Chapter Sixteen/Four Horsemen at the Gallop! - A Pale Horse and Its Rider - Continue

 Of current importance here is "deadly plague." Following in the wake of the ravages of World War I, the Spanish flu reaped over 20 million human lives in just a few months of 1918-1919. The only territory on earth to escape this scourge was the small island of St. Helena. in other places where the population was decimated, funeral pyres were lit to burn the piles of bodies. And today there is the incidence of heart disease and cancer, much of which is caused by tobacco pollution. In what has been described as "the ugly decade" of the 1980's, a way of life that is lawless by Bible standards has added the scourge of AIDS to the "deadly plague." At the time of this writing, all who contract this disease and die, and die, and it is estimated that in the United States alone 27,000 will be sick with AIDS by 1991; millions appear to be doomed in Africa. How thankful Jehovah's people are that the wise counsel of his Word keeps them away from fornication and misuse of blood, through which so many diseases are transmitted today! - ACTS 15:28, 29; Compare 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-11. 

John's vision mentions wild beasts as a fourth cause of timely death. Indeed, the four things featured by the opening of the fourth seal-warfare, famine, disease, and wild beasts-were in ancient times viewed as predominant causes of untimely death. So, they would foreshadow all causes of untimely death today. It is just as Jehovah warned Israel: ""So, too, it will be when there will my four injurious acts of judgment-sword and famine-that I shall actually send upon Jerusalem in order to cut off from it earthling man and domestic animal." - EZKIEL 14:21.

Next time: Chapter Sixteen/Four Horsemen at the Gallop! - The Pale Horse and Its Rider - Continue

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