| HIGHLIGHTS OF DAWN | September 2002 |
The Sentence Of Death
WHEN GOD CREATED man and set him in the Garden of Eden, he was perfect. “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) There were no health problems, unhealthy microbes, sickness, or diseases. When father Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, the instructions were very simple. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:16,17)
ADAM’S DISOBEDIENCE
As it turned out, Adam disobeyed God and the sentence of death was pronounced upon him and his progeny. Furthermore, the ground was cursed as God said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen. 3:17-19) This has been the all too familiar cycle observed by all mankind as death comes and the body is buried to return to the ground.
The dying sentence has often been hastened by the advent of disease. In the early stages of man’s history little was known about disease and how to cope with it. God afflicted Israel with plagues for wrongdoing. One such plague is recorded in Numbers 25 which was stayed (stopped) by the Lord after 24,000 had died. (Num. 25:9) Another plague killed 14,700 people in addition to those who died because of Korah’s rebellion. (Num. 16:46-50) Also, 70,000 died in 3 days of pestilence when the Lord punished King David for numbering the people.—II Sam. 24:10-25
In later years of man’s history some well-known plagues were experienced by the people and recorded. The Black Death plague of the fourteenth century wiped out about a fourth of Europe’s population in just four years—a tidal wave of death almost unimaginable today. Its cause was unknown. As recently as 1918-19 the great global influenza pandemic left at least 20 million dead. By comparison, World War I, fought between 1914 and 1918, claimed 8.5 million casualties.
THE BLESSING OF INCREASED KNOWLEDGE
As mankind approached the time of the end of this present evil world, the Lord permitted knowledge and learning to increase as prophesied by Daniel. (ch. 12:1-4) This has enabled man to determine the cause of many diseases and to find ways of eliminating and controlling them. The progress has been so remarkable that it has led many brethren to believe that they were observing restitution blessings. The picture is not that rosy anymore. In a recent article published in the February, 2002, issue of the National Geographic Magazine entitled “War on Disease,” the caption says “Just a few years ago medicine seemed to be winning the fight against disease. But now old adversaries are coming back and new infections are emerging, exposing us all to serious, sometimes unexpected, threats.” The article begins by telling how Florida’s chief epidemiologist was investigating the West Nile virus source. The article said:
A REVERSAL IN THE WAR ON DISEASE
“The recent and wholly unanticipated eruption of West Nile fever in the United States has been a sobering experience for public health officials, who estimate the virus has already infected tens of thousands of Americans, sickening more than 2,000 and killing about a dozen. Far more sobering, however, is that West Nile pales in comparison with the many more ferocious infectious diseases—including those delivered intentionally by terrorists—emerging and reemerging around the globe.
“Ebola is one familiar example, though that virus, it turns out, is too deadly for its own good; it kills its human victims so fast it has little opportunity to transfer from person to person and so is unlikely ever to grow into full-fledged pandemic. But other ailments—some famous, some obscure—pose increasing serious hazards. The mosquito-borne viruses that cause fatal Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever and its sister disease, Yellow Fever—both supposedly vanquished by the 1940s—are again resident through much of South and Central America, and Dengue has recently made inroads into the Caribbean and the southern United States. And with more people on the planet providing more places for mosquitoes to breed, the stage is set for a public health disaster of hemispheric proportions.
“Tuberculosis has grown coldly resistant to the effects of modern antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and other regions of the world. With its ease of transmission by invisible respiratory droplets and its close association with HIV, TB is in an excellent position to wreak global havoc in the new millennium. And Malaria, which already kills an estimated 1.2 million people annually—more than half of them children—has grown similarly resistant to standard medicines.
NEW DISEASES
“The list goes on: Rift Valley Fever, Hanta-Virus, Cholera. At least 20 major maladies have reemerged in novel, more deadly, or drug-resistant forms in the past 25 years. Worldwide, scientists have discovered at least 30 previously unknown human diseases for which no cure exists, such as Marburg disease and AIDS.
“That’s a humbling reality given that just a couple of decades ago experts declared that many infectious diseases were on the brink of extinction. Improved sanitation, mosquito control, global vaccination, and modern antibiotics appeared to have won the war, and self-assuredness spawned complacency. Flushed with our early successes against them, we concluded that microbes were no competition for our big human brains. We were wrong.
“Largely unnoticed the world was changing. In developing nations, people were hacking their way into previously inaccessible areas, where a menacing menagerie of bacteria and viruses skulked about, hungry for new warm-blooded hosts. Third World metropolises grew increasingly crowded, overwhelming sewage and water systems and providing a microbial mixing bowl for the creation of new diseases. Wars in nations least able to afford them spawned immense human migrations and refugee settlements with little or no sanitation or medical care. And changing patterns of temperature and rainfall allowed disease-carrying insects to extend their range.
“‘The world definitely favors the bugs; microbes have the advantage,’ says Jim Hughes, Director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. ‘There are a lot more of them than us. Their generation time is minutes instead of years. They evolve rapidly. And, of course, we aid and abet them in many ways—by travel, commerce in foodstuffs, transportation of animals, and our abuse and overuse of antibiotics. We’re playing right into their hands.’”
THE THREAT OF TERRORISM
The article then went on to tell how disease can be used by terrorists to wreak havoc among people of the world. We quote:
“It’s bad enough that in today’s crowded and interconnected world small outbreaks can blossom inadvertently into huge epidemics. Equally worrisome, however, is the fact that terrorists can take advantage of that modern vulnerability and intentionally sow the seeds of a devastating disease.
“A bioterrorism attack, as difficult to counter as almost any act of war, combines the best of microbial lethality and human ingenuity. Billions of infectious particles can be stored in a small vial, much easier to smuggle into a country than a nuclear device. Computer models have shown that an intentional outbreak of smallpox (public health officials report that some samples of the smallpox virus, stored for research after the disease was eradicated, are now unaccounted for) could spread uncontrollably almost before officials could take action to contain it. And as the U.S. learned firsthand in October, even a noncontagious disease like anthrax can wreak enormous havoc if it finds its way into the nation’s mail system.
“To a terrorist perhaps the most attractive feature of a plague is its fantastic capacity to create social unrest and political instability. ‘Infectious agents have the potential to trigger panic and fear like no other weapon,’ says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota—and an epidemiologist with a worldwide reputation for his disease-sleuthing skills. ‘It’s horrible to be eaten from without by a lion or something, but it’s equally horrible to be eaten from the inside out by some terrible bug and to see that going on all around you. It’s a very primal fear.’
“Bioterrorism was already a matter of heightened concern when planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. The CDC immediately warned U.S. public health agencies to be on the lookout for ‘unusual disease patterns associated with the events of September 11,’ a chilling hint of fear that the country might be under biological attack. A biowarfare unit from CDC and a military team specially trained in disease detection were rushed to New York. As part of the security crackdown that followed the hijackings, federal officials temporarily grounded the nation’s fleet of 3,500 crop duster airplanes, which they feared might be used to release a cloud of deadly microbes. When anthrax attacks did materialize a few weeks later, billions of dollars in resources were quickly redirected to bioterror defense.
THE RAVAGES OF DISEASE
“And yet the recent emphasis on bioterrorism obscures a more pedestrian but equally important truth about infectious diseases: Even without the element of intentional terror, diseases are a huge source of human suffering—and a tremendously destabilizing force. Nearly half of the world’s premature deaths (defined as deaths under the age of 45) are caused by infectious diseases. Some 30 million infants in developing countries remain unprotected by the lifesaving childhood vaccines that in the rest of the world are administered routinely; a million die each year from measles alone. It may not be obvious in the healthier nations, but from a microbe’s point of view the world today—even with modern antibiotics and fancy vaccines—remains a virtual smorgasbord. With the recent reemergence of some of these diseases in richer nations, there is a growing recognition that no nation is an island.”
The article went on to tell of the valiant and heroic efforts of men to control disease through development of new vaccines, better control of sanitation, and water supply, and improvements in the lives of the Third World countries. The task is immense and difficult. Man is trying hard. Apart from God, he cannot succeed. The well-known phrase, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity” is so very true.
THE REMOVAL OF THE PENALTY
The sentence of death imposed by God cannot be removed by man. Only God can remove the penalty. Soon, through the establishment of his kingdom, the way will be made clear. All men must know and receive Jesus as their ransom; and will know him as he calls them back to life from the grave. What a marvelous day that will be, when “All that are in the graves shall hear his [Jesus’] voice, And shall come forth.” (John 5:28,29) In that day the inhabitants of the land “shall not say, I am sick.” (Isa. 33:24) The war on disease will have been won. As Isaiah’s prophecy says “The Lord is our king; he will save us.” (Isa. 33:22) The penalty of death will be no longer, because the people that will dwell in that land then “shall be forgiven their iniquity”—Isa. 33:24