Unlike normal colds and flus, the transmission and death rates from this virus was much higher, with the elderly in particular prone to fatal lung infections. The COVID-19 virus quickly spread and by the end of January the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency, with governments and hospitals woefully unprepared for the growing flood of patients.

Meanwhile many Christians wondered if Bible prophecy could shed any light on current conditions and what the future might bring. Shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples asked what signs or trends would precede His return. In response, Christ listed religious deception, war, famines and pestilences and referred to them as “the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:5-8).

He explained these conditions would lead to the great tribulation: “a time of great distress, such as there has never been before since the beginning of the world, and will never be again” (Matthew 24:21), warning that: “If that time of troubles were not cut short, no living thing could survive, but for the sake of God’s chosen it will be cut short” (Verse 22).

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

In Revelation chapter 6 we find a more detailed description of these end-time events of religious deception, war, famines and pestilences presented as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The first rider, in verse 2, is mounted on a white horse wielding a bow and wearing a crown. Some assume this is Jesus Christ, but Christ returns much later and does not ride a white horse. He also carries a sword and wears many crowns. This first rider is an imposter, representing false religion that deceives most of mankind (Matthew 24:5, 11 and 24).

The second horseman rides a fiery red horse representing warfare, “...and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword” (Revelation 6:4).

Revelation 6:5 and 6 then describes a third black horse with the rider carrying scales in his hand. A voice describes the scarcity of food that will strike the whole earth in the aftermath of war, just as Jesus described famine conditions in Matthew 24:7.

The fourth horse and rider is described as “a horse whose color was pale green. Its rider was named Death, and his companion was the Grave” (Revelation 6:8). In Jesus’ prophecy recorded in Matthew 24:7 “pestilences” or disease epidemics occur in the wake of religious deception and war, taking the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

History reveals how devastating and deadly these plagues can be. The “Black Death” or “Black Plague” of the 14th century started in Asia and spread to Europe. It is thought to have killed a third of the world’s population.

Eight centuries earlier, in A.D. 541, an outbreak of plague in the time of the Emperor Justinian shattered his dreams of reestablishing the glory of the Roman Empire. Hordes of flea-carrying rats spread the plague through the Byzantine Empire, killing about a fourth of the world’s population—some 50 million people.

In 1894 another plague outbreak in Hong Kong and Canton (or Guangzhou) killed an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people, then spread from Chinese ports to the rest of the world, resulting in 10 million more deaths.

In 1817, the first of seven cholera pandemics over the next 150 years started in Russia and took a million lives. Cholera spread to India where millions more died. Smallpox, leprosy and measles have also claimed millions of lives. In 1520, smallpox helped bring down the mighty Aztec Empire.

Today epidemiologists are greatly concerned about pandemics like COVID-19—zoonotic viruses that jump from animals to human beings through mutation. HIV is one such killer, and has claimed some 35 million lives over the last 40 years. Ebola is another, killing its victims so quickly that they most often die before they have time to spread the virus to others. Just over a century ago, a strain of flu crossed from birds to human beings and took an estimated 50 million lives during its deadly march around the globe.

Today we also face the threat of biological weapons. The concept has been around since the 1300s when Mongol invaders catapulted plague-infested corpses over the walls of cities to let the plague do its killing for them. Anthrax and cholera are only two of a number of deadly infectious agents we know have been converted into bioweapons by national governments and terrorists.

God’s message to mankind via the four horsemen are the consequences of mankind rejecting our Creator and choosing our own way to live which, as all of human history has shown, results in death (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). The Bible is full of warnings and pleadings from God to turn from our sinful ways and “seek the Lord while He may be found” (Isaiah 55:6). He is “...not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

After the devastating ride of the four horsemen, the book of Revelation describes God’s merciful intervention to save the human race from extinction. God will bring peace and freedom from death and disease to the earth, but not before mankind learns the lesson of where our human ways lead us.

The story of mankind doesn’t end with the last of the four horsemen of Revelation. John saw not four horsemen, but five. Mankind’s hope lies with the fifth horseman, Jesus Christ, whose ride in Revelation 19:11-16 to intervene in world affairs marks the end of mankind’s misrule on the earth.The author of this article relates that when he was a boy his parents came to realize the Holy Days described in Leviticus 23 were commanded in both Old and New Testaments. Until then, his family had observed Christmas, Easter and Halloween, and he did not want to give these holidays up.