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AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN SEALS OF REVELATION – PART 4
October 4, 2011

Exposition of the Seven Seals of Revelation – Nr. 3 put up on August 29, 2011

BEGIN NOVEMBER 11, 2003 SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 145D
November 11, 2003

The Seals, the Trumpets, and the Vials of Revelation
Part 4 – The Fourth Seal
The first four seals of Revelation open before the period known as the tribulation period. They occur during the period of time Jesus called “the beginning of sorrows.”

Matthew 24:7-8
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. [8] All these are the beginning of sorrows.

The first seal has opened and then closed. The second, third, and fourth seals are already open, and will remain open until the end of the tribulation period, and all three will rapidly intensify when it begins. Its major effects will be experienced in the “Old World.” The word used for “pestilence” is “loimos,” which means “any deadly infectious disorder.” Death is the usual resultant of most deadly infectious disorders, and the corpse of pestilence often has a pale, greenish-yellow, jaundice appearance, as is found representing the color of the pale horse in the fourth seal.

Revelation 6:7-8
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. [8] And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Many plagues have passed through mankind since the fall, but none have generated a massive epidemic that just kept on accelerating, with seemingly no end on the horizon. Cholera, small pox, typhoid, bubonic plague, and so on, have appeared in short bursts like false labor, but none has ever produced a persistent, ever increasing, epidemic characteristic with seemingly no end. But now, for the first time in history, we have a “loimos,” a deadly infectious disorder, which has perfectly matched these characteristics from its inception, and is still increasing at epidemic proportions after more than 20 years. HIV is the deadly infectious virus that swept across the globe like wildfire. HIV cases worldwide increased from a trace in 1980 to more than 5 million in 1985, to more than 10 million in 1990, to more than 20 million in 1995, to 35 million in 2000, and now stand at 45 million in 2003. AIDS, the dreadful blossom of HIV, was first reported in a British sailor, who died from it in England in 1959. The hardest hit areas are those who are part of the “Old World” that was the known world during the Roman Empire. Africa is by far the hardest hit area, but it is still spreading into the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and what were once the satellite nations of the Soviet Union. There were 5 million new HIV cases in 2002, and 3.1 million died of HIV/AIDS the same year. Researchers have found medicines to prolong the lives of those who develop the virus, but I do not believe it likely doctors will ever find a vaccination or cure for it.

HIV is not the only deadly infection order increasing in the “Old World.” The World Health Organization fears that tuberculosis may kill 30 million during the next 25 years. The emergence of drug-resistant strains, and the spread of HIV have both hampered efforts by health agencies to slow the renewed spread of the consumptive pestilence. Thirty new infectious diseases have come to life since 1970. Other new viruses will be formed by mutations, and some are likely to be resistant to current antibiotics.

A List of Six Deadly Infectious Microbe Super Bugs

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has released a list of infectious microbes that are increasingly resistant to most antibiotics and other drugs. The six superbugs:

1. Methicillin – resistant Staphylococcus aureus can cause severe illness and death.

2. Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae cause urinary tract, gastrointestinal tract, and wound infections.

3. Acinetobacter baumannii is a cause of hospital-acquired pneumonia.

4. Aspergillus is a fungal infection that affects patients with compromised immune systems.

5. Vancomycin – resistant Enterococcus faecium cause bloodstream, heart, and intra-abdominal infections.

6. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is responsible for life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients, particularly children with cystic fibrosis.

Martin J. Blaser, MD, president of IDSA says, “Our ammunition is running out and there are no reinforcements in sight.” While pharmaceutical companies focus on developing more profitable drugs, drug-resistant germs proliferate.

In its 2004 report, Bad Bugs, No Drugs: As Antibiotic Discovery Stagnates, A Public Health Crisis Brews, the IDSA urged the US government to encourage pharmaceuticals to invest in antimicrobial research and development.

Yet as soon as new, stronger drugs are developed, the microbes outwit scientists by evolving resistance to the new drugs. A focus on research and development in preventive medicine–immune-boosting–would seem to be a better long-term solution.

Characteristics of Deadly Infectious Microbe Super Bugs

Main article: MRSA

Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus (colloquially known as “Staph aureus” or a Staph infection) is one of the major resistant pathogens. Found on the mucous membranes and the human skin of around a third of the population, it is extremely adaptable to antibiotic pressure. It was one of the earlier bacteria in which penicillin resistance was found—in 1947, just four years after the drug started being mass-produced. Methicillin was then the antibiotic of choice, but has since been replaced by oxacillin due to significant kidney toxicity. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was first detected in Britain in 1961 and is now “quite common” in hospitals. MRSA was responsible for 37% of fatal cases of sepsis in the UK in 1999, up from 4% in 1991. Half of all S. aureus infections in the US are resistant to penicillin, methicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin.

This left vancomycin as the only effective agent available at the time. However, strains with intermediate (4-8 μg/ml) levels of resistance, termed GISA (glycopeptide intermediate Staphylococcus aureus) or VISA (vancomycin intermediate Staphylococcus aureus), began appearing in the late 1990s. The first identified case was in Japan in 1996, and strains have since been found in hospitals in England, France and the US. The first documented strain with complete (>16 μg/ml) resistance to vancomycin, termed VRSA (Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) appeared in the United States in 2002.

A new class of antibiotics, oxazolidinones, became available in the 1990s, and the first commercially available oxazolidinone, linezolid, is comparable to vancomycin in effectiveness against MRSA. Linezolid-resistance in Staphylococcus aureus was reported in 2003.

CA-MRSA (Community-acquired MRSA) has now emerged as an epidemic that is responsible for rapidly progressive, fatal diseases including necrotizing pneumonia, severe sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the most frequently identified antimicrobial drug-resistant pathogen in US hospitals. The epidemiology of infections caused by MRSA is rapidly changing. In the past 10 years, infections caused by this organism have emerged in the community. The 2 MRSA clones in the United States most closely associated with community outbreaks, USA400 (MW2 strain, ST1 lineage) and USA300, often contain Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes and, more frequently, have been associated with skin and soft tissue infections. Outbreaks of community-associated (CA)-MRSA infections have been reported in correctional facilities, among athletic teams, among military recruits, in newborn nurseries, and among men who have sex with men. CA-MRSA infections now appear to be endemic in many urban regions and cause most CA-S. aureus infections.

Streptococcus and Enterococcus

Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A Streptococcus: GAS) infections can usually be treated with many different antibiotics. Early treatment may reduce the risk of death from invasive group A streptococcal disease. However, even the best medical care does not prevent death in every case. For those with very severe illness, supportive care in an intensive care unit may be needed. For persons with necrotizing fasciitis, surgery often is needed to remove damaged tissue. Strains of S. pyogenes resistant to macrolide antibiotics have emerged, however all strains remain uniformly sensitive to penicillin.

Resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae to penicillin and other beta-lactams is increasing worldwide. The major mechanism of resistance involves the introduction of mutations in genes encoding penicillin-binding proteins. Selective pressure is thought to play an important role, and use of beta-lactam antibiotics has been implicated as a risk factor for infection and colonization. Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible for pneumonia, bacteremia, otitis media, meningitis, sinusitis, peritonitis and arthritis. Penicillin-resistant pneumonia caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (commonly known as pneumococcus), was first detected in 1967, as was penicillin-resistant gonorrhea. Resistance to penicillin substitutes is also known as beyond S. aureus. By 1993 Escherichia coli was resistant to five fluoroquinolone variants. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is commonly resistant to isoniazid and rifampin and sometimes universally resistant to the common treatments. Other pathogens showing some resistance include Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Streptococci.[citation needed]

Multidrug-resistant Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are associated with nosocomial infections.[46] Among these strains, penicillin-resistant Enterococcus was seen in 1983, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) in 1987, and linezolid-resistant Enterococcus in the late 1990s.[citation needed]

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a highly prevalent opportunistic pathogen. One of the most worrisome characteristics of P. aeruginosa consists in its low antibiotic susceptibility. This low susceptibility is attributable to a concerted action of multidrug efflux pumps with chromosomally-encoded antibiotic resistance genes (for example, mexAB-oprM, mexXY etc.) and the low permeability of the bacterial cellular envelopes.[ Besides intrinsic resistance, P. aeruginosa easily develop acquired resistance either by mutation in chromosomally-encoded genes, or by the horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance determinants. Development of multidrug resistance by P. aeruginosa isolates requires several different genetic events that include acquisition of different mutations and/or horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Hypermutation favours the selection of mutation-driven antibiotic resistance in P. aeruginosa strains producing chronic infections, whereas the clustering of several different antibiotic resistance genes in integrons favours the concerted acquisition of antibiotic resistance determinants. Some recent studies have shown that phenotypic resistance associated to biofilm formation or to the emergence of small-colony-variants may be important in the response of P. aeruginosa populations to antibiotics treatment.

Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile is a nosocomial pathogen that causes diarrheal disease in hospitals world wide. Clindamycin-resistant C. difficile was reported as the causative agent of large outbreaks of diarrheal disease in hospitals in New York, Arizona, Florida and Massachusetts between 1989 and 1992. Geographically dispersed outbreaks of C. difficile strains resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as Cipro (ciprofloxacin) and Levaquin (levofloxacin), were also reported in North America in 2005.

Salmonella and E. coli

Escherichia coli and Salmonella come directly from contaminated food. Of the meat that is contaminated with E. coli, eighty percent of the bacteria are resistant to one or more drugs made; it causes bladder infections that are resistant to antibiotics (“HSUS Fact Sheet”). Salmonella was first found in humans in the 1970s and in some cases is resistant to as many as nine different antibiotics (“HSUS Fact Sheet”). When both bacterium are spread, serious health conditions arise. Many people are hospitalized each year after becoming infected, and some die as a result.

Acinetobacter baumannii

On November 5, 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an increasing number of Acinetobacter baumannii bloodstream infections in patients at military medical facilities in which service members injured in the Iraq/Kuwait region during Operation Iraqi Freedom and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom were treated. Most of these showed multidrug resistance (MRAB), with a few isolates resistant to all drugs tested.

Lord willing, I will present a summary of the final result of the second, third, and fourth riders activities in the next update. We are headed for an unbelievable chain of horrifying events, but only a handful believes it.

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