THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS
August 25, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I first began to keep up with Pestilence in the seventies following my keeping up with famines and earthquakes at a much earlier time.
Everything is on track for the tribulation period to rear its ugly head, and my guesstimate is that is likely to begin at some point in time between 2008 and the end of 2012. It is a GUESS, no more and no less.
PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ ARCHIVE PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 19 BEFORE READING THE CURRENT ARTICLE FROM THE KHALEEJ TIMES.
PROPHECY UPDATE 19 – ISSUED IN MARCH 2001
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences (loimos), and earthquakes, in divers places. [8] All these are the beginning of sorrows (odin). (Matthew 24:7,8)
In Prophecy Update Number 18 we conducted a lengthy discussion of why earthquakes, famine, and pestilence were, just before Jesus returns, according to the word “odin,” supposed to follow the pattern of birth pangs a woman suffers in child bearing.
We demonstrated that, for the first time in history, when Israel became a nation, worldwide earthquakes were following such a pattern. But what about Matthew’s “pestilence?” Is it following the pattern of a woman’s birth travail for the first time since Jesus prophesied it would? Absolutely! The basic root meaning of the word “loimos,” translated “pestilence,” is simply “any deadly infectious disorder.” Many plagues have passed through mankind since the fall, but none have generated a massive epidemic that was continuously accelerating over a long period of time. These “loimos” have never been able to follow the pattern of a woman’s birth pains for very long on a worldwide basis. Cholera, small pox, typhoid, bubonic plague, and so on, have appeared in short spurts like false labor, but none has ever maintained a persistent, ever increasing, epidemic characteristic with seemingly no end. But now, for the first time, we have a “loimos,” a deadly infectious disorder, that has portrayed these characteristics from its inception. The HIV virus is the first to perfectly match the pattern of a woman’s birth pangs, and it will continue to do so until the travail of the woman Israel ends,
and the Son she rejected arrives. HIV is a virus that has 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, and to a whopping 35 million in 2000. AIDS, the dreadful blossom of HIV, was first reported in a British sailor, who died in England in 1959. HIV has hardest hit Africa up to this point, but it is poised to spread into Asia and the former Soviet Union as an ever-increasing storm. And, in truth, medical researchers seem no closer to fining a cure than they were twenty years ago.
Are there other “loimos” infections that have also started to demonstrate the patterns of a woman’s birth pangs? Yes! The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that tuberculosis may kill 30 million worldwide during the next decade.
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 illness. Another sort of “loimos” is malaria, which is on the rise around the world, and once curative treatments are losing their effect. It is a pestilence of global dimensions, and new strains are evolving that scientists fear will be untreatable.
But what about all the microbes generating all this pestilence, this “loimos,” these deadly infectious disorders, what are they doing, how are
they behaving? Are they doing something that will make the pestilences continue to act like a woman’s birth pangs through the tribulation period
? Yes! A leading national magazine cover, back in the last century, carried the bold print title: “REVENGE OF THE KILLER MICROBES – ARE WE LOSING THE WAR AGAINST INFECTIOUS DISEASES?” Tuft’s Levy answered the question in Newsweek Magazine by stating: “The rise of drug-resistant germs is unparalleled in recorded biologic history.” Because of this contributing factor, pestilence will become more and more widespread in its acceleration until the second advent of Christ.
Begin Khaleej Times Online – News – THE WORLD Article
Infectious diseases spreading faster than ever: UN
(Reuters)
23 August 2007
GENEVA – Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly and spreading faster around the globe than ever and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said
on Thursday.
With billions of people moving around the planet every year, the U.N. agency said in its annual World Health Report: “An outbreak or epidemic in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else.”
WHO director-general Margaret Chan said mass travel could facilitate the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
“No country can shield itself from invasion by a pathogen incubating in an airline passenger or an insect hiding in a cargo hold,” Chan told reporters.
The U.N. agency warned that there was a good possibility of another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions appearing in the coming years.
“Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history,” the WHO said.
It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed 800 people.
“It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner or later,” the report warned.
Since the 1970s, the WHO said, new threats have been identified at an “unprecedented rate” of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40 diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.
Over the last five years alone, WHO experts had verified more than 1,100 epidemics of different diseases.
It was there fore vital
for countries to share in formation
on outbreaks so risks can be assessed and mitigated, Chan said.
Monitoring vital
The report called for renewed efforts to monitor, prevent and control epidemic-prone illnesses such as cholera, yellow fever and meningococcal diseases.
International assistance may be required to help health workers in poorer countries identify and contain outbreaks of emerging viral diseases such as Ebola and Marburg haemorrhagic fever, the WHO said.
It warned global efforts to control infectious diseases had been “seriously jeopardised” by widespread drug resistance, a consequence of poor medical treatment and misuse ofantibiotics.
This is a particular problem with tuberculosis. Extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) strains of the contagious respiratory ailment have emerged worldwide.
Although the H5N1 bird flu virus has not mutated into a form that passes easily between humans, as many scientists had feared, the next influenza pandemic was “likely to be of an avian variety” and could affect some 1.5 billion people.
Chan noted that the last influenza pandemic was in 1968 and had killed about 1 million people. “We have learned from previous pandemics that even the mildest pandemic causes too many premature deaths.
We don’t want to see that,” she said.
She urged countries affected by human cases of bird flu, including Indonesia, to continue sharing virus samples, deemed crucial to tracking the virus and to developing a pandemic vaccine.
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