Old Threats Redux
Infectious outbreaks and epidemics have a long history of mowing down wide swaths of the population. In 170 A.D., a plague (probably smallpox) killed 5 million Romans, bringing the empire to its knees. The Black Death (bubonic plague) may have killed 200 million Europeans in 1346. Explorers to the Americas brought diseases that wiped out about 90 percent of the indigenous population. By some estimates, the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed 50 million people.
Since then, infectious diseases seemed to recede into the background, thanks to modern medicine and its vaccines, antibiotics and other tools. "For 99 percent of human history, the microbial world killed us at will," says Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "Then, for the last several decades, we had the science and technology to beat back the hordes of pathogens."
Or so it seemed, until COVID-19. And now, while we're still reeling from the latest variant-driven surge, two diseases most of us thought were in our rearview mirror—smallpox and polio—have had a resurgence.
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WHAT OUTBREAK is NEXT. " There, Jesus says: 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven' (NRSV) Luke 21: 10-11
Matthew 24:5–8 gives us some important clues for discerning the approach of the end times: “Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” An increase in false messiahs, an increase in warfare, and increases in famines, plagues, and natural disasters—these are signs of the end times. In this passage, though, we are given a warning: we are not to be deceived, because these events are only the beginning of birth pains; the end is still to come.
We may not know when the end is here, but we know what Signs, MUST COME TO PASS!