If you have been watching or reading world news, you are aware that another virus is spreading in small clusters in the UK and has also now been reported in Canada, the U.S., Portugal, Germany, Spain, and several other nations.

Late last week, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox to be a global health emergency, a rare designation that acknowledges the rapid spread of this disease. Right now the epicenter of the illness is in Europe.

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “For all of these reasons, I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.”

According to WHO, the virus spreads through skin-to-skin contact or contaminated surfaces with the homosexual men at greatest risk.

With the designation, the WHO now views the outbreak as a significant enough threat to global health that a coordinated international response is needed to prevent the virus from spreading further and potentially escalating into a pandemic.

Monkeypox, an infectious disease closely related to smallpox, originates from Africa and is typically spread among small mammals like rats, not monkeys! It was first identified in the 1950s and originally jumped to the human population in the 1970s.

With all its highly contagious and deadly variants, should we be concerned about another world pandemic on the heels of COVID-19 and what does the Bible say?

Jesus Christ warned about a greatly increased incidence of pestilence and disease as one of the signs of His impending return (Luke 21:11).

Some end-times scholars also say that this is a manifestation of Revelation 16:1-2:

“Then I heard a mighty voice from the Temple say to the seven angels, ‘Go your ways and pour out on the earth the seven bowls containing God’s wrath.’ So the first angel left the Temple and poured out his bowl on the earth, and horrible, malignant sores broke out on everyone who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue.”

While some urge that we are not that deep into the end times yet, we are in the beginning of sorrows as Jesus described in Matthew 24:4-8: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

As we witness more cases of monkeypox being reported across North American and European nations, we need to pray that no plague shall come near our dwelling tent.