04/01/2001 - The Prophetic Implications of Mad Cow and Hoof and Mouth Disease
Vince Aquilino
We probably all heard of the Foot and Mouth disease that has Europe and other nations in a panic. Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is an acute, highly contagious infection of cloven hooved animals. The disease is highly contagious and may spread over great distances with the movement of infected or contaminated animals, products, objects, and people.
Animals are at risk, however, people can be infected through skin wounds or the oral mucos by handling diseased stock, the virus in the laboratory, or by drinking infected milk, but not by eating meat from infected animals. The human infection is temporary and mild and therefore FMD is not considered a public health problem.
The potential for FMD to destroy animals is high and has already led to the killing of millions (including Mad Cow Disease) of cattle and other animals to stop the spread of the disease. The potential for this disease to cause famine should not be underestimated. If it rages out of control, it will be just one more sign of the soon return of Jesus Christ as Jesus tells us that famine will preceed His return to planet earth: " There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven." (Luke 21:11)
HMD is spreading and several countries are in a panic. This foot-and-mouth disease outbreak is just the latest health crisis to hit agriculture in England and Europe who are still dealing with Mad Cow disease, which also started in England and has killed more than 80 people in recent years. Beef sales across the continent that were off dramatically because of Mad Cow fears have been devastated by this latest crisis.
European nations have slaughtered tens of thousands of imported British livestock in a feverish effort to prevent further spread. "Mad Cow" disease, which broke out in Great Britain in 1996, cost the nation $6 billion, required the slaughter 4 million cattle, and infected 90 humans (foot-and-mouth disease does not infect people).
Britain's current foot-and-mouth epidemic is projected to possibly get 10 times worse according to the British government's chief scientist who warned that half the country's livestock could be lost. As the number of confirmed outbreaks has now topped 500, Professor David King said urgent action must be taken to stop the disease spiraling out of control. The British government's chief scientist said that in "a worst case scenario,'' foot-and-mouth disease could result in the loss of half the country's 62 million livestock.
On March 26,2001, it was reported that the British army had prepared mass graves at an abandoned airfield in northern England to bury as many as 500,000 carcasses of animals that have been or will be slaughtered in an attempt to bring the nation's foot-and-mouth epidemic under control. The highly infectious disease, which government officials admitted is out of control. Brig. Alex Birtwhistle, heading up the army operation, said, "the disinfectant procedures will go into effect" and eventually the site will be sealed off. "In the first part of the cull," said Birtwhistle, "we have about 500,000 sheep to take out of farms and bring to be slaughtered in the most humane way. It is an apocalyptic task. This is a mass problem."
Draconian measures have failed to stop foot-and-mouth crossing borders into Ireland, France and the Netherlands and countries are banning the import of European beef to contain the infection. Cases have now been discovered in Scotland, France, the former Soviet State of Kyrgyzstan, Holland, Argentina, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Mongolia.
In the United States, U.S. Agriculture Department spokesman Kevin Herglotz told reporters that four pigs suspected of the disease were quarantined at a farm in Robersonville, in eastern North Carolina and were awaiting test results. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has won a round in its effort to eradicate a flock of sheep in Vermont that it fears may carry a form of mad cow disease. Fear of an outbreak of Mad Cow disease pervades the U.S. agricultural department, accounting for its actions. The government's senior veterinarian, Linda Detwiler, said that 2 positive tests on the animals could not differentiate between a version of mad cow disease and a related sheep disease called scrapie and it would take at least 2 years to determine which type of infection it is. Scrapie is another member of the family of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, as is bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. In both diseases, infected animals waste away and die. But scrapie has no known human variant, while mad cow disease has caused the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, afflicting nearly 100 people in Europe. In the western US especially, there have been increasing cases of this family of disease among Elk, Deer, and Sheep. For 2 years the sheep in Vermont, which are used to make cheese, have been under a cloud.
In India, two elephants New Delhi, have died of foot-and-mouth disease after an outbreak of the virus surfaced in the country. The illness is extremely painful for elephants because it causes their foot pads to fall off, leaving them unable to walk Conservationists now fear that the world's largest concentration of one-horned rhinos, as well as deer and other wildlife species are threatened by the outbreak. D.N. Singh, director of the Kaziranga National Park, said thousands of cattle near the wildlife sanctuary posed a threat to the huge beasts. The population of one-horned rhinos in the park is rapidly dwindling. Wildlife conservationists in Assam are organizing vaccination camps to create a ring of immunity around the national parks and wildlife reserves.
Although conspiracy theorists say this epidemic is blown out of proportion to usher in the New World Order, the fact is that cattle and other animals on which we depend on for survival are being destroyed. Beyond the obvious prophecies of famine before Jesus' return, what else does the Bible say about this epidemic:
DEU 28:15 "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 "Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
17 "Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18 "Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
19 "Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 "The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
21 "The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess.
22 "The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.
23 "And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron.
24 "The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 "Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away.
27 "The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.
28 "The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart.
30 "You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.
31 "Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them.
Deuteronomy 28 speaks of the judgement of God upon a nation or people that does not carefully follow His commands. As part of that judgment, Deut 28 tells us that our animals will be slaughtered and we will not eat of them -- exactly what is happening as a result of Mad Cow and now the HMD epidemic. Although God is long suffering not willing that any should perish, God is not mocked and we will reap what we sow. We have sown to the wind and now we will reap the whirlwind as new diseases and old diseases once thought to be extinct are starting to sweep the globe. God is speaking and calling for repentance. Will you repent before it is too late?
Choose this day whom you shall serve. Jesus said: "If you love Me, keep my commands." Do you love the Lord?
The Return of the Lord grows closer day by day. Choose this day whom you will serve, for no man may serve two masters. You are either hot or cold and if lukewarm, the Lord will spew you out of His mouth. Are you yearning for His return? Are your lamps filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit as a witness to a lost and dying world or will you be left behind only to ultimately be denied access to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and eternity in heaven.
Your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. Therefore, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without murmuring and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
"Put off everything that easily entangles, forgive that your Father in heaven may forgive you, and love your neighbor as your self. "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
(John 13:35)Whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Purify yourselves daily by the reading of the Word. Jesus is returning for a Holy and Spotless Church. ``Today is the day of salvation for many who are perishing; their tomorrow shall not see my return in glory to judge the living and the dead. Today is the day of their salvation." Don't delay. Time is short. You have no guarantee that you will even see tomorrow. If you die without receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your eternal destiny is fixed.
``It is now the hour to awake from sleep, for our salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith.'' (Rom 13:11)
As we see the signs of His return drawing close, what manner of holy life should we be living? Remember that Jesus is returning for a Holy and Spotless Bride. Whether His return is today or 10 years from now is irrelevant since eternity is only a heart beat away for any of us. So choose this day whom you will serve, ask the Holy Spirit to search you to see if there be any iniquity in you, and then call upon Jesus your Deliverer. He is faithful for forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unfaithfulness.
"Watch and pray, therefore, that you would be counted worthy to escape the judgment that is coming upon the earth and be able to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36).
Maranatha!
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