Coronavirus and the Pale Horse

Okay, well, you know, this has been, I guess, every week anymore seems to be an important and a big news week. There's been a lot of things going on globally, of course domestically. There's a lot in the news, but, you know, yesterday I don't think it was even mentioned on the newscast that I listened to that yesterday was the day for Britain to leave the European Union, and, you know, they don't have any trade agreements in place yet. I understand they've got a year of transition that they have to work with the European Union to come up with those and what doesn't happen or what happens or doesn't happen by next December 31st.

No one knows exactly what will happen, but, you know, that's a significant thing as we've talked about in the past to have them leave the European Union. And, of course, the other thing that has dominated the news, you know, on a global basis here in the past week is this coronavirus. And the coronavirus, you know, it's, you know, there's been a lot of alarms sounded about it. You've probably heard a lot about it. You've read about the people who are now quarantined in Riverside, California for 14 days and how they, you know, had a they had a grounded kind of a cruise ship as they watched one person who had they suspected had the virus.

And there seems to be a worldwide concern about this virus. In fact, there's been a global health emergency called on it. I heard last night that the United States is now limiting people coming from China to just seven airports.

They can fly into, amidst other rumors that we would suspend all flights from China in the meantime. So we've got a, you know, the world would say there's a crisis on hand. And as you watch the numbers of what's going on over there with the coronavirus, it does seem to be multiplying quite quickly. First, China is a very populous country.

They've got a billion people over there. And as it as it moves through that population and spreads through the world, as people get on planes and go back home and, you know, as they've learned that it can be transmitted from human to human, they know that they have potentially a huge health problem on hands. But you know, as I've watched the news and as I've listened to what they've had to say, and I had one newsletter come in, not from anyone in the church or anything, but a little health newsletter, and they were talking about, well, the sensationalism that's going along with the reporting.

And I thought, well, I don't know. Is it really sensationalism? I mean, for people to be, for news to be reporting it, for the CDC to get involved in it, for all these world organizations to get involved, what is really going on over there, and why would they, just after a few cases, sign the alarm, sign the alarm? So I went and did some research on the coronavirus and what's going on over there, because I really didn't understand how these things happen.

And every year or two, it seems that we come up with a new disease, right? Something happens, it hits the world by storm, the news covers it, the Centers for Disease Control get involved, we're warned about how to, you know, be on the lookout that all these things could happen. So I thought I'd go back and see what is it about this coronavirus that, where did it come from, how did it start, and what really is the danger in it, or the potential danger to humans.

So I've got a few articles I want to read some excerpts from as we begin here today. And the first one is, comes from a website called livescience.com. This was posted this past Wednesday, January 29th, written by a lady by the name of Rachel Raettner. And here, the title of the article is, New Coronavirus May Have Started in Bats, But How Did It Hop to Humans? So I'll just read a few excerpts from what she has to say, as she's done some research on that.

She says, Despite emerging in humans only recently, and that is literally this week, despite emerging in humans only recently, the virus has already infected about 6,000. Now this was a few days ago, so last night I heard a report that said it's now up to 26,000 already infected about 6,000 people and caused 132 deaths in China.

That's over 170, I've heard as well. In addition to that, it has spread to 15 other countries, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the initial cases occurred in people who worked at or visited the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, where a variety of wild animals were sold. However, she says, no bats. Remember the article is that they suspect that this coronavirus came from bats, and that's how it then somehow hopped to humans.

However, no bats were sold at the Huanan Seafood Market, which suggests that another yet-to-be-identified animal acted as a stepping stone of sorts to transmit the virus to humans. And then Mr. Guizan Wu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control says it seems likely that another animal host is acting as an intermediate host between bats and humans. She goes on to say, a previous study suggested snakes, which were sold at the Huanan Seafood Market, as a possible source of the virus. However, some experts have criticized the study, saying it's unclear if coronaviruses can infect snakes. A later study than this shows that it is likely a snake is where the virus emanated from.

Overall, and I found this part to be interesting in her conclusion, overall the outbreak of coronavirus again highlights the hidden virus reservoir in wild animals and their potential to occasionally spill over to the human population. The hidden virus reservoir in wild animals. So when we read about these things or hear about these things, the people who are into studying these diseases and where they come from, they know and they recognize there are viruses in these animals that have not hopped over into humans.

When they do, it's anyone's guess as to what the effect is going to be. The coronavirus they knew of, it hadn't hopped to humans before, and now we have the... what happens? They didn't know it could be transmitted from human to human. We've since learned that, even with a case in the United States. But we have this issue where there's something that's happened, this virus that's out there, it's been contained in animals.

When it hops to humans, what happens? What happens? And so you get the entire world involved in it as to how do we contain this and stop it? Because there is no known cure, no vaccination, no medicine that can deal with this coronavirus right now.

And if it's not controlled, they know it can get out of hand very quickly as they're finding in, as they're finding out in China. Now this isn't the first virus that has come from animals, right? We have the same from the same location of the world, the SARS, that was there a few years ago.

It created a sensation and after a few weeks it was pretty much controlled. We have other viruses that have come from other parts of the world. AIDS, you know, came from Africa, emanated as we'll see here from an animal as well. We have the Ebola crisis, we'll talk about here in a minute, that emanated from an animal. And from parts of the world where somehow what is going on in animals and these viruses that are there in them, what happens when they hop to humans? Again, no one knows. So let me read from another article here because this isn't the first time, it won't be the last time that something like a coronavirus dominates our news and it's a brand new disease that no one knows how to handle and everyone is jumping, jumping around trying to figure out how to control it.

Now this is from the independent.com. It's a United Kingdom British website. They posted an article. This was back seven years ago because as I read about something that was going on with animals jumping to humans, I went back to study what, you know, or to see what is it some of these other diseases what was causing them. This article came from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, first posted in Rome in July of 2014, and they talked about the Ebola crisis.

Let me read excerpts of that. It says, in Africa, wild animals, including fruit bats. Fruit bats seem to be one of those hosts that a lot of these things come from, okay? That was even why they suspected in China that it came from a fruit bat. In Africa, wild animals, including fruit bats, are hunted for food and are referred to as bushmeat.

In equatorial Africa, human consumption of bushmeat has been linked to animal to human transmission of diseases, including Ebola. And as they look at what went on at the Huanan's seafood market, someone ate something of a meat there that took the virus that was dormant in that animal and put it in their body, and then it's been transmitted to others as we see the numbers increasing. So with Ebola, the same thing type happened. It says, increased efforts are needed to improve awareness among rural communities in West Africa about the risks of contracting the Ebola virus from eating certain wildlife species, including fruit bats, the FAO warned today.

Here, this was very interesting about cameras. It says, 80% of the meat eaten in Cameroon is killed in the wild and is known as bushmeat. The nation's favorite dishes are gorilla, chimpanzee, or monkey because of their succulent and tender flesh. Isn't that interesting? Somehow I don't think of chimpanzee and ape as succulent and tender flesh, but there are people who find this to be exciting to eat these things and try them out. 80% of this is happening. The nation's, according to one estimate, up to 3,000 gorillas are slaughtered in the southern Cameroon every year to supply an illicit but pervasive commercial demand for ape meat.

Now the reason this was published in the United Kingdom is because there was this meat being shipped over into Britain, and they were kind of warning the British, you don't know what you're eating. You don't know what you're eating when you eat some of this stuff that is marketed as wild and exciting and something new to taste and whatever because look, from this meat came Ebola.

You might want to watch what you're doing when you're eating some of these things. I thought an interesting insight into here about what meat can do is there's this little village and a man, and they included in this article about what happened to people who ate some gorilla meat, a gorilla who had just recently died, so it's in the village of Baccalaon. Our brothers found a dead gorilla in the forest, as Mr.

Bianco said. They took it back to the village and they ate the meat. Almost immediately, everyone died. 25 men, women, and children. The only person who didn't was a woman who didn't eat the meat. But somehow even that didn't curb their appetite for it. Three-quarters, the article goes on to say, three-quarters of all new human viruses are known to come from animals, and some type of scientists believe humans are particularly susceptible to those carried by apes.

The human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, we've all heard of that, is now widely believed to have originated in chimps. Apes are known to host other potentially deadly viruses, such as Ebola, anthrax, yellow fever, and other potential viruses yet to be discovered. So, you get the picture that something, you know, when we hear these stories and we've got a case of this, an unknown case, and all of a sudden, you know, it seems like the news may be sensationalizing it, it's something new and no one knows what's going to happen with it.

And often, often, three-quarters of the time, it's coming from a human, a transmission from an animal to a human, often by inappropriate interaction, often by eating that animal. Okay? So, we all listen to these things, we all see the things that are going on in the world. Now, another article entitled, 10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species, written back in 2011 by Mr.

Robert Ray Britt, and he listed and he went through some of the history of which I've just told you, but he hits the big one, the big one that supersedes all the others. He says, nothing beats the 14th century black death, also known as the bubonic plague, for sheer global impact of a single disease outbreak and bringing civilization to its knees.

It is the epitome of plague, corpses piled up in the streets from Europe to Egypt and across Asia. Some 75 millions, and I would say that that's a controversial number, some 75 million, he writes, died at a time when there were only about 360 million to start with. Death came in a matter of days and it was excruciatingly painful. Whether it was 75 million or 25 million or a lot of people back in the 13th or 14th century. Plague is a bacterial disease carried by the Yershina pestis. It's carried by rodents and even stray cats, but becomes mostly, most deadly to us when transmitted between people as became the case in the 1300s. Symptoms include fever, chills, weakness, swollen and painful lymph nodes. Even today, if not treated, death ensues. The plague in the 14th century resulted after the rare bacteria had been dormant for centuries in Asia's Gobi Desert. Dormant for centuries in Asia's Gobi Desert. Just sort of sitting there. Sort of waiting for someone to do something that would bring that to life. After a waking in the 1320s, it piggybacked along trade routes from China to the rest of Asia and eventually to Italy in 1347, then later to Russia. It spread throughout the world at that time as one person became infected as somehow this bacteria that laid dormant, they say, somehow became a human and then as people traveled around the world through these trade routes, the entire world, most of the world at that time, just became prone to it and so many people died.

Well, the world has progressed since then and we'll talk a little bit about what has happened between then and now. We haven't had another bubonic plague. Even though there have been in succeeding centuries from the 14th century, there have been outbreaks of the bubonic plague and hundreds of thousands of people died from them. Today it still occurs, but there is treatment for it, so it gets resolved fairly quickly.

But the question would be how many more of these rare diseases and these rare viruses are out there in the world today that we know nothing about? How many more things are in animals that could hop to humans and create a scenario that is a very disturbing scenario? And so, Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, when they see these things happen, they have no idea what the result is going to be.

When they see a coronavirus occur, they have no idea whether it's going to be controlled quickly, whether it's going to transmit from human to human. They have no idea what the incubancy rate of it is. And so they hop into action because they are trying to avoid a worldwide pandemic that the world hasn't seen in quite a time. You know, the Ebola virus made all sorts of news. Only 11,000 people died in the year that it was first discovered, and then there was a vaccine for it, and it was somewhat resolved. But no one knows exactly what is going to be. And so they may lose sleep over these things when they see a coronavirus occur that they've never seen in a human before. Well, we live in a dangerous time. You know, we talk about the things that go on in the world. We know that we live in a world where war can break out at any time, right? I mean, it's just a matter of time until someone is going to start a war somewhere. We live in a world that, you know, we're in a nuclear age where our society and our civilization, as we know, it could be wiped out literally overnight. All it takes is one electronic, magnetic pulse to be an EMP, to be discharged, and life, as we know, it is totally over. We know that, you know, as a result of that, famine can occur. And then we see these things with these epidemics and diseases that can literally occur every night. We have no idea where they're coming from. So one day there's nothing there. The next day you've got a coronavirus or whatever comes next, and what is the result of it going to be? It's a dangerous world in many ways, and Christ addressed that. Let's go back to Matthew 24. Matthew 24, as he explains to his disciples, you know, the things that are going to occur between at the end of the age, as they ask the question, he gives them, you know, four things that are going to happen before the tribulation. And things get, you know, very bad in a tribulation that supersedes anything that's ever happened on earth before. In chapter 24 of Matthew, in verse 5, you know, verse 4, he says, Take heed that no one deceive you. Know what's going on, is what he's saying. For many will come in my name, verse 5, saying, I'm the Christ, and they'll deceive many. There will be false religion. There will be people using my name, but they'll be saying things different than what Christ says. They'll be teaching things different than what His word says, even though you're using His name. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. And so we see, down through history, we've had wars, we've had rumors of wars, and today we have wars, we have rumors of wars, we have things going on, and they will continue until the return of Jesus Christ. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines. You know, some would say, how in America would you ever have a famine? And again, we'd look at the EMP. The scientists will tell you, if an EMP was struck, literally America could be thrown into a famine state within three to seven days. Something we could never expect in food. The food sources and the food routes would be totally dried up, and we would become a country that no one of us could even imagine literally in three to seven days. Civilization or society as we know it would end. So, let me see, where were we? For nation will rise against nation, there will be famines. Notice there will be pestilences. There will be disease outbreaks and earthquakes in various places.

And he says, all these are just the beginning of sorrows. These are things leading up to it. This is before the Great Tribulation. This is before the time that will be unlike any other time on earth. All these things lead up to the return of Jesus Christ. They intensify as He comes, before He comes, or as the time approaches. Let's go back to Revelation 6 because in the revelation that Jesus Christ gave to John, who recorded it, we see the same things written here in Revelation 6 about four things and four horses that ride across the landscape of humanity, leading up to the fifth seal when it's opened, the Great Tribulation.

But let's pick it up in chapter 6 of Revelation in verse 1. John writes, I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow, about bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. It was false religion. He was one who was going to turn people away from Christ, use his name, but tell him something different than what Christ said.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come and see. Another horse, fiery red, went out, and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. War. War would come about. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see.

So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine.

Scarcity of food. Expensive food. Just a little bit of wheat for an entire day's wages. Just a little bit of barley for an entire day's wages. A famine that occurs. In verse 7, 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. A pale horse. Not white, not red, not black.

When you look in the concordances, you see this pale horse is a sickly green type of color. In fact, the new living translation says it's a sick-looking horse. It's a green horse that looks like a corpse. And so we have a diseased horse here that just when you look at it, it looks sickly. I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was death.

It's a sick horse, and along with him comes death. And Hades followed with him. Death in the grave. A horse of disease. A horse of pestilence. And power was given to them, these four horses, over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with death.

A fourth of the earth. Now, if there's closing in on eight billion people on earth, since seven and a half is the recent estimates, we have somewhere around just under two billion people. Two billion people that would die as a result of false religion, war, famine, and pestilence. As a result of these four horses riding, and then the fifth seal opens. And then the fifth seal opens, but a quarter of mankind dies as a result of these four horses and what they mean to the earth.

Not the least of which is the pale horse. Not the least of which is the pale horse. We often talk about the white horse, the red horse, the black horse, but the pale horse is part of that as well. Now, the last sentence there, the last phrase of verse eight, you know, it says, a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.

Now, that's an interesting phrase. Some people would say, well, does that mean there will be lions loose in the streets? That people are going to have to worry about there? Will we be tigers running around the streets killing people? Will there be venomous snakes everywhere killing people? What are these beasts of the earth?

Again, if you go back and you look at the Greek word that translated beasts there, it literally means dangerous animal. Dangerous animal, Strong's also uses the word poisonous or venomous. And if you're in the 15th century and you're translating the Bible and you say dangerous animal, what are you thinking? You're thinking it's a beast. I sure wouldn't want to go out of my house and encounter a lion. I wouldn't want to go out and encounter a tiger. So you might use the word beasts, but it's dangerous animals. Now, there are animals who are dangerous to us, right? Little fruit bats, we've learned, are pretty dangerous animals.

If people eat little fruit bats, they can produce a lot of heartache and a lot of sickness. Little rodents, little rats running around can produce a lot of disease. They're just a little animal, but they're awfully dangerous.

Monkeys, you know, some people think monkeys are really cute. They're just little animals, look harmless, but they're dangerous animals. Snakes slither around the ground, and most people or a lot of people don't like snakes, but even the non-venomous ones can be dangerous animals. Is God saying here that some of the pestilence that will come at the time could erupt from these animals, of which there are untold number of viruses that hop to humans, and who knows what happens when they hop to humans at that point?

Maybe that's what he's saying. Maybe he's really talking about lions, tigers, and bears. I don't know, but it's interesting that as a quarter of mankind die, given the history that we have of how these viruses pass from animal to human and what results, and pestilence and the pale horse figure significantly in the death of a quarter of mankind at the end, something we can pay attention to. Something we can pay attention to.

You know, we've got the coronavirus, which is the latest one in the series that, you know, in our lifetimes we've seen happen.

Brand new, never seen before, the world hops to figure out how to control what is going on. Scientists, infectious disease specialists, they know the danger.

They know the danger of what can't happen out there. They don't know what to do with it. But over the years, we've seen those diseases keep cropping up. SARS, Ebola, swine flu, bird flu, all these things that have their genesis in an animal and something hopping over to the human scenario.

Well, if we look, you know, today as these happen, you know, the coronavirus, it might be a significant virus. It might kill a lot of people. Or it might be controlled, and in a week or two we won't hear much about it.

Because today we live in an environment where mankind has learned some things on how to control some of these things.

And they have to have the time. I heard yesterday that it's going to take months before there's a vaccination or months for any kind of medicine to go along with it.

But we've learned how to control those diseases so they don't get out of hand like they did at the time of the bubonic plague.

But if we look at where the fourth horse is, and he follows false religion, false religion is a dangerous thing, right? Because it teaches people, as I said, that you don't have to pay attention to what the Bible says.

We live in the 21st century. All those things that are written back in the Bible back then don't pay attention to it. They don't have to do that anymore.

And after when you don't pay attention to that and you allow your own natural carnal nature, then you have wars crop up because human nature takes over. And people want this land and that land, and they want everything. And so everything gets out of control, and you have wars between nations that go on through history. And often with wars, you know, we have society interrupted, famines can occur as the land is desolate, and out of that you can have pestilence occur when people don't have the time. And all these systems are broken down. Let me read another article here. Something that happened during World War I, not too long ago, 100 years ago now. And this was written by a lady by the name of Hilary Johnson. It's called Killer Flu. She first published it in the Rolling Stone magazine back in January of 1998. And she was talking about pestilence and what happens when it is mixed with war. She writes 80 years ago, it's 20 years down the road, so 100 years ago, a sudden mutation in the virus that causes influenza initiated a worldwide epidemic that in only 18 months killed an estimated 25 to 40 million people. Many consider this to be the worst natural disaster in history. Now again, imagine if something like this happened and 25 million people died of flu. Something happened and we didn't have the normal situation that we have today where a center of disease control can walk in and do what they do and try to control these things.

She says some historians feel this epidemic hastened the world of World War I. One expert, W.I.B. Beveridge, says, There is no known reason why there should not be another catastrophic pandemic like that of 1918 or even worse. The flu always has the capability of becoming a global plague. A spark in a remote corner of the world could set a fire that scorches us all. Should a superfluid like that of 1918 make a comeback? Now that the population has quadrupled and more than a million people cross international boundaries on jets each day, experts say it could kill hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions. Even with all the advanced health care that we have, everything that we have, it could happen. It could happen if something happens in part of the world. Now imagine, just imagine if we will, if we look at the situation that we're in today. If the United States, Britain, Australia, the English-speaking nations that lead the world in military might, in economic might, even in health care, if you will, just imagine if a scenario developed that a war broke out or that we had an EMP drop on us. And what the scientists document, and the government is well aware of, would happen. All the transportation is gone, all the refrigeration is gone, all the computerization is gone. We become a third world country overnight. No communication, nowhere to do anything, life frozen. Suppose that in that scenario, there's biologic warfare, and a host, an unknown virus is introduced, or something else happens that begins, and we don't have all the disease and all the health care control that we have today. It's just not there at all. Imagine what happens if there's war going on around at that time. What happens to society at that point? You have a disaster unlike anything the world has ever seen before. And the thing is, it can happen, as the Bible says, suddenly. It's not going to take years to have happen. It can happen suddenly. Literally, it could happen within a week. Now imagine if that was to happen to the United States, or Britain, or Israel, and imagine that everything just broke down suddenly, as could happen in the world today. Imagine the void that's left in the world at that time. The economic system? Gone. The military system? Gone. The health care system? Gone. Can you imagine the void, the panic, and the hopelessness that the world would imagine, or that they would be enduring, if that happened? And it could happen. It could happen. And it could happen suddenly. Things could look bright and rosy today, and literally by next week, if all these things were to happen, you and I wouldn't even be sitting here. Our cars wouldn't run. We wouldn't have anything going on. It could happen in the world we live in today. And four seals will have opened, and a lot of mankind would die, and then the fifth seal is opened. And then the Great Tribulation begins.

Well, you know, back in Ezekiel—I was looking at verse in Ezekiel 2 because, you know, Christ talks about it, and that's enough—but even back in Ezekiel, it talks about pestilence as one of the end-time things for a future generation of Israel. In Ezekiel 5, you know, remember as we go into the book of Ezekiel, when he mentions Israel, the nation of Israel, or the kingdom of Israel, had already gone into captivity by this, by the time Ezekiel was alive and riding. And in the early verses of chapter 5 there in Ezekiel, he talks about, you know, what, you know, hiding some of Israel into hems of garments and whatever. But let's drop down to verse 17 as God inspires Ezekiel here. He says, So I will send against you famine and wild beasts—there are those wild beasts again—I'll send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will be review. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Eternal, have spoken.

To a nation that doesn't pay attention to God anymore, to a nation that does what it wants to do, to a nation that doesn't pay attention to even the words of the Bible and the very sound physical words of the Bible, that could prevent so many of the things that we have today.

So if we look at the coronavirus, if we look at AIDS, if we look at Ebola, if we look at some of the diseases that are plaguing the world or have plagued the world, and, you know, I'm not here to say the coronavirus is the virus that's going to end all viruses, but there will be a virus that occurs and something that will happen that is going to knock out a good number of humanity.

But as these things happen, what should they be telling us? They should be showing us what the possibilities are, where these things come from. When God says, you know, sends these little warnings to us, this is what could happen, this is what's happening, and then we ask ourselves, why is it happening?

Is God just sending these plagues on people because he's angry? The answer is no. People are doing it to themselves. Right? Let's go back to Exodus. Exodus 15.

Exodus 15.

As God is bringing Israel out of Egypt, and Egypt was a society that was known for eating anything that moved, and they had a lot of diseases. We've talked in a home Bible study a few years ago about how their cancers were rampant, inflammation was rampant, all the things that we have today, they were rampant in Egypt. Back then, we were experiencing the same type of diseases today. As God brings Israel out of Egypt, he says to them in verse 26, he says, If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, if you give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.

If you do what I say, if you follow what is in my word, if you follow what I teach you, none of these things that you experience in Egypt will happen to you.

So if people weren't eating fruit bats, if people weren't eating snakes, if people weren't eating ape meat, and bush meat as they call it, would any of these diseases have occurred?

And why do people eat those things? Because they would disregard what their Creator said to do in his very word, if they would just listen to what God said, none of these things would happen.

So go to Leviticus. Leviticus 11, a chapter you're all very familiar with.

When you do your Bible reading, you might come to Leviticus 11 and think, yeah, I know all this, so I don't have to read through it.

But in Leviticus 11, God gives the law of clean and unclean meats, or impure meats, and he's pretty clear to humanity, I created this, and I'm saying, you can eat this, don't eat that.

Not all animals were meant for food. Let's just read through a few verses here in Leviticus 11.

The eternal spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth.

Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud, that you may eat.

And if you want to get specific about it, God says, you know, he goes into detail.

Nevertheless, these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud, or those that have cloven hooves.

The camel, because it chews the cud, but doesn't have cloven hooves, it's unclean to you.

The hot rock irax, because it chews the cud, but it doesn't have cloven hooves, it's unclean to you.

You don't have to worry about that, I mean, and or, I mean, if it has to have both.

Don't eat the hair, because it chews the cud, but doesn't have cloven hooves, it's unclean to you.

And don't eat the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, it's unclean to you.

Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch, they are unclean to you.

He makes it very clear. He makes it very clear.

Yet so many in the world would say, well, that was just for that ancient people. We don't have to regard any of that anymore, just we can eat whatever we want. Any animal is good for food, we'll kill whatever it is, we'll ship it off. People say, what a delicacy! How exciting is this to eat something I've never eaten before?

If they would just listen to God, there'd be no coronavirus, there'd be no SARS, there'd be no Ebola, there'd be no AIDS.

People would just listen to God, what He had to say. He goes on and He says the same things about the fish in the sea. He says, only if it has fins and scales, the rest of the stuff that's in the sea, don't eat it! It's bad for you, if you eat it, not good things can happen, because it wasn't designed for human consumption. And yet people counted delicacies, I'll eat anything that moves in the water because it tastes so good, it's such a delicacy and I can't wait to have it.

He says in verse 11, those are an abomination to you. Don't eat their flesh, regard their carcasses as an abomination.

He goes through and He says in verse 13, beginning there, He talks about the birds. The birds to eat and He lists the birds. Don't eat these birds. They're not fit for human consumption. Don't do that. In verse 21, He says there are a few of these flying insects that you can eat, that have, in verse 21, jointed legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth, eat, you can eat the locust, you can eat the destroying locust, you can eat the grasshopper.

But all the others don't eat. They're an abomination to you. They can't hurt.

He goes down and He talks about. He comes down. Let's drop down to verse 29.

These are unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth. The mole, the mouse, the large lizard after its kind, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the sand reptile, the sand lizard, the chameleon. We can add to that of the things that people eat today. You can talk about fruit bats. You can add all these things in here that clearly are unclean for human consumption. He says these are unclean to you among all the creep, whoever touches them when they're dead shall be unclean until evening.

Down to verse 40. I guess 41. Verse 41, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth shall be an abomination. It shall not be eaten. Whatever crawls on its belly, whatever goes on all fours, whatever has many feet among all creeping things that creep on the earth, these you shall not eat, for they are an abomination.

Don't eat these things. He doesn't leave anything, you know, to doubt. It's okay to eat these. It's not okay to eat these other animals. So if you eat these other animals, you're pretty much rolling the dice. You eat a fruit bat? Who knows what will happen? You eat a snake? Who knows what will happen? You eat a gorilla? Who knows what will happen? You have no idea what's lurking in those meats. And yet the world, they have the same Bible we have, but these civilizations have never regarded God. They've never paid attention to Him. They don't even know who Christ is in many cases. But God gave His instructions to humanity if they would just have listened, if they would just have listened, none of these things that we have today, and the same thing applies to us in this country, if we would just listen to God, if we would just obey His statutes and apply the principles into how we live, none of these things, none of these things that befall us would.

If you read through chapter 11, I might encourage you to read through chapter 11. You'll see, He'll even talk about the vessels that these foods come into. If you have an unclean animal in this vessel, He says, just throw it out. Don't let it contaminate it. Just don't have anything that's there that could create the problem that you don't want to have of this thing lingering in what your vessel is.

So we have a law of unclean and clean meats. We're not regarding it in China, not regarding it in Africa, not regarding it in America, not regarding it in Britain, and so these things pop up.

So these things pop up. And so the scramble is on to control it by any way as possible. And there are ways to control it that are also in the Bible, and mankind has learned some of that. Let's look at a few of them.

You could take the time to read through Leviticus 12, 13, 14, 15, see what God says in detail about these things, including mildew and mold and the things that are even among us that we deal with today, and how He dealt with it back then. Because He was explicit in teaching Israel how to deal with these health issues, these physical things. Because the Bible, while it shows us the spiritual aspects of life, He teaches us how to live physically as well.

And much of that is contained back there in the Old Testament. Let's look at Exodus here. Go back to the book of Exodus, and Exodus 30.

Again, as God is teaching Israel how to worship Him, and He goes through extensive education on keeping the Sabbath day, keeping the Holy Days. And as He gets into the tabernacle, where He is going to dwell among the people, He gives them specific instructions on how to fashion the instruments that they will be fashioning. He leaves nothing to the imagination there. He talks about it all. He even talks about what Aaron and his sons will wear as they go into the tabernacle, or the temple, the tabernacle back in ancient times.

What they should wear and what they should do. Here in chapter 31, verse 17, I guess it's chapter 30, I'm sorry, chapter 30, and verse 17.

As part of the tabernacle, says God spoke to Moses, saying, Make a laver of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing. Put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, and put water on it. For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. So there in the tabernacles, they were going about the service to God, and there were countless animals that were sacrificed day in and day out, and there they were among the blood.

You can imagine the scene that was there as these animals were sacrificed. They've got this basin, and God says, As you're working with this stuff, wash your hands, wash your feet in water from it. When they go into the tabernacle, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by the fire of the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die. Lest they die. Now, God could well mean there, you know what? If they don't, I could just take their life right there. Like the young man who offered profane fire, right? He just died when he offered profane fire. God could mean that, or he might be saying, you know what? It is a health standard for you to wash because you have no idea what you're going to pick up from this. You may die if you don't follow what I'm saying. If you're not meticulous about what you're cleaning and washing your hands and washing your feet as you deal with all the stuff you're going to deal with every day, it could well be your death. He might mean the first, he might mean the second. Verse 21, he repeats it again, so as they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them, to him and his descendants, throughout their generations. And so you see, God, he talks about the water of purification in numbers. And as someone who's unclean, there is a mixture that they went through and a process they went through for the water of purification so they would be clean.

Some of the people on the Internet say, when you look at what God instructed the Israelites to do for this water purification, it stands them out to what we do to create lie today. And lie we know is a very good cleaning agent. Did God give the recipe for lie? He talks about lie and soap and Jeremiah too. Job talks about it. Did God give the cleaning agents back then?

May well have. He didn't leave anything to chance. He told man what to do. But here we see a significant cleanse. Washing your hands, washing your feet, being clean. Now the Jews know the Bible, right? The Jews took this to heart. You remember in Matthew 15 when they took Christ to task because he didn't wash the way they wanted him to wash. He washed his hands before he ate, but he didn't wash all the way up to his elbows. They had a way of taking things and making it even a little more because they were meticulous about washing. They were clean. They listened to these things that God said and they applied them into their lives. Sometimes they took them too far, but the concept is they listened to what God said and they built them into their lives. Now there's another thing back here in Numbers, Numbers 5. Among the many things, I'm just going to highlight a few here to tie into some of the articles that I read before. In Numbers 5, we see another thing that God commanded, I guess, if we could use that word, Israel to do when they had someone who had a sickness. A serious sickness or even something that we might consider not so serious as sickness.

In Numbers 5 and verse 1, it says, The eternal spoke to Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper... Well, that's a serious disease, right? Every leper. We know that lepers, I mean, they had to even say, unclean, unclean. They couldn't come close. They couldn't come close to anyone. They put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge, and he talks about all these discharges back in Leviticus 13, 14, 15, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. You know what? Keep out of the camp for a while. See what happens. See if they get sick. See what it is that we're dealing with here before you let them among the population and they infect everyone else. Put them out of the camp, he says. Call that today, what, quarantine, right? Quarantine them. Set them aside. See what happens. You shall put out both male and female. You shall put them outside the camp that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell.

And the children of Israel did so. They put them outside the camp, just as God told Moses. They did. And so they employed exactly what God told them to do. If you've got someone who's sick, you've got someone who's unclean, you've got these things going on, separate them. See what's going on. Don't let it just go there and infect everyone else. So there are sound principles, and you can read as you read through, you know, the principles of hygiene, that God sold Israel, what to do on this and that and whatever. I won't go into all the details. You can look all that up. He gave those all. But you know what? By and large, the world didn't do any of it. And so in the Middle Ages, or whatever, you had all this sickness that was going on. You had the bubonic plague that was going on. The Bible was there. You know, Israel was supposed to be the model nation. If they had done what they said and followed God implicitly, the rest of the world might have looked at them and said, Oh, this is how to live life. Look what's good with these people. They seem to know what's going on. We'll follow their God. But Israel didn't do everything. They did keep some of the health laws. And today, you know, most of the world, a lot of the world has the United States and, you know, the Israelite nations to thank for the hygienic, the hygiene that we have.

But let me read to you from something about the bubonic plague, keeping these things in mind here. From the same articles I read before talking about quarantine and the black plague, the author says this. He says, Quarantines could have helped limit the spread of this deadly disease, but except for the city of Dubovnik in Croatia, they were not used.

So back in the black plague when 25, 50, 75 million people died, if someone had been paying attention to quarantine and setting this aside, a lot of those lives could have been spared, but they didn't do it. But this one city in Croatia, however, they knew about it, they did practice quarantine. And as people wanted to come in, they had a 40-day isolation period before they would allow anyone to enter into the city.

They kept their rates of death low. And from that is where we get the word quarantine. It's an Italian word meaning 40 days. So someone practiced it. If someone in that city said, you know, let's do this, I saw somewhere along the line these people that would quarantine people when they were sick before we let people come to our midst. Let's see if they have this disease so that we're not infecting our entire population. Good for them that they did that.

Another group that didn't experience, in most cases, the high death rates that other people did were the Jews. It says this. It says Jewish populations, meanwhile, were frequently targeted as scapegoats during the time of the bubonic plague. It's interesting that he leads with that. In some places, they were accused of poisoning the water because their mortality rates were often significantly lower.

We go into these communities. These people aren't dying in the same numbers and the same percentage as we are. The thought was they must be causing it. The Jews did this. They're poisoning our water. Some believed it was poison air, and somehow they were poisoning the air. So we'll blame the Jews because they're not dying in the same numbers we are. It's their fault we're dying.

Now, that wasn't the reason why, as he goes on to say here, their mortality rates were often significantly lower, something historians have since attributed to better hygiene. Better hygiene. They were following some of the principles that God had put in the Bible. I'll wash my hands. I'll wash my feet. I'll quarantine. If we see someone doing this, I'll put into practice some of the things that we know as we do the Bible, as we know the Bible, and they did it. And there's still enough of them died, but not to the same extent. You know, there's a lesson for us in there. There's a lesson that if we would, as I said before, if we would just follow what God had to say, life would be so much better. Unfortunately for the world today, even with the coronavirus as we look at that and what it can mean in relation to what eventually will the pale horse that rides, so much we can learn. But the world discounts it all. The Bible isn't important to them. We don't need Leviticus 11. We don't need Leviticus 13, 14, 15. We don't need Numbers 5. No, they do know the principles of quarantine and washing today. Those of you who are in health care, you know that every time you see a patient, you're supposed to wash your hands. You go to the dentist. They should be washing their hands every time they see you. Those things are implemented here in this country. We have quarantine. That's why you see the people in Riverside. They're there for 14 days now. That's why you have the cruise ship that had been detained until they could see what was going on. That's why you have the whole city of Wuhan that's sitting there, basically, with nothing going on in it, as they keep the people at bay to see what's going on. Today we know some of those things. They're in the Bible. People had always followed them.

But sometime in the future, there may be a virus that gets out of hand because systems have been broken down and things aren't the way they are today. People will be scrambling. But you know, as the world doesn't know these things, you and I need to know these things. Because it'll be you and I who are in the millennium are teaching people of these things. Not only the spiritual things of life, but the physical things of life. There'll still be wild animals in the kingdom. They may still have those viruses, and they still will not be able to be eaten. Even though God may take the violent nature out of them, people will still be eating, if they eat meat at all, clean animals, not any animal that's on earth. They'll be teaching. We'll be teaching about quarantine and washing and those things because people will get sick. But you know, as people practice the way of God, diseases will disappear. Just like they would have disappeared for Egypt. Just like they would have disappeared for us.

Today, in the United States and all the countries of the world, we have our gods, right? We have our gods of military. We have our gods of economy. We have our gods of healthcare. When God, one of the lessons of the Passover season that we enter into, is that God exacted judgment on all of those gods. So that Pharaoh and the children of Israel would know he is God.

One day, the world will know God is God. Not the military, not the economy, not the healthcare system. It's him who heals. It's him who protects. It's him who will lead us through the times of life. The Bible is truth. The Bible gives us the answers that we need to the physical parts of life as well as the spiritual aspects of life.

The world would do well to learn it. We would do well to learn it. And as things happen, and whenever the fourth horse, this pale horse, and whatever virus or wherever it comes from, in the future comes, that in combination with the other four brings havoc on a world and destroys civilization as we know it today, you know, we could find ourselves in the midst of it and wonder what is going on. But there's a very reassuring psalm back in Psalm 91.

Many of you know Psalm 91. I've heard many people say when they're down, they turn to Psalm 91. But in light of everything we've talked today, in light of a coronavirus, that, you know, baby going nowhere, in light of what could happen in the future, in light of a fourth horse, a pale horse, what could happen down the road, let's read through Psalm 91 and see what God says to those who follow Him. Psalm 91, verse 1, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, He who knows God intimately, He who knows His Word, He who understands His Word, He who follows Him implicitly, Who who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. He is my God in Him I will trust. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, the traps that may be set up for you as people set out to do that. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the perilous pestilence, the things that could befall the earth. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth, His Word, the Word that we learn, the Word that we apply, the Word that we're supposed to be living by every single word of, as we delve into it and understand it and importantly apply it into our lives, His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor shall you be afraid of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, whether it's by warfare, whether it's by famine, whether it's by pestilence, as these diseases crop up and a thousand may die, ten thousand at your right side, but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked, those who don't pay attention to God, those who choose to look the other way and do what's right in their own eyes, and what they want to do as opposed to what they should do. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil will befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. They won't harm you. Because he has set his love upon me, therefore, this is God speaking, because he has set his love upon me, I could say because you have set his love upon God, therefore God will deliver him. I will set him on high because he has known my name. He shall call on me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.

So as we see events around the world and as we see more viruses come about, remember that pale horse. Importantly remember God and through our lives we need to be learning to trust and rely on him implicitly.