Plagues and Promise like No Other

'Plagues and Promise like No Other' is obviously not only about a promise like no other; it is also about plagues like no other, the type of plagues you would probably not immediately associate with the book’s main theme. The plagues in question are not the usual suspects. They are not about infections of the body, not about the outbreaks of contagious diseases and pandemics like Covid-19 or the Spanish flu. SARS, Ebola, these are pestilences and epidemics which ravage societies and cause a lot of physical death and misery; although other plagues manifest themselves in infestations of vermin and pests which can also be sources of contagion or, as in the case of locusts, bring on other scourges like famine. Yet the plagues of this book are none of these. Rather are they associated with the big, fat elephant in the room of Christianity. Christians have long recognized that we are in the biblical Last Day, living in an era unlike any that has gone before. We are all witnesses to a world which, within a century and a half, has undergone vast, epochal changes as it successively transitioned through the Technological, Nuclear and Space Ages. Today, we find ourselves in the Digital Age and the Age of Globalization. And in these developments can be discerned the spirit of worldwide renewal in all fields of human endeavour. Moreover, within this same dizzying period and in rapid succession, we have experienced several earth-shattering events, some with calamitous repercussions, like the two devastating world wars (harbingers of what could well be the third and final global Armageddon) or the worldwide pandemics like the Spanish flu and the novel coronavirus. Other unprecedented events include the biblically-allusive and prophecy-fulfilling developments like the reassembling of the Jews in their ancestral, God-given homeland (as per the Old Testament biblical narratives) after almost two millennia in exile. So where then is the Christ of the Second Coming when Jesus had assured his followers that when they begin to take note of such momentous happenings they should know the Second Advent is 'near, even at the doors'? After over a century of such breathtaking developments, where is the promised Messiah, the Christ of the latter days? This book contends that the reason for the messianic no-show is not necessarily because the promised appearance has not occurred; it is almost certainly because of the infectious biblical plagues of illogical expectations, strange delusions, lingering doubts, erroneous doctrines, profound illusions, irrational dogmas, unfounded fallacies, idle fancies, mere fantasies, vain imaginations, sheer falsehoods, misguided interpretations, ridiculous misconceptions, puerile misunderstandings, mental confusions, inexcusable prejudices, and untenable superstitions—plagues which have been and are still being actively diffused in society through the activities of the Pharisees of our time. These virulent plagues of the mind and spirit, the type that infects the soul and afflicts it for all eternity, are sure to leave flocks of unsuspecting believers in isolation and quarantined away from any emerging Kingdom of the end-time Christ. Paradoxically, the focus of the book is not directly about these plagues of the spirit. It is more about the big elephant in the room: the non-fulfilment of the promise of the Second Coming of Jesus the Christ, a promise like no other in all of human history. Getting to grips with the true nature of the promise, however, requires containing the plagues and completely eliminating them. This then is what the book attempts to do.  For these plagues, like the promise, are truly like no other…