is one of the most appalling scourges sin has brought on this world; and may in this point of view correspond with the “plagues” referred to in the Bible, Exodus 9:14 11:1 1Ki 8:37.
Revelation 2:23
I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
Revelation 6:8
I looked and a pale-colored horse appeared. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades came close behind him; and authority was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword or with famine or pestilence or by means of the wild beasts of the earth.
(WEY NAS RSV)
Revelation 18:8
Therefore in one day, her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.
(See NAS RSV)
The Latin word pestilentia is connected with pestis, “the plague,” but pestilence is used for any visitation and is not the name of any special disease; debher is applied to diseases of cattle and is translated “murrain.”
In the New, Testament pestilence is mentioned in our Lord’s eschatological discourse (Matthew 24:7 the King James Version; Luke 21:11) coupled with famine. The assonance of loimos and limos in these passages (loimos is omitted in the Revised Version (British and American) passage for Mt) occurs in several classical passages, e.g. Herodotus vii0.171. The pestilence is said to walk in darkness (Psalm 91:6) on account of its sudden onset out of obscurity not associated with any apparent cause.
After a long, tense day of confrontation in the temple precincts with the religious leaders, Jesus and His beleaguered band of twelve made their way out of the temple area for the final time during Jesus’ ministry. As they left, the disciples paused and pointed to the stunningly beautiful buildings on the temple mount. Then Jesus dropped a bombshell when He asked them, “Do you see all these things? . . . Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2).
Think about hearing someone predict the destruction of one of the iconic buildings of the modern world: the White House, the Empire State Building, Buckingham Palace, the Sydney Opera House, the Sistine Chapel, or the Louvre. You’d be shocked. You would want some details, wouldn’t you?
Desperately in search of more details about Jesus’ forecast, the four closest disciples (Peter, James, John, and Andrew) approached Him privately and asked, “When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).
