The mosquito borne Zika virus is getting much attention since the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an emergency warning on February 1. Is Zika being over-hyped as a precautionary reaction to the slow response to recognize the Ebola threat? Probably not! From April 2015 when the first case was diagnosed in Brazil to February 2016, there have already been an estimated 1.5 million people infected in the Americas. The virus has no cure, no vaccine and now has been found in many bodily fluids such as saliva.

It is the rapid increase of Zika and the high likelihood of its connection to birth defects, that first raised alarm bells for us after the writing of Israel FIRST! In that book we were looking for how to interpret Moses warning to Israel in Leviticus 26:21 when he defined God’s third stage of increasing judgment for the nation:

“I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie deserted.” NASB

This is the passage that we proposed might refer to the Western World during the seven year period of 2015-2022 that we just entered, stage one beginning with 9/11 in 2001, and stage two beginning in the financial crisis of 2008. Chapter 16 of our book details all of this.

In the writing we spent a lot of time considering how one might interpret “the beasts of the field” and you may remember our past videos and articles how this can well apply to a whole new level of terrorism being unleashed upon on us. We said that Islamic terrorists are like wild beasts. You cannot reason with them, or dissuade them from their intention to destroy.

But we also considered the idea that this phrase in Leviticus might also refer to microorganisms that may migrate from animals to humans. (See p. 197).

Is a mosquito a beast of the field? Actually, yes. You see the Hebrew word there is a very general word: Chayyah. It does not just mean: lions, tigers and bears. It first appears in Genesis 1:24 along with 2 other categories of animals created on Day Six. The animals created on that day are: cattle, creeping things, and beasts. Cattle and associated livestock work alongside man and are controllable by man. But, beasts are not. In that lack of control a flying mosquito is absolutely a beast: a tiny flying beast that lives out in the fields, forests and swamps.

But what got our attention were the reports linking this mosquito borne virus in Brazil to the rash of its new cases of microcephaly, a horrible birth defect of the brain that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads.  You see the next phrases in Leviticus continues:

“which will bereave you of your children”

Microcephaly, reduces life span and the probability to live a normal life.

“and reduce your number”

The Hebrew for this phrase would actually be translated simply, “and reduce”! We typically expand that in English to, “and reduce your number” but that is forcing one specific meaning upon to the verse! The reduced head size also caught our attention as a potential fulfillment of this verse. Microcephaly is actually the disease for which the term ‘pinhead’ first came into use in the 19th century. Indeed this terrible birth defect reduces brain function.

“so that your roads lie deserted.”

While there are many interpretation for roads being deserted, the World Health Organization has already issued travel advisories to 28 South and Central American countries for women of childbearing ages.

The mosquito is named Aedes aegypti, also known as the Yellow Fever mosquito and dengue fever mosquito and is one of the most common mosquitos in the world. It lives in all tropical regions of the world, as shown in the figure below.

Its name, Aedes Aegypti, actually reminds me of Deuteronomy 7:15 and its reference to the diseases that God said would come out of Egypt! As is typical with mosquitos, only the females bite.

Zika was first seen in Brazil in April 2015, less than one year ago. In January 2016, the World Health Organization predicted the virus would spread throughout the Americas by the end of the year. Then on February 1st they declared an emergency given the link of Zika to microcephaly. It is estimated that 1.5 million residents of Brazil have contracted the virus, with close to 4000 microcephaly cases documented in the last one year. Four million may contract the disease by the end of 2016.

If Zika is part of God’s judgment, then why would Brazil bear the brunt? Because it is a world leader in adultery. Not only is pornography everywhere on the streets, not only is the television shockingly uncensored, not only is the Brazilian Carnival’s licentiousness making our New Orleans Mardi Gras seem tame, not only is it common in Brazil for men to maintain two families: one public with a wife and one secret one through a mistress, but the truth is that the church in Brazil is struggling with the very same problems. In February 2015, Francisco Eugenio, pastor of the Unity in Christ Church of Cuiaba, Mato Grosso in Brazil issued a warning to Brazilian pastors based on a severe dream and prophetic word that he had received on the night of February 2, 2015. This dream was translated to English by a friend of mine, and in my copy the pastor warns that the church of Brazil as seen by God is “leprous”, having “deformed hands”, having inverted dental arches (meaning the church’s priorities were upside down), that the church in Brazil is having sexual relations with demons, and that “the majority of pastors in your country are on the altar in adultery”. I assume that many such warnings have been given to the church in Brazil, but this is the one that I happened to have learned about last year.

The pastor’s dream was on the night of February 2nd, 2015. The first case of Zika in Brazil was diagnosed in April 2015.  Birth defects of microcephaly are of course a deformity, eerily mentioned in the warning. Then 364 days after the dream, the WHO makes a worldwide emergency announcement about Zika. A lot can happen in a year.

This raises up for discussion a pattern I have noticed in the study of judgments surrounding the Shemitah. The Shemitah year itself, the last year of the seven year cycle, seems to be not so much a year of final judgment itself, but a foreshadowing year! What I mean by that is that often things happen in the Shemitah year that foreshadow what God may do on a much bigger scale in the next seven year cycle. For example the sub-prime banking crash in October 2008, was preceded by the failure of a smaller institution, Bear Stearns in March 2008. ISIS, while not founded in the Shemitah year committed the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015, foreshadowing a much larger attack in Paris in November 2015 after the Shemitah year ended. And in the case of Zika, we have an Zika outbreak in Brazil in April 2015 that foreshadowed a worldwide emergency announced in February 2016.

That worldwide announcement of Zika being February 1st, also highlights a pattern of “new threats” being announced (at least in the United States) every two months since the Shemitah year ended. Note the following key dates:

• October 1.  Oregon Shooting in the USA. Victims were shot if they identified themselves as Christian.
• December 2. San Bernandino Terrorist Event in the USA. A Messianic Jew and 13 others killed.
• February 2. The USA reports the first case of Zika being contracted within its borders.

The Zika event on February 2, one day after the general emergency, was notable in that it showed conclusive evidence that the virus can be spread from person to person! While the persons names are not disclosed, some deduce it was transmitted from a female to a male during sexual contact! Not only is the February timing part of a pattern, but so was the location was well. The location of this first Zika human-to-human transmission was Dallas Texas. Dallas was the very first location that Ebola entered the United States, on September 25, 2014, which incidentally was on the very first day, Rosh Hashana, of the very Shemitah year we have been discussing.

Why would Dallas be involved? First, while I don’t have any access to adultery statistics in Dallas, the greater Dallas area is certainly known for high rates of divorce. The original founder of the city left his wife in the late 1800s, and statistically divorce is commonly associated with sexual sin. Second, from personal experience — having been born and lived there — I have come to the opinion that the Dallas area is a stronghold of a deceptive and powerful Jezebel spirit. The characteristics of that spirit are found by lookin at “the woman Jezebel” as cited in Revelation 3:

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrified to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” Revelation 3:20-23. NASB

Note the reference to Jezebel causing sickness and children attacked with pestilence!

Please do not deduce from that verse that the Jezebel spirit is only associated with women! It is an equal opportunity spirit! What I am saying is spiritual. I am saying that the first case of known transmission of Zika (from woman to man through sexual intercourse) fits the pattern of Jezebel’s tactics.

Is Brazil also a bastion of the spirit of Jezebel? It is likely, but that would take more study by those who live there.

If it isn’t clear by inference yet, let me state it clearly. As far as I can see right now, Zika is not a judgment for the recent rash of legalized homosexual marriages around the world, even though Brazil legalized it in 2013. As I have said in a June column, Oppose Gay Marriage, But Avoid Two Mistakes, God has every right to judge our nations for heterosexual sin alone! What Zika shows us is that God is judging heterosexual sin. Regarding homosexual sin, God will judge that too, but we proposed in our book that God may delay that for a few more years to give time for repentance. But with regard to judging heterosexual sin, Brazil is an obvious place for God to move first, but if the rest of us respond to Zika by pointing fingers at Brazil, or simply thanking God that we are not in Brazil ourselves, we have really missed the point.

How then, should we respond to all this?

First, Let us pray for Brazil, and the church in Brazil. When God brings judgment He also opens the door for grace. May the church in Brazil and the nation of Brazil be revived with a great awakening of righteousness. May Brazil be a place where all the good qualities God has endowed into that nation would arise and shine forth in righteousness, and may the nation, which has had severe financial problems in recent years, be turned around through the righteous acts of the saints.

Second, Let us pray for our own nations. God is giving the non-tropical nations, those for which that mosquito does not fly, a warning as well.

Third, If the root sin behind Zika is Jezebel, we need to understand the deception behind that spirit much better. For a balanced treatment of that subject I recommend the The Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to Defeating Jezebel by Jennifer LeClaire.

Fourth, is God bringing a series of judgments on the Western World at the rate of one every couple of months? I believe so, but I also believe that there is great hope that in that process God will awaken many and that the church’s finest days are still ahead of it.

We must all pray diligently for awakening and repentance.