“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You are the one I spoke of in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel. At that time they prophesied for years that I would bring you against them. This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign Lord. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign Lord. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’

• Ezekiel 38:17-23

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

• Matthew 24:4-8

He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.

• Luke 21:8-19

Here is the fifth quiz in a series of quizzes on the birth pains of the End Times – and they have been every other week.  What Jesus says in Matthew 24 (basically the same words in Mark 13) gives some words that can be the focus of a quiz.  Luke 21 uses a slightly different expression of the same basic things.  I have added Ezekiel 38 above which has even more descriptive words.

One plague is mentioned in Ezekiel and plagues are mentioned in Revelation.  These may be more in line with End Times events rather than birth pains.

But it is sad that so many people have their heart tugged by a war and suddenly think we are in the End Times.  Jesus also mentioned earthquakes, famines, and pestilence.  We have had those too.  But our short attention spans lose heart as we read through, before Jesus says the words “birth pains.”  And the admonishment to take heart.

So, this quiz focuses on the word “plague.”  Plague is mentioned 109 times in the NIV, but in only one book of the New Testament.  The questions are in biblical order.

The Questions:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	If the Israelites break their covenant with God by sin, God will punish them.  But then if they reject the punishment and continue to sin, God will do what thing that will drive them into their cities where a plague will then follow?
2	What was Aaron and the priests given with a promise so that a plague would not harm the Israelites when near the sanctuary?
3	What was given to the people when they whined about the manna, which led God to become angry and strike them with a plague while the meat was still between their teeth?
4	There was sin in the Israelite camp which caused God to send a plague.  But Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron essentially stopped the plague using a spear.  What did he do with the spear?
5	When a plague struck the Philistines, their wise men told them that a guilt offering of gold tumors and gold rats be given to the Israelites along with what they had captured.  What did they capture which led to such a plague?
6	When David took a census that had not been required from God, he was given three punishments to choose from three years of famine, three months of enemies chasing him, or three days of a plague.  Which did he choose, and a bonus for why?
7	“Plague” is mentioned in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the last two of these prophets using sword, famine, and plague a lot, although not always in that order.  But name one of the five minor prophets (Hosea to Malachi) which mention a plague in their prophecy?
8	Which horse was ridden by Death, with Hades following, and they brought sword, famine, and plague to one quarter of the earth?
9	Four angels were bound at what river for the purpose of riding through the world on horses with heads of lions that spewed plagues?  Bonus to name the nature of the three plagues.
10	What is the warning to anyone that adds to the prophecy of this scroll?

There are two questions that I thought of immediately, but I did not put them in the quiz.  I will use them in the interludes.  First, if there is only one book in the New Testament that mentions the word “plague” in the New Testament, what book is it?

Think about it.  What book of the New Testament talks about plagues?  There are a few that have End Times prophecies, but one book mentions “plague” in thirteen verses.  Maybe from the questions above, you have already figured out the answer.

The answer is the book of Revelation.

The other question will be asked after the Bible Reference section.

Bible References:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	If the Israelites break their covenant with God by sin, God will punish them.  But then if they reject the punishment and continue to sin, God will do what thing that will drive them into their cities where a plague will then follow?	Leviticus 26:25
2	What was Aaron and the priests given with a promise so that a plague would not harm the Israelites when near the sanctuary?	Numbers 8:19
3	What was given to the people when they whined about the manna, which led God to become angry and strike them with a plague while the meat was still between their teeth?	Numbers 11:33
4	There was sin in the Israelite camp which caused God to send a plague.  But Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron essentially stopped the plague using a spear.  What did he do with the spear?	Numbers 25:7-9
5	When a plague struck the Philistines, their wise men told them that a guilt offering of gold tumors and gold rats be given to the Israelites along with what they had captured.  What did they capture which led to such a plague?	1 Samuel 6:4
6	When David took a census that had not been required from God, he was given three punishments to choose from three years of famine, three months of enemies chasing him, or three days of a plague.  Which did he choose, and a bonus for why?	2 Samuel 24:13-25
7	“Plague” is mentioned in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the last two of these prophets using sword, famine, and plague a lot, although not always in that order.  But name one of the five minor prophets (Hosea to Malachi) which mention a plague in their prophecy?	N/A
8	Which horse was ridden by Death, with Hades following, and they brought sword, famine, and plague to one quarter of the earth?	Revelation 6:8
9	Four angels were bound at what river for the purpose of riding through the world on horses with heads of lions that spewed plagues?  Bonus to name the nature of the three plagues.	Revelation 9:17-19
10	What is the warning to anyone that adds to the prophecy of this scroll?	Revelation 22:18

The word “plague” is almost mentioned 100 times in the Old Testament, in slightly more than half of the books.

But what is the first book of the Bible (NIV) that mentions the word “plague”?

The answer is Exodus.

Think about it.  Genesis speaks of a global flood, but otherwise, the rest of the book after the flood is about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel).  The focus shifts to Israel’s sons with Joseph being sold into slavery and interpreting dreams in Egypt.  The focus is primarily about the Chosen People, and how we got to the point of twelve tribes.  It’s about dealing with sin in our lives and in our families.  Sure, you could claim that the famine that Joseph predicted by interpreting Pharoah’s dream was a plague, of sorts, but the word “plague” is not mentioned, and making a famine become a plague, makes the punishment of sword, famine, and plague a bit redundant.

But Exodus starts off with Pharoah not doing right with regard to those Chosen People.  Thus, God establishes a pattern.  You do not do the proper thing and you get punished with a plague.

A plague can be an infestation of pests, or even the animal that the people are worshipping.  A frog or two was a sign of fertility and rebirth in ancient Egypt.  But hundreds of frogs in every pot, in every well, etc.  That was a plague of frogs.  Thus, in the ten plagues, there two that brought death, the plague on the livestock which was probably a disease like hoof and mouth disease, and the death of the firstborn, literally the angel of death.  I have no idea what the medical examiner of today would discover.  Besides the frogs, there were infestations of flies, gnats, and locusts.  But then darkness was interesting, in that it was a direct attack on the Egyptian sun god, Ra.  The Egyptians experienced darkness while the Israelites had light.  The water turning to blood was the first and the Pharoah’s magicians could do something similar.  But the hailstorm is something at even today is considered an act of God.

But most of the time, when “plague” is mentioned in the Bible, it is a disease of some kind.  It is part of the trio of disasters.  The sword, meaning war which devastates the crops or leaves the fields fallow.  The famine, due to the lack of growing and harvesting the food.  And the plague in that people are dying from famine.  Those that have food, do not have enough, and the dead bodies attract insects and scavengers that might carry disease.  Thus, in those cases, plague is disease.

We have plagues of insects and plagues of disease today.  Science has reduced our chances for some diseases, but some that we thought were wiped out have resurfaced due to children failing to be vaccinated.

And there are locust swarms that wipe out crops even today.

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The Answers:

	Question	Bible References	Answers
1	If the Israelites break their covenant with God by sin, God will punish them.  But then if they reject the punishment and continue to sin, God will do what thing that will drive them into their cities where a plague will then follow?	Leviticus 26:25	The sword will be used to punish the people, driving them into the walled cities for protection where the concentration of people will make the effect of a contagion (plague) more widespread.  But this is after the sin, and then ignoring the punishment.
2	What was Aaron and the priests given with a promise so that a plague would not harm the Israelites when near the sanctuary?	Numbers 8:19	Setting the Levites apart to help the priests.
3	What was given to the people when they whined about the manna, which led God to become angry and strike them with a plague while the meat was still between their teeth?	Numbers 11:33	Quail
4	There was sin in the Israelite camp which caused God to send a plague.  But Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron essentially stopped the plague using a spear.  What did he do with the spear?	Numbers 25:7-9	The plague had started when Balaam got the king of Moab to send prostitutes, mostly Midianite women, into the Israelite camp to seduce the men.  Phinehas saw an Israelite man going into a tent with a Midianite prostitute while Moses was instructing them to resist temptation.  Phinehas drove the spear through the man and into the woman’s stomach.  The plague took the lives of 24,000.
5	When a plague struck the Philistines, their wise men told them that a guilt offering of gold tumors and gold rats be given to the Israelites along with what they had captured.  What did they capture which led to such a plague?	1 Samuel 6:4	The Ark of the Covenant
6	When David took a census that had not been required from God, he was given three punishments to choose from three years of famine, three months of enemies chasing him, or three days of a plague.  Which did he choose, and a bonus for why?	2 Samuel 24:13-25	The plague.  The stated reason was that God was a loving God who showed Mercy, while David might not get that from the famine or his enemies.  But they had also just suffered a famine for three years.
7	“Plague” is mentioned in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the last two of these prophets using sword, famine, and plague a lot, although not always in that order.  But name one of the five minor prophets (Hosea to Malachi) which mention a plague in their prophecy?	N/A	Hosea, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, and Zechariah all mention “plague” at least one time, Zechariah three times.  But I would accept Joel, since Joel mentions locusts four times, but never specifically the word “plague”.  For reference, Exodus mentions locusts 6 times, and Joel is second among all the books of the Bible.
8	Which horse was ridden by Death, with Hades following, and they brought sword, famine, and plague to one quarter of the earth?	Revelation 6:8	The pale horse
9	Four angels were bound at what river for the purpose of riding through the world on horses with heads of lions that spewed plagues?  Bonus to name the nature of the three plagues.	Revelation 9:17-19	They came from the Euphrates River and the three plagues were fire, smoke, and sulfur.  This was when the sixth angel sounded his trumpet.
10	What is the warning to anyone that adds to the prophecy of this scroll?	Revelation 22:18	They will be afflicted with the plagues contained within the scroll.

Whether you did well on this quiz or, ummm, not so well, for the first video, here is Sam Robson singing The Plagues – The Prince of Egypt.  This is very dramatic, and all by one man singing a capella.  The “conversation” is between the Prince of Egypt and Moses, who had grown up as a “brother.”  He uses a very subtle wardrobe change.

Here is LO Worship singing Song of Deliverance.

Here is Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham singing The Love of God.  I have used this before.

Here is Danny Gokey singing Love God Love People.  It all comes down to this…

Let’s return to question 6, the bonus answer.  God punishes us, or rather he corrects us and protects us, but does not reject us.  But when our path needs correction, God is merciful.  If we succumb to the plague, we will be in Paradise with Him.  If we survive the test of faith, whatever it is, then we learn from it and do God’s will with that much more energy, because God loves us and He commands that we love others.

If you like these Saturday morning Bible quizzes, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Saturday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.