ebola

dallas, disease, ebola, God, hazmat, wrath

Daily Mail: Man without a hazmat suit helps second Ebola nurse board plane; "Who’s the idiot with the clipboard?"

Posted on October 16, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Disbelief and panic as mystery man WITHOUT a hazmat suit helps second Ebola nurse board her plane to Atlanta, disposes waste and then climbs aboard

As news helicopters swarmed over Dallas’ Love Field this evening to watch the second U.S. nurse to contract Ebola board a private plane bound for Atlanta, one lone mysterious man stood out from the pack. Holding a clipboard and directing the transfer, the unidentified man seemed to be the only person on the tarmac without protective clothing, wearing just a button down shirt and trousers.

While Ebola is not an airborne disease, his presence so close to patient Amber Vinson’s medical team sparked fears after he was seen grabbing a container and hazmat trash bag from one of the workers’ in full-protective gear and later boarding the flight. It is believed he flew with Vinson and the other hazmat-suited medical staff to Atlanta and local television crews spotted him with the stricken nurse as she disembarked at the airport in Georgia to be transferred to Emory University Hospital. When the plane landed in Atlanta, the man had still not donned any protective clothing and was seen openly interacting with Vinson and the other medical professionals caring for the nurse

Clipboard man appears to have flown on the same flight as infected Miss Vinson,
as he is seen in footage of her getting into an ambulance at an airport in Atlanta

Video at link.

CDC has been telling us that ‘extra margins of safety’ have been followed, yet we learn that the first patient in Dallas was turned away from the hospital, even after reporting he had just returned from Liberia.

We’re told that the CDC is on it, but then we learn that 2nd Dallas nurse Amber Vinson had a fever when she flew, but was allowed to fly by the CDC (whom she called) because the fever was 99.5 and not 100.4, putting her into the ‘low risk’ category.

We are told that an ‘abundance of caution’ is the watchword, yet our border and inbound air flights are wide open to all comers.

We are told that Ebola is not and can’t be caught through the air, yet this doctor says it can be

We can go on and on pointing out the inconsistencies the Government and other Authoritative Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) tell us, but one fact remains, we cannot control disease and it goes where God wills or allows.

God’s goal in pandemic diseases is always restoration and repentance. He did before and He still does display His wrath through disease to show His power and might and holiness. As Ebola has instilled fear in the world population, one would hope that the fear of the disease would turn to fear of God accompanied by repentance. A repentant person with God will live forever. An unrepentant person fearing only the disease will die and die forever, over and over and over throughout all eternity.

This ongoing Ebola fear also shows us another thing, the only One we can fully trust is God.

God showed His love through Jesus, and through illnesses such as devastating pandemics, (which Ebola is not yet) God also shows His wrath and His power. Please read the following essay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christian missionary doctors fighting Ebola irritate Brian Palmer and other liberals

Posted on October 9, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I read an interesting opinion piece in the liberal online magazine Slate, by atheist Brian Palmer, who also writes for the National Resources Defense Council. He noticed that many of the people working in West Africa with the Ebola patients are Christians. Worse, they are Christian missionaries, Christian missionary nurses, and Christian missionary doctors. He is at once amazed that people would volunteer for such a task, and at no pay (which blows his mind!) yet at the same time he is irritated.

Caduceus, Wiki CC

Why? They talk of Jesus too much.

His attitude was, ‘if they want to be do-gooders, at least shut up about Jesus and keep the medical science free from all that … religion‘. He also notices that governments and corporations are not rushing in there to help, and that’s just too irksome to deal with. The Christians are showing up the organizations that are supposed to help.

You can read his original piece here. His title is telling, don’t you think?

In Medicine We Trust
Should we worry that so many of the doctors treating Ebola in Africa are missionaries?

This piece at NewsBusters responding to Palmer’s opinion about the Ebola missionaries is interesting. NewsBusters nailed Palmer’s tone. They put Palmer’s quotes in bold.

‘Mingling of Religion and Health Care’ in Ebola Crisis Stirs ‘Visceral Discomfort’ at Slate

Brian Palmer revealed what many secularists feel about Christian missionaries in Africa in a Thursday piece on Slate, especially the role on the front lines of the ongoing fight against Ebola. Palmer acknowledged how “missionary doctors and nurses…have undertaken long-term commitments to address the health problems of poor Africans,” but added that “for secular Americans…it may be difficult to shake a bit of discomfort with the situation….It’s great that these people are doing God’s work, but do they have to talk about Him so much?”

The writer later hyped that “some missionaries are incapable of separating their religious work from their medical work. Whether implicitly or explicitly, some missionaries pressure their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation, to convert.” He admitted, “That troubles me. I suspect that many others have the same visceral discomfort with the mingling of religion and health care.“

Mr Palmer’s attitude is nothing new. It is as old as the hills. In 250 AD in northern Turkey, there was a terrible pandemic. Bodies piled up. Terrified healthy people fled. Some cities were decimated. Afterward, they found battlefields littered with dead soldiers but without wounds. They had simply dropped dead from the pandemic.

Camp Fuston, KS, Spanish Influenza

Christian pastors Dionysius and Cyprian, along with many deacons and laypeople, stayed behind to help. It’s not that they were immune, they weren’t. It’s that the Christians had the hope of Jesus in them, knowing He had come to earth to reconcile men to Himself. His loving sacrificial act spurred the Christians to do likewise of the pagans dying in droves. They laid down their lives for them. Dionysius later wrote about the nursing efforts of the Christians

“Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead … The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of presbyters, deacons, and laymen winning high commendation so that death in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith, seems in every way the equal of martyrdom.”

Dionysus noted next how the Christians even prepared the pagans for burial. He also described how the pagans reacted:

The heathen [pagans] behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.”

Screen shot, Monty Python & Holy Grail, “Bring Out Your Dead” scene

Human nature is no different then as it is now. When the Ebola deaths spiked this summer, The Liberian Observer reported,

Guarded by heavily armed platoons of officers from the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and the Police Support Unit (PSU) several weeks ago, two mini trucks conveyed the corpses of Ebola victims to be buried in Johnsonville. This dumping of about 45 bodies on the bank of the Kpan-wein River under the heavy guard of police and soldiers immediately created a stampede, with people running in all directions, for fear of being contaminated or afflicted with the Ebola disease.

One hundred years after the plague Dionysius wrote about had abated, Roman Emperor Julian (the last Emperor) tried to get the pagan priests to perform such heroic acts of charity and care. They wouldn’t. It is perplexing to the unsanctified mind that people would lay down their lives for a stranger, would give and provide for them. It further perplexes them, as it does Mr Palmer now, that the government won’t step up neither will the pagan religions, but the Christians always do. Julian wrote,

“The impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.”

Source

The bible tells us:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Gill’s Commentary explains,

His sense is this; that the light of the Gospel, which he had communicated to them, the spiritual knowledge of the mysteries of grace, which he had favoured them with, were to be openly declared, and made manifest before men. Light was not given merely for their own private use, but for the public good of mankind; and therefore, as they were placed as lights in the world, they were to hold forth, in the most open and conspicuous manner, the word of light and life:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, (Ephesians 2:10)

In 1 Peter 2:12 we read,

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

We are called to live a good life before the pagans. This glorifies Jesus. In some cases, we are called to live a good death. This glorifies Jesus.

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How many hospital beds are there in the US prepared to handle Ebola? The answer may astound you

Posted on October 4, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Training exercise, Nebraska Biocontainment Unit brochure

The Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha Nebraska, put out a press release in July 2014. It stated,

Ebola Outbreak: Qualified and Prepared

In late July 2014, representative from the U.S. State Department recently visited The Nebraska Medical Center to take a closer look at the capabilities of our 10 bed Biocontainment Unit. There are no current plans for Ebola patients to be transferred here. This was strictly a fact-finding mission, to make government officials aware of the unit’s capabilities in case the need arises for treatment of additional patients with the Ebola virus here in the U.S. The unit has been operational for nearly ten years and is one of four such units in the country equipped to handle an outbreak of this nature.

A few thoughts:

–Ten beds? In an outbreak where a ‘biocontainment unit’ is needed, 10 isn’t that many beds.

–One of four Units in the US? Where are the other three? Maybe they have more beds. The National Institute of Health (NIH) Clinical Center, Bethesda Maryland, has 3 beds. Emory Hospital, Atlanta has 3 beds and St Patrick’s Hospital, Missoula Montana has 3 beds. Nineteen beds total in the US. Oops, Nebraska’s ten seems like an embarrassment of riches compared to paltry 3 in the other places.

–I guess those ‘no current plans’ to receive patients in July turned into ‘you must open for business now’ in October

It is hopeful to read that “And any hospital equipped to care for a tuberculosis patient can care for an Ebola patient, according to Dr. George Risi, an infectious disease specialist who recently returned from spending 20 days in a Sierra Leone Ebola ward.” But it still doesn’t make it a Biohazard level-4 facility.

Ebola virus causes a medical response to a Biohazard Safety level-4 (BSL-4). It is the highest level.

Biosafety level 1
This level is suitable for work involving well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause disease in healthy adult humans, and of minimal potential hazard to laboratory personnel and the environment (CDC,1997)

Biosafety level 2
This level is similar to Biosafety Level 1 and is suitable for work involving agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment. It includes various bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as C. difficile, most Chlamydiae, hepatitis A, B, and C, orthopoxviruses (other than smallpox), influenza A, Lyme disease, Salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, MRSA, and VRSA.

Biosafety level 3
This level is applicable to clinical, diagnostic, teaching, research, or production facilities in which work is done with indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease after inhalation. It includes various bacteria, parasites and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans but for which treatments exist, such as Yersinia pestis (causative agent of plague), Francisella tularensis, Leishmania donovani, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Chlamydia psittaci, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Eastern equine encephalitis virus, SARS coronavirus, Coxiella burnetii, Rift Valley fever virus, Rickettsia rickettsii, several species of Brucella, rabies virus, chikungunya, yellow fever virus, and West Nile virus.

Biosafety level 4
This level is required for work with dangerous and exotic agents that pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections, agents which cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and various other hemorrhagic diseases. This level is also used for work with agents such as smallpox that are considered dangerous enough to require the additional safety measures, regardless of vaccination availability.

Source for above, Wikipedia

Praise God there are medical personnel willing to work with BSL-4 patients!

I was glad to read that the patient being monitored at Queens Hospital in Honolulu does NOT have Ebola, according to reports.

Interesting article below. The author does a lot of math… and a little scaremongering. Though the numbers she uses are like-to-like, the scenario between W. Africa and the US has a few additional variables than simply numbers. In West Africa, rural clinics are so poor they habitually reuse needles. As a result, standards are different. Also, governments vary in their responses and protocols.

Though a disease will do what it will do whether it emerges in West Africa or the US, there is more to compare than just numbers to numbers. However, in one article I read, the medical personnel interviewed said that by simply applying IV drip, anti-coagulant and electrolytes, one can reduce Ebola’s mortality rate from 80% to 40%. That sounds like a great reduction, but when you consider that the Spanish Influenza killed 3-5% of the world’s population…and had a mortality rate of 10-20%, then 40% doesn’t sound so great anymore. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here is the article.

There are only 19 level 4 bio-containment beds in the whole of the United States…and four in the UK

And the beat goes on… “Two Washington area hospitals said within hours of each other Friday that they had each admitted a patient with symptoms and travel histories associated with Ebola.”

ebola, jesus, pestilence, signs

Dallas Ebola updates, children exposed, person being monitored in Hawaiian hospital

Posted on October 2, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

In 1976 Ebola was discovered. I was 16 at the time and I was absolutely freaked out by the discovery. I read about it National Geographic or Smithsonian Magazine I think. A disease that melts your insides? Perfect fodder for the overactive teenage imagination. The shock and horror of Ebola never quite left my mind.

It is a terrible disease, sneaky and final. Sneaky because it take up to 21 days to show its face, and final because the death rate can be upwards of 90%. The current outbreak has been showing a death rate of 55-60%. By comparison, the Spanish Influenza mortality rate was 2.5-3%.

In this NatGeo article from September 2014, we read,

Since the first outbreaks in Africa in 1976, three of the five species of Ebolavirus have accounted for almost all cases of the disease seen below: the Sudan, Bundibugyo and Zaire species. A fourth species (Taï Forest) caused one nonfatal case in Cote d’Ivoire in 1994. A fifth (Reston) has not yet been transmitted to humans.

Silverback Gorilla, CC

Ebola is named after the river in the area it first made an appearance. It was discovered in green monkeys and then gorillas in 1975-1976. This article from 2006 reports on the devastation the disease has been causing in gorillas.

Ebola Killing Thousands of Gorillas, Study Says
for National Geographic News, December 7, 2006

The Ebola virus is marching steadily across western and central Africa, wiping out more than 90 percent of the gorillas in its path and threatening the species with extinction, a new study says. About 5,000 gorillas were killed by the virus in one study area alone, according to results to be published in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science. Ebola causes a hemorrhagic fever, resulting in massive internal and external bleeding that kills within two weeks of symptoms appearing. There is no known cure, and in humans the mortality rate is around 80 percent. The virus is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, near where the first known outbreak occurred in 1976.

Back when Ebola was first discovered both in primates and in humans, it sort of freaked out the medical world. It popped up out of nowhere and to this day they don’t quite know where it emerged from or why. Dr. Karl Johnson wrote in 1979 in the Annals of Internal Medicine,

Ebola Virus and Hemorrhagic Fever: Andromeda Strain or Localized Pathogen?
KARL M. JOHNSON, M.D.

The nearly simultaneous occurrence of major epidemics of acute hemorrhagic fever with high mortality in Sudan (1) and Zaire (2) during late 1976 serves as a poignant reminder that infectious “plagues” have not been, nor are they likely soon to be, eliminated from our world. The causative agent of these epidemics was found to be a virus new to science and was named Ebola after a small river near Yambuku, Zaire, a disease epicenter where the initial isolate was made…. Until effective vaccines are developed, careful management of patients and surveillance of their close contacts offer the only rational way to deal with agents sometimes viewed as Andromeda’s children.”

Thirty-five years later an effective vaccine is still not developed and the careful management of patients showing symptoms kind of went out the window in Dallas this week as a man recently returned from Liberia was sent home from the hospital he arrived at for treatment. He went back two days later, in an ambulance, after a chaotic scene outside his apartment building where witnesses say “he was vomiting all over the place.” The ambulance he was delivered to the hospital in is now under quarantine as a bio-hazard. The patient’s condition has been upgraded to serious, which is great, considering the only drug available, ZMapp, has been used up and further doses are not available at this time. Perhaps Thomas Eric Duncan will bounce back. I hope so. It turns out he had been a chaufferur in Liberia for the last two years before abruptly quitting in September and walking out without notice, His boss had no idea where he was until he saw Duncan in the news as the US Ebola patient.

The Andromeda Strain referred to in the 1979 Annals of Internal Medicine article, is the title of a 1969 novel by Michael Crichton. The Andromeda Strain is a techno-thriller novel documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona that rapidly and fatally clots the blood in most humans, while inducing insanity in a small handful of others. (Wikipedia)

The Dallas apartment complex where Duncan was believed to be staying was cordoned off Wednesday, and the management was turning away visitors. TV cameras lined the fence of the parking lot, and at least one helicopter hovered overhead.

Andromeda Strain, Russian release, 1971

The intense news interest in the story is indicative of the intense viewer interest in the story. This kind of interest was evidenced almost immediately upon publication of Crichton’s Andromeda novel,

“Written while Michael was still in medical school, it caused an immediate sensation: partly because the author was still in his twenties; partly because it focused on a biological crisis when most people were thinking about nuclear crises…”

The Dallas news outlets are reporting the Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, after he was sent home, had contact with close friends and family, including several school children who attend different schools. Several of the kids are being monitored, but parents are still pulling their children from school.

Twitter, Jake Tapper: “80 people being monitored for Ebola in Dallas: the patient, his contacts and anyone they contacted, officials say.” via @cnnbrk

Oops, since this morning, that number has risen now to 100.

The first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the U.S. wasn’t appropriately treated for suspected infection until after a relative personally called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his nephew told NBC News on Wednesday night. … Weeks said the CDC referred him to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, which spoke to him and then took appropriate action. “I called the CDC and they instructed me of the process, and that got the ball rolling,” Weeks said.

A second person is being monitored for Ebola, “Let me be real frank to the Dallas County residents: The fact that we have one confirmed case, there may be another case that is a close associate with this particular patient,” he said. “So this is real. There should be a concern, but it’s contained to the specific family members and close friends at this moment.”

Five children from four DISD [Dallas Independent School District] campuses were possibly exposed to the virus. [Superintendent] Miles said none of the students have exhibited any symptoms of Ebola at this time.

Yeah, but doesn’t it take up to three weeks for symptoms to show? So of course after one day they would not be showing symptoms. Meanwhile in Hawaii, another possible Ebola patient is being monitored.

Ebola fears quarantine man in Hawaiian hospital: The unnamed patient has yet to be tested for the deadly virus, but Hawaii Department of Health officials said Wednesday they quarantined him at a Honolulu hospital after he showed symptoms.

At some point, the pale horse of pestilence is going to ride. (Revelation 6:7-8). The Seals will not be broken until after the rapture but we could be seeing a set-up. Or not. We never know at the time whether this is an outbreak or not. In Fort Riley Kansas in 1918 did they have a clue that when the camp cook came down sick he would be nearly the first victim of a worldwide Spanish Influenza pandemic that would eventually kill three to five percent of the entire population?

It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world’s population—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history…A large factor in the worldwide occurrence of this flu was increased travel. Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease. In the United States, the disease was first observed in Haskell County, Kansas, in January 1918, prompting local doctor Loring Miner to warn the U.S. Public Health Service’s academic journal. On 4 March 1918, company cook Albert Gitchell reported sick at Fort Riley, Kansas. By noon on 11 March 1918, over 100 soldiers were in the hospital. Within days, 522 men at the camp had reported sick. By 11 March 1918 the virus had reached Queens, New York.

The Dallas (and Honolulu) situation is of concern, as is the African Ebola situation in general. People are scared of pestilential disease, it is creepy in the way that the 1970s shark movie Jaws caught our deepest fears of being hunted while swimming in unfamiliar habitats. A primal fear, different from the horror of nukes falling on us, the enemy of disease invades our bodies and destroys from the inside.

I can’t help but remember that another of the books that caught my attention so deeply when I was a teenager, Stephen King’s The Stand, was about a superflu that killed 99% of the world population within 2 months. It, also, began in Texas, by a man named Campion…

earthquakes, ebola, prophecy, signs, weather

News roundup: Ebola in US, Japanese volcano eruption, quake swarm at Mammoth

Posted on October 1, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

PESTILENCE

CDC confirms first case of Ebola in US

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday that a patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case diagnosed in the United States. The patient left Liberia on September 19 and arrived in the United States on September 20, CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. It’s the first patient to be diagnosed with this particular strain of Ebola outside of Africa.“[The patient] had no symptoms when departing Liberia or entering this country. But four or five days later on the 24th of September, he began to develop symptoms,” said Frieden. The patient, who was in the U.S. visiting family in Texas, initially sought care on September 26, but was sent home and was not admitted until two days later. He was placed in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where he remains critically ill, according to Frieden.

The assurances we’ve been receiving from officials since the outbreak in Africa spread have not made much sense to me.

“The risk of the spread of Ebola in California is low.”

“and the past-president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told weather.com Americans should not fear the disease. “We see the risk as essentially zero,”

If an ill traveler arrives in the U.S., CDC has protocols in place to protect against further spread of disease.

The problem is, the patient in Dallas was not showing any symptoms. Secondly, he had traveled to Liberia and when he arrived at the Dallas hospital for treatment, he was sent home. It doesn’t seem those protocols are working.

Granted, one patient isn’t an outbreak. But the worry is that he was ill, AND showing symptoms and walked around Dallas for days. The CDC press conference last night never did answer the question as to whether the patient’s family has been quarantined. However, several medical workers are now quarantined:

Paramedics, ER staff under Ebola observation in Dallas

DALLAS — Three Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics and several emergency room workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital are off work and under observation after making contact with the patient being treated for Ebola. Perhaps the most tangible evidence of Ebola in Dallas is an ambulance parked in a city lot in Pleasant Grove, an area about 15 minutes southeast of downtown Dallas. It’s quarantined and roped off with red tape warning of a biohazard. Ambulance No. 37 carried the Ebola patient to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday morning.

So on September 26 the patient walked into the hospital seeking care, and just three days later had to be taken by ambulance. It seems that this is either a very rapid progression, or symptoms were evident on the 26th and were missed. Neither scenario are particularly comforting.

The ambulance used to transport the Dallas Ebola patient is now a biohazard,
and the paramedics are quarantined. Source

But the CDC assures us, still, that everything is just fine. But just in case, they issued Ebola guidelines for US funeral homes. The article’s opening poses the following question:

ROSWELL, GA (CBS46) – CBS46 News has confirmed the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines to U.S. funeral homes on how to handle the remains of Ebola patients. If the outbreak of the potentially deadly virus is in West Africa, why are funeral homes in America being given guidelines?

They asked the question because the article was initially published on September 29. The news did not break about the Dallas Ebola patient until September 30. Now we know the answer.

All I can say is that the same thing is on many peoples’ minds. First is Mark Davis’ tweet

Fred Butler summed it up.

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WEATHER

I love spooky clouds. Or non-spooky clouds. I just like clouds.

PSU meteorology student & storm chaser Jacob DeFlitch ‏@WxDeFlitch tweeted this pic yesterday, “Incredible photo of clouds this morning over NYC from the air.” [Via: Angela Wang]

Ginger Zee, Chief Meteorologist at ABC News; re-tweeted this photo yesterday morning.

“Great capture! “@TheNan08: Heading into NYC crazy looking clouds @Ginger_Zee @Evansweather”

Denver severe weather dumps massive amounts of hail

An impressive hail storm slammed into the Denver metropolitan area around 2 p.m. MDT, dropping hail as large as golf balls. Photos posted to social media show what looked like snow, but was actually a thick sheet of hail covering highways and grassy areas. Denver’s 9 News reports Cherry Creek schools delayed dismissing students because of the weather. Hail drifts several feet deep were reported in some towns, according to AOL.com.

South of France hit by devastating floods

Around 60 towns in the south of France have been officially declared natural disaster sites following severe flooding caused by torrential downpours, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced on Tuesday.

Scientists are grappling for reasons as to why the weather is worsening so palpably. This is from NOAA weather:

New report finds human-caused climate change increased severity of 2013 heat waves in Asia, Europe and Australia September 29, 2014. The report, “Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 From a Climate Perspective,” can be viewed online. (Credit: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) A report released today investigates the causes of a wide variety of extreme weather and climate events from around the world in 2013. Published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, “Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective” addresses the causes of 16 individual extreme events that occurred on four continents in 2013. NOAA scientists served as three of the four lead editors on the report.

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QUAKES

The Weather Channel ‏@weatherchannel posted the following yesterday,
“JUST IN: M4.2 #earthquake near Perry, OK at 10:01pm CDT; shaking felt from Wichita KS to Norman OK.”

4.2 is pretty big for Oklahoma.

Mammoth Lakes in California has been experiencing the “most intense” quake swarm of the last decade. LA Times has mapped them in a .gif

Watch 900 earthquakes erupt during Mammoth swarm

There were 947 total quakes

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VOLCANO

Mount Ontake, a Japanese volcano, erupted unexpectedly, unfortunately killing and injuring climbers. A hiker who was on scene filmed the terrifying event. Below is a screen shot and below that, the video.

I truly hope those poor people made it out!

UK Daily Mail

The search for at least two dozen victims of Japan’s worst volcanic eruption in decades has been called off again today amid fears that another deadly steam explosion is imminent. Hundreds of military searchers had been preparing to enter Mount Ontake by foot and helicopter to resume the recovery of at least 24 people caught in a deadly rain of ash and stone after the peak erupted without warning on Saturday when it was crowded with hikers, including children. Twelve bodies have been recovered from the 10,062 feet peak but at least 36 are feared to have died, with the recovery hampered by high levels of toxic gas and ash piled hip-high in places on the still-smoking mountain. At least 69 people have been injured, 30 of them seriously.

UK Daily Mail(as usual, great photos)

Mount Sinabung Spouts Off

Mt. Sinabung in Sumatra let out a long roar on Wednesday, erupting for a full 907 seconds, or just over 15 minutes – about 0.0028% of the year since it first started acting up. Daily eruptions, which started last November and lasted for months, coated the countryside in gray ash and forced tens of thousands of people from their villages.

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CULTURE

Video: Fla. commissioner walks out of meeting when Pagan delivers bizarre ‘satanic,’ singing invocation

A Florida pagan was given the opportunity to offer the invocation at an Escambia County Commission meeting Thursday, but one commissioner wouldn’t stick around to hear it. By law, the commission had to allow David Suhor, a self-described Agnostic Pagan Pantheist who worships nature, to give an invocation, according to ABC affiliate WEAR-TV. When Suhor recited the pagan prayer in song calling of the directions north, east, south, and west, Commissioner Wilson Robertson walked out. “People may not realize it,” Robertson told WEAR. “But when we invite someone, a minister to pray, they are praying for the county commissioners, for us to make wise decisions and I’m just not going to have a pagan or satanic minister pray for me.”

Good for him. The law may require that equal opportunity be given to all religions, but that does not mean we have to accept the prayer in the ‘spirit’ in which it was intended. I hope the commissioner prayed for the pagan man to repent and come to Jesus.

africa, ebola, God's attributes, justice, pestilence, salvation

Ebola may be out of control, but God is never out of control

Posted on September 18, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

I’ve reported on the Ebola outbreak in prior weeks. It is officially an epidemic now. The facts as reported in the past day or so are:

WaPo: Ebola, Portraits of Grief

–This outbreak is actually the first Ebola epidemic the world has ever known. (CDC)
–CDC teams are deployed from the CDC 24/7 Emergency Operations Center (EOC), activated at Level 1, its highest level, because of the significance of this outbreak. (CDC)
–There have been more than 4,300 cases over the past six months. (source)
–More than 2,400 people have died from the virus (source)
–There has been a consistent mortality rate of 55.8% mortality rate. To compare, the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic had a 2.4% mortality rate.
–There is no approved cure in this outbreak. (source)
–Nations with cases in the current epidemic have been Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. (source)
–All 26 previously recorded outbreaks have been successfully contained largely by isolating patients but the WHO said cases would continue to rise for at least six more months in an epidemic that has jumped borders and erupted in urban areas. (source)

The above were the facts. Next are two published opinions about Ebola as stated in two articles that caught my eye. They are as follows:

What we’re afraid to say about Ebola

THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

If I was to re-write the opening line and the closing line from a Christian perspective it would be:

THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to fulfill future history as much as any plague has ever done. … What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted prophetic waters and that we finally understand that God and only God is in charge of the crisis at this time.

In first opinion piece, I was struck by the person’s outlook that the people who are ‘supposed to know what to do’ … don’t know what to do. Unsolvable problems face the last generation before the Tribulation. How do I know this? Because the world’s global problems are in such a Gordian knot that when the antichrist appears on the world stage with answers the world falls down in eagerness to listen to his solutions. (Luke 21:25, Daniel 11:21).

Secondly, of course the comment that Mother Nature is a force that’s in charge is also interesting, in terms of how the unsaved look at it. Christians know that there is no Mother Nature. God is in control. But…is He sending plagues? Send Ebola? Would a loving God do that? More on that in a moment.

Here is opinion article #2. This is an Op-Ed from Dr Brantly, the American doctor in Western Africa who came down with Ebola, was evacuated to Atlanta’s Emory Hospital for treatment and recovery. He has seen the epidemic from both sides, as doctor and as patient.

American Ebola survivor calls the outbreak “a fire straight from the pit of hell”

Many have used the analogy of a fire burning out of control to describe this unprecedented Ebola outbreak. Indeed it is a fire-a fire straight from the pit of hell. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the vast moat of the Atlantic Ocean will keep the flames away from our shores. Instead, we must mobilize the resources needed to keep entire nations from being reduced to ashes.

What if I was to re-write the opening line to say, “Many have used the analogy of a fire burning out of control to describe this unprecedented Ebola outbreak. Indeed it is a fire-a fire straight from bosom of heaven,” would you charge me with being deluded about our “loving God”?

Today’s people, even Christians, have become so used to the concept of a God who is love-only, not love-and. As in, love and wrath, love and judgment, love and anger. All true Christians will proclaim God and not Mother Nature. But to proclaim a God who sends pestilence? Not so much.

I cannot say that God is sending Ebola specifically to West Africa, nor can I say He is sending it for this reason or that reason. I do not know the mind of God. But I know the character of God, and I know the history of God as it’s revealed in the bible.

His character is such that in the past He has sent (or allowed) pestilences to consume Israel’s enemies. He has sent pestilence to consume Israel, to punish. Look at Habakkuk 3:4-5,

His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power. Before Him goes pestilence, And plague comes after Him. 6He stood and surveyed the earth; He looked and startled the nations. (Habakkuk 3:4-5)

Matthew Henry commentary says of the verses,

After describing the splendour of the theophany, the prophet now turns to the purpose and effects of God’s appearing. He comes to avenge and judge, therefore before him went the pestilence. Before him stalks plague, to punish his enemies and the disobedient, as in Egypt, in Canaan (Exodus 23:27; 1Samuel 5:9, 11); and among his own people (Numbers 11:33; Numbers 14:37, etc.; Leviticus 26:25).

God could be directly sending this plague…pestilence…disease, whatever olde or modern word you want to use. Or He could be allowing satan to spread it. Or He could be allowing microbes to do what they do naturally, multiply. The reason I’m interested is because the doctors are saying it is the first Ebola epidemic in history, that there is no approved cure, and that it has such a high mortality rate.

There was a terrible outbreak of bubonic plague in the 1300s and in the 1600s. Modern science has put the likely death rate average over its entire geographic area at 45-50%. In the first of the two mentioned outbreaks, half of the population of Paris died. 40% of all of Egypt died. And so on. In the current Ebola epidemic, a 55.8% death rate is very high. The rapidity and potential geographic spread due to fast modes of travel makes the potentiality of seeing those rates and even higher arise again.

We do know that in the Tribulation there will be plagues that kill a quarter of mankind. (Revelation 6:8, Matthew 24:7).

The point of this essay is to point to who God is. Yes, God is love, but God is also wrath,. He hates sin above all.
God said in times past,

I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the LORD have spoken. (Ezekiel 5:17)

This occurred. Do we think that modern sanitation practices and shiny needles full of medicine would prevent such a plague from happening again? Do we think that we are any better people, that the LORD would not be angry with our sin? Our apostasy? Do we think that He would send plague to His own chosen people in Ezekiel times, but let us slide?

But if God was loving, why would He send this to us? Even to unbelievers who haven’t had a chance to “accept Jesus” yet? Proverbs 1:25-26 says,

And you neglected all my counsel And did not want my reproof; I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,

Matthew Henry again,

I also will laugh at your calamity,…. By way of retaliation, measuring measure for measure; even as they scorned him, and delighted in their scorning, now he in his turn will “laugh” at them and their distress; which act is ascribed to the Lord by an anthropopathy; see Psalm 2:4; signifying that he should not at all pity them, show no compassion to them, and have no mercy upon them; but rather express a pleasure and delight in displaying the glory of his justice in their destruction: the plain sense is, that no favour would be shown them,

He will glory in displaying His justice. That is also our God. The prophet Habakkuk says of Jesus in the Old Testament, Before Him goes pestilence, And plague comes after Him. He displays His love, and He displays His justice.

Ebola threatens to destroy Sierra Leone and Liberia
The virus is spreading like wildfire. A German Ebola expert tells Deutsche Welle, that it will not be possible to contain the virus with the measures that have been taken so far.

His statement might alarm many people. But Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told DW that he is losing hope, that Sierra Leone and Liberia will receive the necessary aid in time. Those are two of the countries worst hit by the recent Ebola epidemic. “The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” he said. That time was May and June. “Now it will be much more difficult.”

Justice? Punishment? God? We do not know specifically what God is doing but what we do know is that it is time to repent and fall at the feet of Jesus. Nationally and/or individually, the safest and most God-glorifying route is to acknowledge who God is, in all His aspects. Ask forgiveness of sins. That is the real enemy- sin. God hates it because it keeps His people from glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever. Sin keeps us from His love.

Another aspect of God’s personality is His forgiveness. Though the news about Ebola is dire, the best news of all is this

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

ebola, ontario, pestilence, virus

Two patients in Benin tested for Ebola, two patients in Canada tested

Posted on August 9, 2014 by elizabethprata

It’s getting hard to keep track. Have we witnessed the beginning of a global pandemic that will roll over to a prophesied pestilence? Or will this Ebola sputter out and the world breathe a collective sigh of relief? (Until the next outbreak. Someday, one of the m will take).

Two days ago, Liberia declared a national emergency.

I mentioned day before yesterday that Nigeria is the latest nation to report Ebola patient illnesses and two deaths. Today, Nigeria declared a national emergency

The World Health Organization declared Ebola a global health threat today.

There have been 6 (or maybe 7) patients tested for Ebola in the United States. Three, Baltimore, Columbus Ohio, and NYC at Mt Sinai Hospital, were declared negative. The other three…the CDC won’t say where they are.

Ebola Tested Across the Nation; Government Suppresses Info

A man who had traveled from Nigeria to Ontario Canada is being tested for Ebola because he evidenced flu like symptoms consistent with Ebola.

A patient at a hospital near Toronto has been placed in isolation as a precautionary measure after he came down with a fever and other flu-like symptoms following a recent trip to a country dealing with the Ebola outbreak. Dr. Eileen de Villa, an associate medical officer of health with Peel Region, said that the patient has a history of travelling to Nigeria. He is being kept in isolation at the Brampton Civic Hospital.

Benin reports two Ebola cases

Benin has reported two cases of the deadly Ebola virus in the west African country. Health Ministry official Aboubacar Moufiliatou said that a man suspected to have contracted the virus had died. “Fortunately, blood samples have been taken from the deceased patient to examine if his death was linked with Ebola,” Moufililatou told the state television Thursday night. He said another man has been quarantined after showing symptoms of the deadly virus after returning from the Nigerian city of Lagos. “Blood tests from the suspected case will be conducted in laboratories approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) to confirm or deny the infection,” he said.

Benin is adjacent to Nigeria to the west. It should be noted that status of the patients tested in the US have been declared negative, and the status of the two patients in Ontario and the men in Benin is still unknown. So far Ebola has been confirmed in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and a man traveling from Nigeria died in Saudi Arabia.

SARS…H1N1…Legionnaires… all are deadly virus outbreaks that fortunately did not turn out to be epidemics or pandemics. Ebola may die out now or it may spread.

At some point the pestilence will come, though. Revelation 6 and Luke 21 says so. Ebola was discovered in 1976. I remember the news about it and being horrified at the mortality rate, the way the disease kills, and the aura of exotic death surrounding it. Two years later Stephen King’s book The Stand, considered his best, was published and became a runaway hit. The book depicted a global outbreak from a shifting antigen flu that killed 99.4% of the world population. King’s ability to tell a story and the absolute realism in the rapid dismantling of society was very accurate. And scary. It affected me a lot.

As they say, malaria, measles and typhoid kills more people very day than all who have died in the current Ebola outbreak. But let’s keep an eye on Benin, Ontario, and elsewhere. The necessity of witnessing to people who don’t know their eternal destination is utmost.

ebola, nigeria, pestilence

ABC News: "Patient at New York City Hospital ‘Unlikely’ to Have Ebola, Officials Say". Nigeria reports 4 cases, 1 death; "Are we being told everything?"

Posted on August 4, 2014 by elizabethprata

An American Doctor from Colorado has some questions regarding the latest outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa. As the Doctor in the article reiterates, we’re fortunate that the woman de-planing at London’s Gatwick Airport was tested and found negative for having the disease. Perhaps it is as the medical personnel in the article below states, that the person now being tested at Mt. Sinai is unlikely to have the disease. But the Doctor from Colorado asks, “Are We Being Told Everything?” First, the NYC news.

Patient at NYC ‘unlikely’ to have Ebola, officials say

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City is treating a possible Ebola patient who recently traveled to West Africa, hospital officials said, although he is “unlikely” to have the deadly virus. The patient arrived at the hospital’s emergency room early Monday morning with “a high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms,” according to a statement from the hospital. The patient has since been isolated and is undergoing diagnostic testing, officials said.

Dr. Joondeph, a retina surgeon at Colorado Retina Associates, and serving on the faculty of Rocky Vista University School of Medicine, asks,

Are We Being Told Everything?”

American physician Dr. Kent Brantly, infected with the Ebola virus, recently returned to the United States for treatment. While he is improving, according to the director of the Centers of Disease control Dr. Tom Frieden, it is too soon to know whether he will survive this devastating infection. Nancy Writebol, a coworker of Dr. Brantly, also infected with Ebola, will be transported to the U.S. later this week. Should we be worried? Is this a real life version of the new TV series “The Strain“?

Perhaps I’m a chicken little for raising these issues. After all, our government assured us that all is well and that we are safe. Our government leaders also told us the attacks in Benghazi were due to a video and there was, “not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS.

Here is more latest news. In the article, please note that Nigeria today is reporting 4 cases with 1 death.

EBOLA VIRUS RAPIDLY SPREADING IN WEST AFRICA
WHO reports 163 new Ebola cases and 61 new deaths

Since it was detected in March, the number of suspected and confirmed cases attributed to Ebola in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria stands at 1,603, including 887 deaths.

Whether the Ebola virus becomes a more widespread outbreak, or it stops right now, it still brings fear to the heart and mind of many. An uncontrollable outbreak is a horror and scare that lurks in most people’s consciousness about runaway disease. A viral outbreak similar to the one in 1918 from Spanish Influenza is even more likely in this age due to rapidity of travel around the globe. In addition, many people already live with the specter of outbreaks of the more run-of-the-mill kind, such as dysentery and malaria.

Please be vigilant in prayer for missionaries and the lost in places where unexotic diseases carry death every day. Be fervent to witness of the Gospel, so that many may be saved and avoid the pestilences during the Tribulation…and enjoy the peace of reconciliation with Christ. In His love, He casts out all fear. (1 John 4:18)

beth moore, david platt, discernment, ebola, encouragement, gatwick, priscilla shirer, prophecy

[UPDATE: Woman tested negative for Ebola] News Briefs: Woman de-planes at London Gatwick & dies of Ebola; Priscilla Shirer & Beth Moore in Kendrick Brothers’ new movie; Platt; "You Twit Face"

Posted on August 4, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

[UPDATE]
The BBC is reporting the following this afternoon

The Department for Health said the test on the elderly woman, who landed at Gatwick Airport, came back negative on Sunday afternoon. … “The correct procedures were followed to confirm there was no reason to quarantine the airplane, the passengers or staff. PHE can confirm there was no public health risk around the sad death of this individual.”

——————————————–

Some news briefs for you-

Ebola terror at Gatwick as passenger collapses and dies getting off Sierra Leone flight
Staff tell of fears as jet from Africa is quarantined after the death of passenger who was ‘sweating and vomiting’ before she collapsed

Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick. Workers said they were terrified the virus could spread globally through the busy international hub from the West African country which is in the grip of the deadly epidemic. The woman, said to be 72, became ill on the gangway after she left a Gambia Bird jet with 128 passengers on board. She died in hospital on Saturday. Ebola has killed 256 people in Sierra Leone. A total of 826 have died in West Africa since the outbreak began in February. Tests were carried out to see if the woman had disease. The plane was quarantined as officials desperately tried to trace everyone who had been in contact with the woman. Airport workers faced an anxious wait to see if the woman had Ebola. One said: “Everyone’s just petrified. “We’ve all seen how many people have died from Ebola, especially in Sierra Leone, and it’s terrifying.”

Yes, its terrifying. Imagine how much more terrifying it will be when billions are dying at once, as Revelation 6:7-8 and Revelation 9:15 and Luke 21:11 tell us. The door to heaven is open to all right now during this Age of Grace. Repent and turn to Jesus as Savior.

————————————–

The Kendrick Brothers finish making their fifth movie. The Albany GA brothers are known for Christian movies Flywheel, Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous. Their fifth movie is reportedly about prayer, and includes Priscilla Shirer in a large role and Beth Moore in a cameo role. I dont’ ant to jump to any conclusions, because the Kendrick Brothers have a solid grounding in doctrine and their previous movies have been good. However, the combination of the subject of prayer and the inclusion of two women noted for un-orthodoxy in this subject, does not bode well. Both Shirer and Moore engage in and promote contemplative prayer. Further, Moore is known for having unbiblical visions and hearing the voice of God audibly, and explains during her “bible lessons” that this is or should be normal activity for all Christians. Perhaps Moore’s smaller role means that any negative impact on the movies direction would be minimal. However it is also true that we should “not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:53.) In laymen’s term,s when the glove drops in the mud, the mud doesn’t get glovey.

My hope and prayer is that the movie will still be doctrinally solid. When it is released in a few months, please be discerning about it. Here is an essay with more information about Priscilla Shirer.

Here is the press release of information about the Kendricks’ new as yet untitled movie:

Kendrick Brothers Wrap Filming on Anticipated Fifth Movie

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 29, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — Alex and Stephen Kendrick–creators of hit faith films FIREPROOF and COURAGEOUS–have just wrapped principal photography on their anticipated fifth movie–a family drama with humor and heart focused on the power of prayer and its primary role in the Christian life…. The film features New York Times best-selling author and Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer in her film debut. “I’m honored to be working with the Kendricks, and to be part of a story that encourages people to pray,” Shirer said. “Prayer is the most powerful weapon the church has to unlock the activity of heaven on earth.”… “It’s time for fierceness in prayer, and I cannot think of a more crucial message for a movie to convey,” Moore said. “God waits to see a generation that will take Him at His Word. Let’s be that generation.”

I have a peeve about teachers claiming that ‘we are the generation’ to finally get it right. Has no other generation in 6000 years ever taken God at His word? Apparently not, according to Moore. How narcissistic. As if God hasn’t used every generation to further His will and plan. If I may be allowed to echo the words of the eminent Dr Craig of the long-departed television drama St. Elsewhere,

“Oh for crying out loud.“

————————————–

A good word from Pastor David Platt:

Twitter wisdom, and apparently from an 11-year-old no less: ‏@JonathanDLeeman:

A friend’s 11 year old boy: they should combine YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook and call it You Twit Face.

I deactivated my Facebook account. The constant drama, me-orientation, superficiality, time-wasters, temptation to sin, and false doctrine abounding finally got to me. And you know what? I haven’t missed it.

————————————–

If you’re struggling financially, living in an urban ghetto, a third world nation, your car, or just barely hanging on, I leave this verse with you-

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)

ebola, liberia, pestilence, prophecy

Ebola outbreak in W. Africa causing panic, out of control in some areas

Posted on August 1, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There is a monster Ebola outbreak in Africa right now. Liberia is especially affected. Ebola is a deadly virus that causes a mortality rate of up to 90%. CBS News posted this morning,

Ebola: What you need to know

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has surpassed 700, according to the World Health Organization. It’s the deadliest outbreak ever recorded. U.S. health officials are warning Americans not to travel to the three countries hit by the outbreak: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Amid fears that air travelers could spread Ebola to other countries, many are asking questions about the disease and how it is transmitted. Here’s what you need to know about Ebola. The information comes from WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I posted some of the CBS News information about Ebola below, and of course, please click on the link above to find out more. The fears related to travel come on the heels of a scare from a few days ago. The Washington Post’s choice of headline added to the scare. They wrote: This is the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Here’s why you should be worried.

What’s particularly scary, though, was the recent death of a Liberian man in Lagos, the bustling coastal mega-city in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. The man, a consultant for the Liberian government, had traveled from Liberia through an airport in Lome, the capital of Togo, before arriving in Nigeria. The hospital where he died is under lockdown, and the WHO has sent teams to Togo and Nigeria. (source)

That incident sparked headlines like this,

Ebola only a plane ride away from USA

The growing Ebola outbreak in West Africa serves as a grim reminder that deadly viruses are only a plane ride away from the USA, health experts say.

What is Ebola? Back to the CBS News article,

Ebola virus disease, sometimes known as EVD, is a highly infectious, usually fatal virus that leads to flu-like symptoms and severe internal bleeding. Just how deadly is Ebola? The survival rate is very low. Somewhere between 60 percent and 90 percent of the people who develop Ebola will die.

Of the 1200 or so cases reported in Africa, over 700 have died. That is a 60% mortality rate.

The severe internal bleeding mentioned in the CBS News article as one of the final symptoms of Ebola is caused by hemorrhagic fever. About half the cases don’t result in hemorrhagic fever, but of the half that do, the end is truly horrific. The bleeding is severe because the patient’s insides are melting.

The onset is just like regular flu and is often mistaken for that. The severity of the disease doesn’t make itself apparent at initial onset. Worse, the incubation period is from 2 to 21 days, meaning that up to three weeks can pass before a person comes down with symptoms. Meanwhile, he could have flown from country to country.

The good news is that it isn’t spread through the air. You can’t catch it like you catch a cold, after someone next to you sneezes. Though it is highly contagious, it is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, like blood. Health care workers are especially at-risk. American’s Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol of Samaritan’s Purse contracted Ebola while on scene but are stable. Dr. Samuel Brisbane, one of Liberia’s most high-profile doctors, died from Ebola this week.

Guinea: With no vaccine and no treatment for Ebola, MSF’s priority is to
isolate cases as quickly as possible. Isolation teams are obliged to work in
‘hazmat’ suits. Photo Luis Encinas/MSF (March 2014)

This outbreak won’t be considered over until there are no new confirmed cases for 42 days.

To halt the spread, Liberia had in the early days restricted public gatherings such as marches and demonstrations. However, with the rapid spread, Liberia this week took the additional dramatic move to shut its schools and close its borders. This should give some indication of how serious the situation is.

Untreated or not caught early, the mortality rate is 90%, but this outbreak was jumped on by doctors immediately and measures were taken, this is why the mortality rate is at 60%. This is still a very high mortality rate.

By comparison, in the so-called “Mother of All Pandemics” the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918-1919, Wikipedia reports,

The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but an estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died. With about a third of the world population infected, this case-fatality ratio means 3% to 6% of the entire global population died. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people, while current estimates say 50–100 million people worldwide were killed.

This pandemic has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed more people than the Black Death. It is said that this flu killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century.

Officials are concerned, obviously, with the current Ebola outbreak because the mortality rate compared to the Spanish Influenza pandemic is so much higher. The population one hundred years later is also much more mobile. As the previously referred to article suggests, Ebola could be a mere plane ride away.

Thus, despite the measures taken socially and medically, Jake Tapper reports today,
Liberian President: There are dead bodies all over
Denial and fear turning to panic.
“President: This is serious… very nearing a catastrophe“

The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that initially people in Liberia, one of the three nations affected, didn’t believe in the gravity of the situation. “They thought it was a scam,” she said. Now, some weeks later, “They are seeing dead bodies all over the place” and they understand the seriousness. Unfortunately, the President said, they are panicking, and are fleeing places where Ebola has broken out, making quarantine difficult. It also makes it more difficult to track who they came into contact with, President Sirleaf said.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that,

The outbreak of the extraordinarily lethal Ebola virus has worsened in West Africa, with the contagion showing no sign of coming under control, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday to warn Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A patient who was infected with the virus in Africa is expected to be treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta within several days, the university said in a statement Thursday. The patient, his or her identity undisclosed, will be treated at a special containment unit set up in collaboration with the CDC to treat people exposed to serious infectious diseases. … It would be the first time a patient infected with Ebola has been treated in the United States, according to a CDC spokeswoman.

One can immediately see how and why the verses prophesying a third of the world killed by disease can easily come to pass.

When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:7-8)

John MacArthur has preached that the killing by wild beasts likely will include pestilential rats carrying pestilential fleas.

There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:11)

I emphasize that this Ebola outbreak is NOT a fulfillment of either of those prophetic verses. I am reporting on a current event, with facts. I will also make note as to how and why the pestilential outbreaks during the Tribulation can easily kill a third and a fourth of the nations.

By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. (Revelation 9:18)

Did military medical doctors know in January 1918 at Ft. Riley Kansas that the few men who turned up sick would be the first patients of a wave of influenza outbreaks that would circle every corner of the globe? No. But they did have some inkling of the virulence of the outbreak.

In the United States, the disease was first observed in Haskell County, Kansas, in January 1918, prompting local doctor Loring Miner to warn the U.S. Public Health Service’s academic journal. On 4 March 1918, company cook Albert Gitchell reported sick at Fort Riley, Kansas. By noon on 11 March 1918, over 100 soldiers were in the hospital. Within days, 522 men at the camp had reported sick. By 11 March 1918 the virus had reached Queens, New York. (Source)

And that was in 1918, without passenger air travel.

We never know if the outbreak we are watching is the one that will lead to the pestilential outbreaks note in scripture. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could die out without ever escaping that continent. Or it could be THE one. Last night Liberian officials admitted the outbreak is above their control.

In Revelation 6 when the fourth horse carrying death and Hades rides, it is written that a fourth of the world will die. Let’s put that to some hard numbers. The world population is currently 7 billion. A fourth of that is one billion seven hundred fifty million dead.

The remaining population would be five billion two hundred fifty million. However, many of those will die in wars, or by beasts, or secondary causes like simply being petrified. (Luke 21:26). But say when the Revelation 9 verse comes true, and a third of the 5B are killed, that will be another 1.3 billion people dead.

Imagine billions upon billions laying around dead. The Liberian President’s words, “there are bodies everywhere” would have little meaning by comparison. People living in those days will wish for the days when only a few hundred had died, if they are not killed before hand.

Whether the plague is now or it is future, it will happen. All those living on the earth who are left behind after the rapture will see these things come to pass. It will happen, and it will be a horror beyond any imagining. Jesus said it will be the worst time on earth that ever was…and this includes the Flood. (Matthew 24:21).

If you believe in Jesus and repent of your sins, you will be saved. Repent means to be sorry for the things you have done that go against God (and all people have sinned fallen short of pleasing Him, Romans 3:23 says). All means all. All means you.

But if you have faith in Jesus and repent, He will take you up in the air when He calls for His bride. This is the rapture. Jesus will call His believers up to Him and award us, (2 Corinthians 5:10). This ceremony is known as the Bema Seat. While this ceremony is happening in heaven with Jesus and the believers, His Bride, on earth the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse described in Revelation 6 will ride. The Fourth Horseman is the horse of death and Hades. All those who had failed to believe in Jesus will be subject to their power. Those who die not believing in Christ will go to Hades, AKA hell. Many will come to faith in the Tribulation, but the potential for death and an eternity in hell at that time is high. Do not risk it. Believe now.

The glory of the LORD is that at the end of all things, He will throw Death and Hades into the Lake of Fire!

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. (Revelation 20:14)

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16.33)

“The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Revelation 21:7)

In Jesus YOU are an overcomer, too!