Bible Questions Answered: Plagues

Bible Questions Answered:
What are plagues, and where do they come from?
Sony/ Jefferson City, Missouri

Bible Answers:
New World Dictionary
Plague: Anything that afflicts or troubles; calamity; scourge. Any contagious epidemic disease that is deadly. Bible, any of various calamities sent down as divine punishment.

Plagues of the Bible, speak of Divine punishment.

Can God, bring about plagues?

In the book of Exodus, we read of the ten plagues, God put upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians.
Exodus:
7:14-21 Water into blood.
8:5-6 Frogs
8:16-17 Dust to lice.
8:20-24 Flies
9:3-6 Cattle death by murrain (infectious disease.)
9:8-10 Boils on man and beast.
9:18-26 Hail storm of death, for man and beast.
10:4-15 Locusts, ruined crops, fruit, trees, etc.
10:20-23 Darkness.
12:12,29,30 Death of the 1st born, of men and animals.


Other Plagues:

And again in I Samuel 4,5, Israel lost a battle to the Philistines, and the Ark of the Covenant was taken.
Israel had made the mistake of taking the Ark into battle, as a talisman, but that was a bad idea, for that day all was lost, for some thirty thousand Israeli soldiers lay dead.

When in the possession of the Philistines, the Ark of the Covenant, brought plagues (Bubonic) to their people.
(Read the story in I Samuel chapters 4 through 6.)

I Samuel 5:11 NLT tell us that all the deadly plagues in enemy territory, was the direct result of....
“...the deadly plague from God...”

In II Samuel 24, we read of a plague set upon David.
David had sinned in numbering the people, as a consequence for his sin, God allowed him to choose his sentence.
1)Three years of famine.
2)Three months of fleeing from your enemies.
3)Three days of severe plague throughout the land.

King David, choose, three days of severe plague.
Seventy thousand of his people were killed, by plague.

Angel of the Lord sent a plague of death:
II Kings 19:
The armies of Sennacherib, had surrounded Jerusalem to over take them, but a plague of death, killed one hundred and eighty five thousand of them.


Revelation lists, coming Last Day Judgments (Notice the similarity between these and the Egyptian 10 plagues.)

Seal Judgments
Revelation 6:1-17
1)Anti Christ
2)War
3)Famine
4)Death
5)Martyrs
6)Earthquake (Cataclysm)

Trumpet Judgments
Revelation 8:6-13; 9:1-21
1)Hail and fire (lightning), mingled with blood. One third of trees burnt up.
2)Meteor, one third of sea becomes blood. One third of life in ocean dies. One third of ships destroyed.
3)Meteor, Wormwood (Bitter, calamity.). One third of waters become wormwood, many men die.
4)Darkness, one third of sun, moon, and stars, smitten with darkness.
5)Mighty angel opens the bottomless pit releasing smoke from a great furnace, sun and air are darkened, and in the smoke locusts, which have
power over sinful mankind, to harm them for five months.
6)Four angels loosed from the river Euphrates, to arrange to kill one third of all mankind.

Vial Judgments
Revelation 16:1-21
1)Grievous sores upon men with the mark of the Anti-Christ.
2)Sea becomes blood, all life dies in the sea.
3)Rivers become blood.
4)Sun, scorches men with extreme heat.
5)The kingdom of the beast (Ant-Christ), becomes dark.
6)Euphrates river dries up.
7)Great earthquake, islands flee away, mountains leveled, and with great hail.


Last Day Judgments:
A state in the United States, was one of the first states to endorse, gay rights, and marriage.
To date the following has happened in their state.

1)Million dollar fires, one after another, destroying homes and ranches.
2)Earthquake tremors, with scientists, worried of deep underground rumblings, of what they
think could be the next “Big One.”
3)Illegal Aliens, borders being crossed, tunnels being dug, waters being navigated.
4)Swine Flue h1n1, one of the first states to notice the outbreak.
5)Total financial bankruptcy. State now issuing I.O.U's to it's workers.
6)Homosexual marriages legalized.
7)Drugs legalized (Marijuana) for the revenue from sales.
8)Early Release of prisoners, saving the state some $ 1 Billion Dollars, 27,000 eligible.

Does God, yet speak today? Yes!

Jeremiah 16:14,15 KJV
[14] Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
[15] But, The LORD liveth..."

Matthew 22:32 KJV
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Jude 1-25 KJV
[1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:
[2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
[3] Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
[4] For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
[5] I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
[6] And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
[7] Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
[8] Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
[9] Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
[10] But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
[11] Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
[12] These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
[13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
[14] And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints,
[15] To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
[16] These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.
[17] But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
[18] How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
[19] These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
[20] But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
[22] And of some have compassion, making a difference:
[23] And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
[24] Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
[25] To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.