War, earthquakes – what’s next, pestilence?

When my friend, Yossi, who lives in the southern town of Arad received an early-morning phone warning signal and text, he naturally assumed that we were about to be attacked by Iran.

After all, the last thing we heard, before retiring for the night, was that an attack was imminent over the next 24 hours.  So why wouldn’t his instinct be to brace himself for incoming rockets?

Yet, much to the surprise of all, that warning signal was to advise of an earthquake which had been felt mostly in the south, although texts went out to the entire country.  

Measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scale, Israelis, for years, have been waiting for the “big one,” threatening to devastate many communities whose older sections are comprised of homes and apartment buildings, constructed prior to the new standards which were instituted in the 1980s, ensuring that they could withstand an earthquake. 

So many of those antiquated structures, which have visible cracks and fissures on their outward surfaces, would easily be the first to crumble, leaving an estimated couple of million residents homeless. 

According to a 2022 Times of Israel report, a million Israeli homes could be at risk of collapse in the event of an earthquake as a result of 60% of properties not being adequately safe. The frightening news is that “more than half of Israeli citizens live in a building not properly protected.”

The magnitude of such a widescale tragedy, as this, could completely devastate the Jewish homeland if huge tremors were to shake the region.  When you think about it, the irony is that being vulnerable to war could end up being dwarfed by the impending threat of a catastrophic earthquake.

Which leads everyone to ask the question – war, earthquakes – what’s next, pestilence?  

These types of calamitous and destructive occurrences, are usually associated with apocalyptic events, as foretold in the scriptures, so what is the greater meaning in all of this?

While war and earthquakes might presently be happening in this part of the world, there is no doubt that the “pestilence,” better defined as anything from plagues to disease to virulent and deadly disaster, is a real phenomenon which is overtaking every part of the world.

As we witness the rage, hatred and spirit of murder, in the hearts of so many, who would argue that a sort of lethal pestilence has not already begun to spread, making us realize that each of us are now vulnerable to the unleashing of demonic activity which has suddenly emerged?

It is this type of frightening outbreak which makes ordinary sickness look like child’s play. Because whether you’re watching the events unfolding in American cities, where massive fraud and deadly violence is being employed by hard-core criminals or just trying to survive the antisemitic attacks of Europe, the plague of pestilence has surely been unleashed.

This fast-spreading disease, overtaking whole communities, is no different than the Bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, which ravaged the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa during the 14th century.

In its wake, it was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 50 million people, a natural disaster of seismic proportions. But rather than a physical bacteria or germ, infecting the human body, this present pestilence has infected the human heart – causing its rot and decay to carry out a war against all things good and righteous.

Consequently, the level of lying, fraud, theft, murder, rape, rampage, greed and control has invaded society in ways that we are not even able to comprehend. When it seems too hard to watch the evening news, because we are no longer able to take in the profound depth of evil, which is enfolding our planet, that is when we know that something is very wrong.

What has happened to the most nurturing of our species – women, whose basic instinct is to nurture, create warmth, surround loved ones with tenderness and great affection? Instead, we are shocked to see them behind the wheels of cars, running over law enforcement who are attempting to remove hardened criminal illegals from continuing to inflict carnage on more victims.

Who could have predicted that women would be at the forefront of a battle to protect child rapists and murderous ghouls? If that does not qualify as a pestilence which has metastasized into the heart and soul of these women, then what does? Once devoted to being mothers and wives, they have replaced those virtuous and satisfying roles for ones which have stripped them of a happy and fulfilling future. 

At the same time, young men have been told that they are worthless, unwanted by girls who have replaced them with the company of social media and other meaningless frivolities.  

At best, they serve as decorations of the fading memory of manhood. Feeling unappreciated and useless, it’s no wonder that some have turned to violence, acting out their frustrations by shooting up defenseless students at their schools.

Children, too, have lost their innocence, being exposed to the vulgarity and ugliness of life at their tender ages. Sexually groomed, as early as preschool, they are the new prey for amoral and corrupt thugs who are priming them to lose their purity as soon as possible. Is that not another brand of pestilence?

It breaks our hearts to see what has become of humanity as we are forced to confront the filth and excrement of evil which has overtaken our existence. Although it feels like a losing battle, we cannot afford to think that way.

There is no better time, than the present, to invoke divine help from the God who laid out two choices for His creation – the blessing or the curse. In Deuteronomy 30 (part of the five books of Moses, comprising the Torah), the Almighty set life and death before us, encouraging us to choose life. 

That is only possible when we walk according to His prescribed way. Everything else leads to the latter – maybe not initially, but, certainly, eventually.

War, earthquakes and pestilence are the ensuing results and devastating outcomes of what follows when we dare to go it alone, thinking that we can replicate the blessing on our own. Spoiler alert: We can’t! And today’s mess is ample evidence that life without God is only leading us to our complete demise! Time to reverse course!