We have a lot on our plate

It is going to happen that you are going to hear battles and reports of wars. Take heed that you will not be troubled, for it is necessary that all these things should happen, but it will not yet be the end. For nation will arise against nation, and Kingdom against Kingdom, and there will be famines and plagues and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are the beginning of sorrows. Matthew 24: 6-8, Peshitta Holy Bible Translated

Pestilence

Astonishing, chilling, surreal.

The apocalyptic images above are nothing that this generation has seen before.

As of May 2022, 228 countries and territories around the world have reported a total of 530,482,511 confirmed cases of the coronavirus COVID-19 and a death toll of 6,308,176 deaths.

This was not business as usual. On the contrary, with strict social distancing measures, nationwide lockdowns, international travel bans and quarantine orders, the world came to a literal standstill at various points of the Covid-19 pandemic. Travel related businesses had record losses, poorer parts of the world suffered indescribable losses, nations isolated from one another in a global effort to starve off the virus.

At the same time, pharmaceutical companies sprang into action to develop vaccines at accelerated   time and health authorities expedited approval processes. After close to two and a half years, many countries began to see light at the end of the tunnel and “living with Covid-19” became the buzzword to get back to “business as usual”.  

Covid-19, has not been the worst pandemic compared with the likes of the “Black Death” and “Spanish Flu”

See a list of major pandemics with very high death tolls from the past:     

Name	Time period	Estimated Death toll
Plague of Justinian	541-542	30-50M
Black Death	1347-1351	200M
New World Smallpox Outbreak	1520 – onwards	56M
Third Plague	1885	12M (China and India)
Spanish Flu	1918-1919	40-50M (some estimated up to 100M)
HIV/AIDS	1981-present	25-35M

Covid-19 will certainly not be the last pandemic. Risks of new Covid-19 variants that are more infectious and vaccine resistant remain high. At the time of this writing, a new virus, Monkeypox, surfaced in various parts of the world.

Wars and rumours of wars

In the mist of a path towards normalization from Covid-19, tension between Russia and Ukraine escalated and finally led to an invasion by Russia on February 24, 2022. After months of military build-up and speculations on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine, the somewhat unexpected happened with liberation of the Donbass region, where Pro-Russian separatists have been fighting with Ukraine, being the pretext by Putin for the invasion.

What was even more unexpected by the world and Putin himself was the heroic defence to the invasion put up by Ukraine’s military forces and the defiance displayed by ordinary Ukraine residents, law makers and not least President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What Putin had anticipated and planned to be a quick military operation dragged on for months and is still grinding on at the time of this writing. With the long-drawn battles raging on, military casualties on both sides and lost of civilian lives piled up. There were also reports of war crimes and atrocities such like never seen before since the end of World War 2. In fact, concerns of a Third World War surfaced at some points with fears of Putin turning to nuclear weapons to end the war.   

Military casualties are harder to ascertain with the Ukrainian government claiming between 2,500–3,000 killed and 10,000 wounded as of 15 April 2022 while the Russian government claiming 1,351 killed and 3,825 wounded as of 25^th March 2022. Number on both sides are likely to be much higher.

While the battlefronts in Ukraine raged on, observers continue to watch China closely for possibilities of an all-out invasion of Taiwan. As recently as November 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s longstanding position that China seeks peaceful reunification but if Taiwan pushes for independence, China will be compelled to use force against Taiwan. Then, on 2 Aug 2022, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accompanied by a delegation of five Democratic Party members of the House visited Taiwan. That sparked China to carry out its largest-ever military drills around Taiwan.

There have been very brief periods in the 20^th century where there is not an arm conflict between states somewhere in the world. One estimate of the total number of deaths in the 20^th century as a result of war put the number at 123 million (source: http://necrometrics.com/all20c.htm).

Below is a list of the top twelve deadliest wars in history:

	War	Period	Estimated Deaths
1	World War II	1939 to 1945	70 million
2	The Second Sino-Japanese War	1937 and 1945	29 million
3	The Qing Dynasty Conquest of the Ming Dynasty	1618 to 1683	25 million
4	Taiping Rebellion	1850 and 1864	20-30 million
5	World War I	1914 to 1918	18 million
6	An Lushan Rebellion	755 A.D. and 763 A.D	36 million
7	The Dungan Revolt	19th-century	20 million
8	The Russian Civil War	1917-1922	8 million
9	The Chinese Civil War	1927 – 1950	8 million
10	The Thirty Years’ War	1618 to 1648	8 million
11	Napoleonic Wars	1803-1815	3.5-6 million
12	The Second Congo War	1998-2003	5.4 million

See full list of wars in history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars

Since 1946, the number of deaths due to war has declined. There were however periods of peaks marked by the Korean War (early 1950s), the Vietnam War (around 1970), and the Iran-Iraq and Afghanistan wars (1980s). Conflict in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have also resulted in recent increase in deaths.

Despite wars not being as bloody in recent years as the last century, it is clear that tension in various regions of the world remains high. Any of these localised conflicts can potentially spark into a global war. A case in point was the Qing Dynasty Conquest of the Ming Dynasty which started out as a small rebellion in the north-eastern part of China.

Civil conflicts have been increasing in recent years as the following chart shows:

From where is war and contention among you? Is it not from the lusts which war in your members? You lust and you do not possess; you murder and envy and you have no power. You fight and you do battle and you have not because you ask not. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wickedly so that your lusts may be fed.

James 4:1-3 Peshitta Holy Bible Translated

The human lust for wanting more, covertness, jealousy and envy is as old as the biblical creation story. We are told in the book of Genesis that the offspring of Adam and Eve, Cain, committed the first recorded murder in the bible against his brother Abel out of jealousy and envy.

Despite the best efforts of international bodies, peace treaties and alliances, the prospect for world peace is remote (or rather nil) as the human lust for more and propensity for self-preservation remains.

Inflation

And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third Beast saying, “Come”, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat upon him had a balance scale in his hand. And I heard a voice from among The Beasts, which said, “A two-quart measure of wheat for a denarius and three two-quart measures of barley for a denarius, and you shall not harm the wine and the oil.”

Revelations 6:5-6 Peshitta Holy Bible Translated

The combination of Covid-19 and the Ukraine-Russia war unleased somewhat of a “perfect storm” for inflation. Charts below shows US inflation rate at a historical high of 8.54% in March 2022.

Production of good and services, supply chain as well as retail sales were greatly disrupted by Covid-19 related lockdowns and other safe management measures. In short, supply of good and services were impacted. On the demand side, governments around the world embarked on putting more money into the hands of consumers to prevent economic meltdowns by pumping up demands through cash benefits and assistances and quantitative easing. The chart below shows the US Federal Reserve embarking on unprecedentedly massive money creation during the Covid-19 period.

Wars generally cause inflation. Clearly, the war in Ukraine had skyrocketed oil prices.

Russia is one of the largest producers of oil, sitting at the top next to Saudi Arabia and the United States. During the Covid-19 pandemic, output of oil had stalled due to reduced economic activities. Just before the invasion of Ukraine, demand for oil increased as many economies recovered from the pandemic and entered into the recovery phase, raising oil prices even before the invasion. Immediately after the invasion, several Western countries imposed economic sanctions and directives to ban the import of Russian oil with the aim to cripple the Russian economy. This had a ripple effect across the world. (Reference: https://www.profolus.com/topics/why-are-oil-and-gas-prices-going-up-impact-of-russia-ukraine-war/)

Food prices were not spared. Especially those that depended on wheat. Both Russia and Ukraine, which is nicknamed “bread basket of Europe”, are two top producers of wheat. With disruption of shipment through the Black Sea and sanctions, wheat prices have also increased steeply and the impact is felt across the world. Prices of fertilizers and chicken feeds were among commodities prices impacted. Coupled with extreme heatwaves in some places, many countries like India, Indonesia and Malaysia turned to food protectionism by banning exports of certain food supply to stabilize domestic prices in order to secure or increase local supplies. However, this further resulted in increased prices for other countries.

Rising temperature and other natural catastrophise

And then, something else rose: temperature.

The world is getting hotter and we no longer need to rely on data to feel it. But here are the data anyway:

The data are clear: both temperature and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that causes global warming are increasing at alarming rates. The impacts of climate change have also become obvious. At an individual level, mental and physical health are impacted. At a more catastrophic global level, cities like Jakarta, Lagos and Bangkok are sinking. In our lifetimes, some coastal cities or island states like Maldives and Tuvalu may disappear.

Climate change has also cause other natural disasters to occur more frequently such as flood, drought, wildfire, landslides and extreme weather. All of which combined have been on an upward trend.

Market loss due to Covid-19 hit about 34%. There have been worst market losses in the past, such as the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis (S&P 500 loss: 57%); the 2000 Dotcom Bubble (Nasdaq loss: 77%); the 1973 Oil Crisis and Economic Recession (Market loss: 48%) and the 1929 Great Depression (Dow loss: 89%). Source: https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/five-biggest-market-crashes/

And in the mist of wide spectrums of turmoil across the globe, something peculiar occurred on May 17 2022 when the US Congress discussed about a topic that is literally “out of this world”

Something strange in your neighbourhood

For the first time in 50 years, the US Congress held its first open congressional hearing about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) which was given them a new name: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). During the hearing, it was revealed that there has been reports from the military of about 400 UAP sightings & 11 encounters.

Video footages of some of the sightings showed objects that, in the words of Congressman Adam Schiff, “appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics, appeared to demonstrate advanced technology, and some of them appeared to remain stationery and winds aloft, move against the wind, manoeuvre abruptly, or move at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion”.

In short, the flight movements of these objects defied the laws of physics.

Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, explained that UAP incidents are “likely fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. Government or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, or another bin that allows for a holding bin of difficult cases and for the possibility of surprise and potential scientific discovery.”

The official conclusion of the hearing on the explanations of these UAP sightings is, – we don’t know.

The Old Testament does contain passages describing existence of strange encounters that are hard to explain. For example, the first women, Eve, encountered what appeared to be a talking serpent (Genesis 3:3) which enticed her on how to acquire superior wisdom. 

Perhaps stranger is the following verses:

“And it was that when sons of men began to multiply on the face of the Earth and daughters were born to them, the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful and they took those women to them of all that they chose. And LORD JEHOVAH said: “My Spirit will not dwell in man for eternity because he is flesh and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” And giants were in the earth in those days, also after this, because the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they gave birth to the giants that were from of old, the Heroes of fame”.

Genesis 6:1-4 Peshitta Holy Bible Translated

Many biblical scholars put forth the interpretation that angelic beings (Sons of God) came to earth to procreate with human women (daughters of men) and produced giants known as the Nephilim. Such phenomenon appears to be consistent with many ancient artefacts uncovered from across ancient civilization which depicts unions of beings from out of this world with humans and Demi-Gods such as those of Greek mythology.

Are there truly other lifeforms with superior technologies in other parts of the universe or are these more likely to be spiritual beings travelling between dimensions? The bible predicts deceiving spirits ( 1 Timothy 4:1) appearing during the latter part of the world. Could these extraterritorial encounters be part of the biblical end times deceptions?

With the May 2022 Congressional hearing, UFOs are no longer mocked at as conspiracy theory.

Conclusion

All the global events described have occurred multiple times in the past and many with even greater negative impacts previously. What is different this time is all the occurrences are converging simultaneously and resulting in broader and more significant global impacts because of the tighter macro-environmental connectedness of the world today.

Some biblical translation of Matthew 24:8 describe these converging happenings as “…the beginning of birth pangs”. In other words, they will occur more frequently and intensely, punctuated with brief periods of seemingly returns to normalcy. These birth pangs will ultimately be so momentous that the urgent call will be for a global coordinated effort, through a unified world governing body, to solve these catastrophic events. In fact, that call has already taken place.

Matthew 24:6 tells us that “…for it is necessary that all these things should happen,”. Why are all these things necessary to happen and necessary for what? The next article will explore these questions.