Throughout history, disease epidemics have ravaged mankind. The
Black Death of bubonic plague killed more than 20 million in Europe in
the 14th century. A 17th-century outbreak of the dreaded disease in
England killed more than 70,000 of London’s 600,000 inhabitants.
Modern vaccines and advancements in global hygiene were thought to
bring these disease epidemics under control. Yet the last century
witnessed the influenza epidemic of 1918, in which the
H1N1 virus killed an estimated 70 to 100 million people worldwide. Estimates of death from the much more recent
AIDS epidemic of the 1980s exceed 30 million, according to the World Health Organization.
Clearly the scourge of disease epidemics has not been eradicated. In
fact, bubonic plague just killed 47 people in Madagascar in November (
Daily Mail, Nov. 26, 2014). And now there’s a devastating new menace on the world scene, Ebola.
This virus-born disease is not really new; the sporadic minor
outbreaks of the past 40 years have been quickly brought under control.
But a new strain that has ravaged West Africa since the summer of 2014
has brought back the specter of death tolls in the tens of thousands and
threatens to spread from Africa to the rest of the world.
Spread by a virus native to the African fruit bat, patients contract
the disease within 2 to 21 days after exposure. Victims suffer high
fevers, muscle pain and severe headaches, usually accompanied by
vomiting and diarrhea that lead to hemorrhaging and death.
In pondering these developments we ought to ask: What is the outlook
for the world in the years ahead on the disease front? Does the Bible
have anything to say about it?
Increasing pandemics prophesied
Students of Bible prophecy are familiar with the “four horsemen of
the Apocalypse” found in Revelation 6. Putting these together with Jesus
Christ’s outline of future events in His lengthy prophecy on the Mount
of Olives (
Matthew 24:3-8,
Mark 13:3-8 and
Luke 21:7-11), we can see that the four horsemen symbolize a series of terrible conditions that would beset the world.
Mankind has been ravaged by the white horse of religious deception (
Revelation 6:1), the red horse of warfare (
Revelation 6:4) and the black horse of famine (
Revelation 6:5).
When we continue reading, we also see a fourth horseman: “When He
opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature
saying, ‘Come and see.’ So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the
name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him” (
Revelation 6:7-8).
Who or what is signified by this fourth horseman? The next
conditions Jesus described were terrible plagues of pestilences (disease
epidemics) and natural disasters.
Notice that the pale horse carried a rider, referred to as Death, accompanied by Hades, the Greek word for the grave.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary has this to say about the color of that horse: “ ‘Pale’ (
chloros
) denotes a yellowish green, the light green of a plant, or the
paleness of a sick person in contrast to a healthy appearance. This
cadaverous color blends well with the name of the rider—’Death’ ” (Vol.
12, 1981).
So the world has seen increasing epidemics, and it will yet see
more. The recent Ebola outbreak, then, is a preview of worse things to
come. Yet it is the disease now on the rise, and we need to pay
attention to it.
Most recent U.S. Ebola patient
In the United States, the head of the Centers for Disease Control (
CDC)
in Atlanta, Dr. Thomas Frieden, warned Americans that Ebola would
likely jump the Atlantic to America. “The spread of Ebola to the
U.S. is inevitable,” he testified before Congress in August (Fox News, Aug. 9, 2014).
Frieden was correct in his prediction. Since that time, all but one
of the 10 who have contracted the disease, mostly from traveling to or
working in affected areas of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, have
recovered due to intensive treatment in
U.S. hospitals.
But in mid-November Ebola claimed its second
U.S.
victim. Dr. Martin Salia, a surgeon who contracted the disease while
working in Sierra Leone to treat other Ebola patients, died within 36
hours of being admitted to a Nebraska hospital. Dr. Phil Smith, who
leads the Nebraska Medical Center’s bio-containment unit, had said the
44-year old Salia was “extremely ill,” adding that his condition was
much worse than other patients treated successfully in the
United States.
Despite fewer than a dozen
U.S. cases,
Ebola dominated American headlines in late 2014. Calls for the total
elimination of flights from affected nations in West Africa were met
with objections from those who saw the travel restrictions as a
rejection of America’s traditions of open borders. The political
firestorm was somewhat quelled with a compromise that restricted travel
from those areas to five
U.S. airports where patients are screened on arrival.
“Could affect world economy”
As of early December the deadly virus had killed more than 6,000
people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leona. At
present rates, thousands more are affected every month. The mortality
rate has held steady at a consistent 50 to 70 percent, and researchers
are desperately racing to find an effective vaccine.
The
CDC publicized sobering statistics in
October about the possible spread of the disease. “The worst-case
scenario tops a million cases within a relatively short period of time,
and not only would affect West Africa, but would inevitably spread to
other countries,” Frieden said. Although the
CDC later scaled back its projections, infections anywhere near that level could have widespread impacts.
While the
CDC does not foresee a
“significant health risk” in the United States, Frieden admitted that in
an interconnected economy, “it could absolutely change the way we work
here.” He continued: “It could change the economy of the world. It could
change how we assess anyone who’s traveled anywhere that might have
had Ebola.”
The highly contagious disease spreads from close human contact and
transfer of bodily fluids. Observers have noted that often-crowded
living and transportation conditions and the porous borders between many
African nations further contribute to the spread of Ebola.
An
ABC News story from October about the
spread of the disease in Mali is revealing. “Ebola could cause many
deaths here in Mali,” said Aminata Samake, who works at a bank in
Bamako, the capital. “We have a tradition of living closely together
that could contribute to a huge contamination. Take the example of
public transport—you find people crammed into a bus, one on top of the
other. Large families share the same plates, even the same glasses
for tea.”
Responding to the threat, the
CDC has issued a Level 3 travel warning for
U.S. citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Also in place is a Level 2 alert against
U.S. citizens traveling into Mali or the Republic of the Congo, where dozens of Ebola cases have been reported.
The political divide in the United States goes beyond the air travel
issues mentioned above. The outbreak has fueled conservative calls for
tighter border restrictions, while liberals still press for freer
movement into and out of the country from all areas of the world and a
greater reliance on Washington’s leadership in managing the epidemic.
Some have also expressed outrage at President Obama’s decision to
send American troops to areas affected by the disease with little
training in preventing infection.
Biblical principle of quarantine
Medical experts agree on the effectiveness of quarantine as a way to
stop the Ebola advance. You may not know it, but the Bible teaches the
exact same thing!
Ancient peoples did not know that most diseases are spread by
microorganisms transmitted from one person to the next. They also did
not know about laws of sanitation, such as making sure bodily wastes are
kept away from human contact. Historians celebrate impressive
achievements of the ancient Egyptians, yet those supposedly advanced
people actually used animal dung as a primary ointment ingredient for
all types of illnesses.
Nowhere in the first five books of the Bible—commonly called the
books of Moses—did God reveal to ancient Israel that disease organisms
transmit disease. But God did instruct Israel that the sick should be
kept isolated from the rest of the population. Read for yourself God’s
specific instructions in Leviticus 13 and 15 concerning people with
various types of rashes and bodily discharges. They were to separate
themselves from the camp of Israel for the duration of the illness.
Just as ancient Israel used the practice of quarantine to stop
disease from spreading through the crowded camp of Israel, quarantine
has proven to be the best method to stop the spread of Ebola.
Laws concerning disease and bodily discharges
Again, consider the time during which Moses wrote these
instructions. Ancient Egyptian medical knowledge was primitive compared
to that of the 1800s. It is obvious from the Papyrus Ebers manuscript
and other ancient sources that there was no sense of sanitation in Egypt
whatsoever—as illustrated by the dung ointments mentioned above.
The ancient laws of the Israelites, on the other hand, show nothing
but concern for sanitation. These would have protected against
microscopic pathogens. Yet how could Moses have known of the existence
of such germs? The Egyptians certainly did not—nor did any other
ancient culture.
In fact, “until this century, all previous societies, except for the
Israelites who followed God’s medical laws regarding quarantine, kept
infected patients in their homes—even after death, exposing family
members and others to deadly disease. During the devastating Black Death
of the 14th century, patients who were sick or dead were kept in the
same rooms as the rest of the family.
“People often wondered why the disease was affecting so many people
at one time. They attributed these epidemics to ‘bad air’ or ‘evil
spirits.’ However, careful attention to the medical commands of God as
revealed in Leviticus would have saved untold millions of lives.
“Arturo Castiglione wrote about the overwhelming importance of this
biblical medical law, ‘The laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be
regarded as the first model of a sanitary legislation’ (Arturo
Castiglione,
A History of Medicine … , 1941, p. 71).
“Fortunately, the church fathers of Vienna finally took the biblical
injunctions to heart and commanded that those infected with the plague …
be placed outside the city in special medical quarantine compounds.
Care givers fed them until they either died or survived the passage of
the disease. Those who died in homes or streets were instantly removed
and buried outside the city limits.
“These biblical sanitary measures quickly brought the dreaded
epidemic under control for the first time. Other cities and countries
rapidly followed the medical practices of Vienna until the Black Death
was finally halted” (Grant Jeffrey,
The Signature of God, 1996, pp. 149-150).
Of course, while taking all reasonable precautions, we should also
be aware of the protections God offers to those who look to Him for
protection. As Psalm 91 states: “I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my
refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’ … You will not fear the
terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence
that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday”
(verses 2, 5-6, New International Version).
What to watch for
The beginning of 2015 sees a world somewhat relieved that earlier
fears of a massive Ebola outbreak have not materialized, but still
nervous as it views the spread of the disease to other nations.
However, we have to ask ourselves: Could this signal that the fourth
horseman is ready to begin his deadly ride? And if this horseman is not
riding through the advanced Western countries, is it riding through
other nations? The events of Revelation 6 can become starkly real—and
indeed they already are to tens or hundreds of thousands of people in
affected areas.
This is not a time for complacency or letting down our guard. All
that would be required for an epidemic to begin to ravage the United
States, Europe, Canada, Australia or some other Western nations is for
perhaps a dozen new cases to break out while our attention is diverted
elsewhere. If each of those infected people had contact with 10 other
people, who had contact with 10 others, who had contact with 10 others …
Yes, it could happen just like that.
The media easily diverts our attention to whatever is “hot news” at
the moment, keeping us attuned to their advertising messages. Yet Jesus’
warnings in His Olivet prophecy and in the book of Revelation are for
our time today, when a chaotic, troubled world will experience the
pinnacle of misery before at last being replaced by the just reign of
God through Christ over all nations.
“Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all
that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the
Son of Man” (
Luke 21:36,
NIV).
God gives His prophetic warnings for a purpose. He wants His people
to see the danger coming and do what it takes to avoid it. Will you be
one who heeds the warning?
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