Sermon Tone Analysis

March 26, 2012

By: John Barnett

Read, print, and listen to this resource on our website www.DiscoverTheBook.org

Jesus sat on the olive tree covered slopes of the Mt. of Olives, and gave His disciples a private briefing of the End of Days for Planet earth.

In the shortest and yet most complete summary He describes life from His 1st Advent through to His 2nd.

That sermon called by theologians the “Olivet Discourse” is again our focus, as we open to Matthew 24:7.

Tonight we hear Jesus is describing another element of what the Earth would be like at His Coming.

Each of the other six elements we have studied, that are given in God's Word (Global: Travel, Knowledge Explosion, Disaster Awareness, Communications, Commerce, and Apostasy) are actually trends that become full blown, global realities during what is known in God's Word the Bible as the End of Days.

After examining the first six of these ten biggest trends, that are clearly described in the Scriptures, we have come to the seventh, which may be described as either “Global Pestilences”, or “Global Bio-Terrorism”, or “Global Plagues”.

Listen to Christ's ominous warning:

Matthew 24:7 /"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places."/

*Is Bio-Terrorism Rearing its Ugly Head?*

Amazingly in January of 2009, as people all over the world were reeling from bank collapses, job losses, economic quakes, and a general financial uncertainty across all borders: we continued to move at warp speed towards the horrific reality of Global Pestilences.

While most of the world’s attention and news services have been glued to the continuing financial meltdown and swindles that have taken billions from common working people and trillions from financial markets—one item has passed almost everyone by.

In a lonely terror training camp, a small group of terrorists stationed in North Africa, may have proved last month that the most feared scourge of modern civilization may be in the process of becoming weaponized.

Billions of pathogens aimed at human destruction, called the Black Death, await the bidding of their handlers.

Germ warfare is very lethal.

In a matter of a few hours 40 Al-Qaeda fighters were dead.

They may have been experimenting with, or experimented on, by the Plague, the pestilence, or as history calls it—the Black Death.

Black Death comes in various forms and was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history when it struck in the 1340s killing 75 million people across North Africa, Asia and Europe.

Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas.

Symptoms include painful boils in the groin, neck and armpits.

In Pneumonic Plague, airborn bacteria spread like flu.

Without medication it can be deadly.

Though not practiced enough to be accurate, they did manage to release legions of deadly pathogens.

Though poorly aimed, soon the pestilence weapon will be at the command of evil masters.

We know that they will finally perfect bio-warfare, because John the Apostle watched them do it in Revelation 6.

As we read Christ's words in Matthew 24 think germ warfare, think of the chilling description that John gave us.

Christ's predictions of Matthew 24 are seen by John on Patmos, and written down for us by the Spirit of God.

*THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIBULATION*

(Matt.

24:4–14)

The events described in this section are “the beginning of birth-pangs” (Matt.

24:8).

The image of a woman in travail is a picture of the Tribulation period (Isa.

13:6–11; 1 Thes.

5:5).

Let’s just review just the elements captured in Christ's description of the beginning of this period.

1. *Global Apostasy* (vv.

4–5).

The rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:1–2 is the Antichrist, that final world dictator who will lead the nations astray.

He is surrounded by religious deception and desires to be worshipped in place of the True God, hence the name anti (in place of or against) Christ.

Daniel exposes that he begins his career as a peacemaker, signing a covenant with Israel to protect her from her enemies (Dan.

9:27).

2. *Global Warfare* (v. 6).

Wars are not a sign of the end.

There have always been wars in the world, and will be until the very end.

Wars of themselves do not announce the end of the age or the coming of the Lord.

But amplified, accelerated, global warfare is seen here as Revelation describes.

3. *Global Famines* (v.

7a).

War and famine usually go together.

Revelation 6:6 suggests terribly high prices for staple foods, for a “penny” was a day’s wages.

4. *Global Epidemics* (vv.

7b-8).

From all the extra insights of Revelation 6-16 we see that earthquakes may help to create famines; but there seems to be some form of bio-terror that helps to cause epidemics that take many lives.

5. *Global Persecutions* (v.

9).

Christians have always been hated by the world, but here we have an acceleration of persecutions and murders.

All nations will be involved.

This certainly was not true in the history of the early church.

6. *Global Chaos* (vv.

10–13).

Lawlessness will abound (Matt.

24:12), not even governments will be able to keep the peace.

7. *Global Evangelism* (v.

14).

Revelation 7:1–8 portrays God choosing and sealing 144,000 Jewish evangelists who carry the kingdom message to the ends of the earth.

By media today, by the 144,000 then, plus the angel of Rev. 14—all the Earth is exposed to the Gospel.

As we linger on the central point of Matthew 24:7, we see “pestilence”, plagues, disaster, death, and disease are going global and no one is ever prepared for a plgue.

Far more deadly and volatile than the Black Plagues of the past are the avian or bird flus of today.

On January 18th, 2009, A 27-year-old woman from eastern China has died of bird flu, Chinese authorities said, making her the second person to die this year from the deadly virus.

Two tests on the woman were positive for H5N1 avian influenza, said the ministry, which did not say how she might have contracted the virus.

Tonight a menacing plague is stalking our planet .

Quietly in farms and homes across Asia a global, deadly, unstoppable influenza pestilence is mutating, strengthening—and trying to find a way out.

Last time it got out almost four million people died in 1964.

The time before that almost eighty million died in 1918.

In fact, 1918 was the greatest disaster America has ever had with almost a million dying in just a few weeks time.

*The Big Picture of Life and Death*

Now to get this all in perspective, think of the big picture of planet earth.

Almost five million people die each month on earth anyway—but Jesus warned of something bigger, something frightful.

He said that a plague, a pestilence, a wall of death is going to stalk the entire planet.

He said that if these catastrophic events didn’t stop they would wipe out all human life.

Listen to Jesus as we open again to Luke 21:11 where we see that one of the signs of His Coming is when we see the onslaught of global pestilences.

Luke 21:11 /"And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven."/

There have always been diseases, plagues, and pestilences—but never have they been global until the advent of Global Travel.

Think about it—most carriers of a plague would die before they got very far up until the 19th century with steam engines.

Then with air travel in the 20th century—it is now possible to harbor a plague or pestilence, board a flight and land before you get to the final stages and thus expose everyone around you to that plague.

Look at what Jesus also said in the same context.

Mark and Matthew capture this same message.

Only they also record that Jesus said something ominous about how powerful these pestilences will be.

Mark 13:20 /"And unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake, whom He chose, He shortened the days."/

Matthew 24:22 /"And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened."/

Remember the ominous proportion of this future pestilence being an extinction level event, and remembering the nearly self-limiting nature of ancient travel speeds—no one could live long enough to spread these plagues globally until the 20th century.

Listen to an article from the New Yorker Magazine :

" The vicious avian flu that has killed dozens of people in Vietnam, Thailand, and elsewhere in the region has caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of animals in nearly a dozen Asian countries in the past two years and could kill millions of people if it becomes capable of spreading efficiently among humans.

No such virus has ever spread so quickly over such a wide geographical area, and, unlike most viruses, this one has already affected a more diverse group than any other type of flu, and it has killed many animals previously thought to be resistant."

One farmer whose chickens were killed by the virus says,

"It's so hard to watch.

One day, they're all alive and healthy-the vets were here the week before to check them-and the next day they're dying by the thousand.

It happened so quickly.

They started shivering, thousands of them at once.

And then they started to fall.

Every one of them.

They just fell over, dead."

Scott Dowell, the director of the Centers for Disease Control's Thailand office, tells Specter,

"The world just has no idea what it's going to see if this thing comes.