John responded, “As I understand it, a pestilence is an epidemic of a contagious or deadly disease. We surely had our share of them in the late 1990s. The two most deadly came out of Africa, probably from the country of Zaire. In the 1950s, scientists working for a European research institute discovered a polio vaccine made from monkey serum. They gave the vaccine by oral spray to about two hundred thousand people in Zaire.

“But something terrible happened that the researchers had not bargained for—the monkey serum carried a virus that was unknown to human beings. It caused a shutdown of peoples’ immune systems. Once it got into the human population, the virus spread rapidly through sexual contact, particularly among homosexuals. The appearance of this virus among humans coincided with what we called the ‘sexual revolution.’ This virtually guaranteed that it would spread like wildfire all over the world. Right now, ten million people have the virus, and at least a million have already died from it. I’m sure you already know what I’m talking about. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.”

Carl spoke up. “You believe that AIDS is a sign of the times?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So, is it a biblical pestilence?”

“Of course, it is,” John replied. “And, so far, there’s no cure for it. But AIDS is only one pestilence. All of you must have heard about others. Modern medicine brought the world penicillin and other wonder drugs. At first these medicines were so effective that doctors began prescribing them to cure every ache and pain and fever their patients developed. Even chicken growers regularly mixed antibiotics into the feed that their birds ate in order to keep their stock disease-free. Then, too late, we learned that disease organisms began to adapt. They became resistant to the repeated doses of penicillin and other antibacterial preparations we had been using.

“The result,” he continued, “was the emergence of pestilences of epic proportions. In the mid-1990s, there were three hundred million cases of drug-resistant malaria, tens of millions of cases of drug-resistant sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis, and chlamydia. Health authorities began noticing an epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Then, the ultimate horror appeared in 1976—hemorrhagic fever. Scientists named it after a river in Zaire known as the Ebola, because all the inhabitants of one entire village there died mysteriously after contracting this previously unknown and untreatable virus.