7. Plagues from God

The news about cancer, as announced by scientists, are shocking. In 2050 two out of three Europeans will develop cancer, while from 2000 already one in three will be affected by this dreadful disease. In Cyprus, a country with around one million inhabitants, we have, around 4.000 new patients infected with cancer every year. Anyone can easily understand this reality, because we all have at least one relative, friend or acquaintance that has been a victim of cancer.

In spite of the huge amounts of money which are spent every year, worldwide, for research into cancer, yet science has in essence been confronted with an unknown enemy, while science continues not to know the reasons that cause cancer. The success of science of medicine for the cure of cancer does not exceed 15% of the total cancer cases of advanced infection.

We got used to believe that every disease or sickness has some bodily and or psychical source. But as human beings we are created in the image and likeness of the Triune God, that’s why we have apart from the body, the soul and the spirit. The source of a sickness can be not the type of material food we eat, but the quality of the spiritual food with which our spiritual human is fed.

Even our stand towards God may be the reason for sickness that casts upon us. During the time of the Old Testament when the people of Israel drove away from God, God was sending various sicknesses upon them. We read from the book of the prophet Daniel:

“Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him” (Daniel, 9:11).

But also during the first Christian period we see to happen something similar. Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians:

“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” (Corinthians A’, 11:28-30).

If God was sending diseases upon the sinful members of the first pure church of Christ, what else apart from plagues we should expect for God to sent upon a Church which somebody would call not church of Christ but Church of Antichrist? One such plague from God, so I believe, is cancer and generally all the malignant ulcers.

We read from the book of the Revelation :

“After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands. Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth” (Revel., 15 : 5-8 and 16:1).

There follows the first plague :

“So the first (angel) went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image” (Revel., 16:2).

“Foul and loathsome sore” (“Ulcer malignant and cunning” in the original Greek text). It does not need for somebody to be a doctor to understand that it is referring to cancer. The sicknesses “Malignant ulcer of the stomach” (the stomach ulcer usually constitutes the beginning of stomach cancer), and “the ulcerous cancer of the lower intestines” (the most fatal type of cancer after the lungs cancer),are two of the most frequently met types of cancer. The “cunning”, this is a term that is absolutely appropriately given for cancer. Cancer is considered as cunning sickness because it appears suddenly without any warning symptom, and creates metastasis in other words it spreads out from its original position arbitrarily into any other parts of the body.

Upon whom people God sends this plague of His “wrath” ? He sends this to people who receive the characteristic sign (“mark”) of the beast and adore his icon(“image”). Which is the beast and what is the “mark” and his “image”, we saw them in the chapter : The Beast and the False Prophet. What characterizes the “Christians” of the different dogmas is “the sign of the cross” (the “mark of the beast”). The Orthodox, in addition to the “sign of the cross” they also adore the icons (the “image of the beast”). I believe that here the Revelation speaks about the believers of all the “Christian” dogmas. What is the reason that causes God’s wrath and which wrath is expressed with such fierce form I believe it is now understood. It is the way that we the “Christians” worship Him or in other words how we have been taught from childhood to worship Him. A worship that while we think it pleases God, in reality it makes Him angry.

With justification somebody could wonder: But it is neither only the Christians that suffer from cancer, nor the cancer it is now that has emerged since archeological research done, indicates that cancer existed also in antiquity. The answer is given again by the Holy Bible :

“Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb” (Revel. 14:9-10).

“…he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God…”.

Not only these (the “Christians” of the different dogmas), but the others will also receive from the plagues from God.

Another question that may make you wonder dear reader is the following :

What is the criterion so that somebody may develop cancer and somebody else no? Is it that those who develop cancer are more in sin than the others ?

To this question I am going to answer with an event from the life of Jesus. One day a tower collapsed killing eighteen persons. When they mentioned this to Jesus He told them : “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke, 13:4-5). And we, if we do not repent and take care to correct our relations with God putting these on the only one healthy foundation which God set out and which is Jesus Christ, rejecting all the others, then we all will be lost in the same way, and the fears of the scientists that I mentioned at the start of this chapter will become true.

American scientists called AIDS the cousin of cancer because it seems that this has close relation with cancer. The disease that affects more frequently the AIDS victims is “Sarcoma Kaposi” a rare type of cancer usually of the skin and which infects also other parts of the body. Again from research made in the U.S.A., it has been proved that the AIDS virus settles on the cells of the brain causing cancer of the brain of different forms.

What is the way to avoid receiving of the plagues from God? The Holy Bible tells us about it:

“And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues” (Revel., 18:4).

The Church transformed into a spiritual Egypt before the eyes of God, onto which God sends plagues just as God did to Egypt at the time of the Old Testament. God invites us to stop a way of worship that only gives Him wrath, and to return to the healthy faith as it is clearly written in his written Word, the Holy Bible and especially the New Testament, if we want not to receive from His plagues.

Another plague because of our actions, which started being felt in increasing intensity in all countries, is the following :

“And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory” (Revel., 16:9).

The great release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere leads to the formation of the phenomenon of the “greenhouse” around the earth, which has as a result the continuous increase of temperature. Research by two universities in U.S.A. showed that the last decade of the last millennium was the hottest of the millennium. During 2023 NASA announced that the summer of 2023 was earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880. The worsening global consequences of the climate change are : heat waves, floods, melting of ice at the poles and rise of sea level.

I will end up this little book with the following words of comfort by the prophet Hosea: “Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth” (Hosea, 6:1-3).