"Infirmum Mundi"- Sick World

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 21

The people spoke against God and Moses: “Why have you led us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!” 6 Then the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people, and they bit them so that many Israelites died.

7 The people then came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Intercede with the LORD so that he will take the snakes away from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.

8 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake image and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will recover.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. Whenever someone was bitten, and he looked at the bronze snake, he recovered.

ANTONINE PLAGUE (165 AD)

Death Toll: 5 million Cause: Unknown Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague was an ancient pandemic that affected Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. This unknown disease was brought back to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia around 165AD

PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN (541-542)

Death Toll: 25 million Cause: Bubonic Plague Thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe,

THE BLACK DEATH (1346-1353)

Death Toll: 75 – 200 million Cause: Bubonic Plague From 1346 to 1353 an outbreak of the Plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia, with an estimated death toll between 75 and 200 million people.

MULTIPLE CHOLERA PANDEMICS 

Death Toll: Almost 2 million Cause: Cholera The Cholera Pandemic originated in India, spreading from the Ganges River Delta before tearing through Asia, Europe, North America and Africa and ending the lives of over a million people.

Russian Flu (1889-1890)

Death Toll: 1 million Cause: Influenza Originally the “Asiatic Flu” or “Russian Flu” as it was called, of Bukhara in Central Asia (Turkestan), Athabasca in northwestern Canada, and Greenland

FLU PANDEMIC (1918)

Death Toll: 20 -50 million Cause: Influenza Between 1918 and 1920 a disturbingly deadly outbreak of influenza tore across the globe, infecting over a third of the world’s population and ending the lives of 20 – 50 million people.

ASIAN FLU (1956-1958)

Death Toll: 2 million Cause: Influenza Asian Flu was a pandemic outbreak

HONG KONG FLU (1968)

Death Toll: 1 million Cause: Influenza It took only 17 days before outbreaks of the virus were reported in Singapore and Vietnam, and within three months had spread to The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States.

HIV/AIDS PANDEMIC (AT ITS PEAK, 2005-2012)

Death Toll: 36 million Cause: HIV/AIDS First identified in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS has truly proven itself

THEN THE COVID-19 (THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS)?

Death Toll: ? no sure data as of this date Cause: No one knows for sure yet. Beginning in December 2019, in the region of Wuhan, China, a new (“novel”) coronavirus began appearing in human beings.

Throughout history the world has had its share of sicknesses. And thankfully, after some time, and unfortunate deaths, man has found a way to either treat, cope or cure the sicknesses we have had to face.

If you drive down a local highway not far away, there stands an advertisement of a pill that allows one to supposedly prevent HIV.

Imagine that, a pill to prevent a disease.

When I was growing up, older people would always joke, that one day there will be a pill for this or for that,

and look, here we are.

Modern Conveniences

In our modern times and conveniences something gets lost in history.

I saw a movie by Mel Gibson called “Apocalypto.” It is about the ancient Mayan culture. There is a scene where these bad guys are chasing a victim through very dense tropical jungle. One of the several among the group was suddenly bitten by a Fer-de-lance Snake on the neck.

As he lay there in pain and shock, his buddies kill the snake, and then, start saying their goodbyes to him.

One of them, even leaves him a knife to kill himself once the agony of dying became too great.

Notice there were no modern conveniences like, an ambulance to come to the rescue. There wasn’t a Walmart to get some bite cream for those in the past.

“How would you like that. Oh, you’re sick, oh thats too bad, well say hello to Jesus for me?”

If that were to happen today, with a phone call, a team could show up, and inject him with an anti-venom shot and prevent him from an agonizing death.

If he only had what we have now, he would have lived.

When people were suffering from the Antonine plague, which was probably smallpox, they didn’t know they could be easily treated with modern medicine.

If all they had were some antibiotics, they would have lived and not died.

Speaking of Modern Antibiotics, if they would have been available during the multiple outbreaks of the Bubonic plague, many would have been easily treated for the disease. The worst they may have recieved would have been a loose stomach perhaps.

If the multiple generations that had suffered through this dark time called the “black death,” in history, had access to common antibiotics, they would not have died but would’ve lived.

Speaking of loose Stomachs, What about those poor people, and I mean literally poor people that suffered through Cholera outbreaks? If they had access to clean water, they would not have gone through this, but history proves they didn’t and they drank contaminated water killing almost 2 million.

If only they had access to what we produce in now in surplus, and have packed on our shelves at every pharmacy in the country, they wouldn’t have died, but lived.

The world has gone through some sickness.

How about the Flu virus?

They say sickness isn’t racist, and that it can infect anyone no matter what color you are or where you live, but the flu isn’t playing around. It takes it to the next level.

It speaks so diverse it speaks several world languages,

There is the Russian, the Asian, the Hong Kong, and the Spanish apparently.

Not only does it affect humans, the animal kingdom has it’s own problem with them.

The Bird flu, Swine flu, & the Equine flu.

But, every year, we can get a little shot in the arm to prevent us from having to deal with it. Every year we are “Asked” to get a flu shot.

If those generations had what we have access to today, they wouldn’t have died, but lived.

Then HIV hit the world in a big way, making a big splash in the 80’s. Everyone was afraid to go near anyone infected with it. And still to this day. Even though there is very capable treatment for it these days. It still carries a sort of stigma. We still need to take serious precautions not to get exposed to this very deadly virus.

But, even so, if the people who have been exposed to this virus, only had the prevention medicine we have today, they would have lived and not died.

Now most recently the entire world went through a very traumatic pandemic the likes of which the world is still trying to overcome. We, even in this very building are still trying to rebuild our lives now around the ashes of the burn pile we call,

COVID-19

In the beginning of this illness, many died giving us in modern time, a taste of what those in the past must have gone through. But thanks be to God that once again, those in the arena of medical sciences were able to respond the illness quickly and have saved many lives.

But, again, if those who had suffered through this affliction had the medicine we have access to today, they wouldn’t have died, but would have lived.

In the book of Numbers

We are told of a time when the Israelites were grumbling against God, and the things of God, IE: the food and wilderness travel etc. So, God sent an affliction among them in the form of snake bites. Similar to the ordeal that Mel Gibson’s make believe character had to encounter.

But, unlike the unfortunate fellow in the jungle, God had compassion on their suffering. He heard them in their pain, sorrow, and affliction and provided a remedy, a treatment, a cure!

He told Moses to erect a bronze serpent in the midst of the congregation so that any that were afflicted, were to “Look” upon it and be healed of their affliction. This story resonated over the millennia’s even making its way into the pagan symbol for medicine known as the serpent twined around the staff.

Would you withhold a cure or remedy?

If you knew someone suffering from an ancient plague, like the Antoine plague, or the bubonic plague, and I gave you some medicine specifically for that person, would you take it and give it to get? Or would we act like the friends in the jungle, give them a knife instead to help speed up their demise?

Could we ever withhold a life giving treatment or cure for someone who is deathly sick?

Then you could say, “Well, there isn’t a current pandemic or outbreak to tend to right now.”

Friends, look around you. You live in a fallen world. Everywhere you look, there is always someone around you infected with the age old sickness, that ancient pandemic, is hasn’t gone anywhere, and we were all infected with it at one time or another, and sometimes when we think it’s gone from our lives, it shows back up again.

“SIN”

There isn’t sickness in the world, the “WORLD” is sick.

For proof, all you have to do is turn on the TV and watch. Within a few seconds, you will be inundated with images that could only come from a sickness.

We don’t see it unless we are looking for it.

This sickness is like HIV, it likes to hide within the body and minds unsuspected. But the problem is, just like all sickness and afflictions the longer it goes untreated the more damage it is doing to your mind, body & soul.

If you don’t see the sickness in the world it is because you are sick yourself.

In a TV series about Zombies, a group of living people needed to get through a horde of Zombies. what they did to get through is exactly why we don’t see the sickness in some of the things we do in this world. They covered themselves in the flesh of the dead, so that they smelled dead just like the rest of them in the horde.

They covered themselves in the dead around them.

“To conform to a sick society is to become sick”

Those of us that are aware of this sickness are aware because we have been treated. We have been healed rom our afflictions. How did we do that?

Did we do this on our own?

No,

We did it because just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and the people that looked upon it got healed,

So did other brothers and sisters that were already treated and healed, knowing that by Jesus alone were healed,

Now with their eyes opened and our sickness revealed, came before us and taught us to look upon Jesus whom hung on that cross, hanging there for our transgressions.

Bearing the weight of ALL our sins, and by whose stripes we were healed.

They looked up to the Cross just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Jesus was lifted up for all of our afflictions.

John 3:14-21

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God

Brothers and Sisters, we may not be battling a world pandemic that wreak havoc in your body,

But make no mistake, this world is Sick,

Sick with “SIN”

And we are all infected.

Jesus is our only hope in this “Infirmum Mundi” Sick World.

So, as we are all running about scrambling for a cure for many of this generations ills.

Let’s not forget the most dangerous one.

Bring the cure to the world

Now, that you know the world is still suffering from a pandemic, a pandemic of Sin

I ask you again,

If you knew a person was suffering from a disease, and I gave you the remedy, would you take it to them?

I am telling you, that all the people you know, have ever known, ever will know is suffering from that worst of all diseases, Sin.

I am right now giving you the cure, the remedy, the antibiotic, and the “Prevention Pill”

Won’t you take it to them?

All you have to do is,

LIFT US THE CROSS OF JESUS and tell them to look up HIM and they shall live and not die.

Jesus must be lifted up

Jesus must be lifted up. We must lift Him up!

The world today is sick, and continuing to be bitten by poisonous snakes.