Mark Hitchcock is the senior pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.  He’s the author of more than 30 books related to Bible prophecy including the newly released ‘Showdown with Iran’ and another newly released book,’Corona Crisis: Plagues, Pandemics, and the Coming Apocalypse.’

Is the coronavirus itself predicted in the Bible?  Mark doesn’t believe it is, however, he does point to two areas of Scripture that speak of global plagues or pandemics that play a large factor in the Bible’s end-times scenario. 

He referred to Matthew 24 and the sermon Jesus gave just days before he was crucified.  His disciples asked him what the signs of his coming would be and the end of the age.  In that passage, as well as the parallel passage in Luke 21, Jesus gives the signs of the times.  Among the items he mentions, one of them is pestilence or pandemics.  Here we have Jesus proclaiming that one of the frightening features of the last days will be plagues in various places.

Revelation 6 also tells us about the seal judgments.  The first four are referred to as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  There’s a white horse, a red horse, a black horse and a pale horse with a pale rider.  A fourth of the earth will be killed in that fourth judgment by sword, famine and pestilence/plague.

As this broadcast moved along, Mark answered the following:

–What does Mark mean by needing ‘double vision’ in these unprecedented times?

–What does he mean by looking to the ‘times of the signs’?

–What are the four principles for discerning such signs?

–Will the ‘second coming’ take place in two phases?

–Mark believes that the road to apocalypse is lined with signs.  What are they?

–Does he believe COVID-19 is God’s judgment or at least that we are ripe for it?

–What does all this mean for those who haven’t placed their trust in Christ?

You may want to be prepared to take notes as Mark shows you how to look at events like the coronavirus pandemic through the lens of Scripture first, rather than trying to twist Scripture to fit people and events into it.