The word “Pestilence” means a fatal epidemic disease. The first outbreak of the Covid19 virus started in Wuhan in Hubei, China, in late 2019. Today, Covid19 is a worldwide pandemic that has taken its toll of 3.46 million death worldwide (as of 23 May 2021). The pandemic decimation is still counting, with the virus mutating to an even more potent strain as the virus spread mercilessly across the globe. Covid19 is a pestilence we see today.
The Lord Jesus had predicted that in the last days, there would be pestilence (Luke 21:11). The early church had always referred to themselves as living in the last days. In His message to the beloved apostle, John, the Lord Jesus had given the vision of the four apocalypse horsemen in the final book of the Bible (Revelation 6:1-8). The fourth horseman on a pale horse was named “Death.”
“When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” – (Rev. 6:7-8)
The opening of breaking each of the seals portrays how the world’s history would be. It seems an escalating of what the previous second and third horsemen had brought – wars and famine, and to top it all, death by pestilences! Before the coming Great Tribulation, diseases such have never known before in medical science will break out on the earth. Viruses of the unknown will attack human flesh, for the rider on this pale horse is named “Death.”
A recent video clip on social media showed corpses of COVID19 in India were thrown into the Ganges river because of the sheer number of fatalities beyond the country’s medical and burial capacities. Today, many are still dropping dead like flies in certain parts of India due to the coronavirus.
Looking at these images, I cannot but recall what was said that in the days of the Great Tribulation, that there would be the demonic attack of human flesh. Man would rather die than be alive. Yet death would elude from man, and it would be worst than these corpses to be alive.
The apocalypse horsemen are indicative of the last days. Since the early church days when the apostle John received the revelation, the apocalypse horsemen had been ravaging the earth. Death and destruction through wars, persecutions, natural disasters, and pestilences were happening throughout the past centuries. It is important to note that these signs of death and destruction are continuing from bad to worst. These signs would get worse as time goes on and culminate up to the final day of the Great Tribulation when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to put all things right.
Referring to all these signs, Jesus said all these things are the beginning of travail (Matthew 24:8). Like a woman in travail (or in labor pain), a child would soon be birthed. So also these signs being the beginning of travail would soon bring to the birth, the Great Tribulation on earth!
For a panorama view of the last days, please read my book, The Apocalypse – A Devotional Approach to the Book of Revelation, available at bit.ly/dqhk-rev
Leave a Reply