Church of God News

Israel365News reported the following:

Nevada Hit by Plague of [Mormon] Crickets

June 19, 2023

This week, millions of Mormon crickets invaded the town of Elko Nevada, a city of about 20,000 residents in northeastern Nevada. The swarm was so dense that the Department of Transportation had to plow crickets from area highways because they make for slick driving conditions.

Colette and Mike Reynolds woke up on Sunday to find their house literally covered with bugs. They tried killing the crickets with a pressure washer but the dead bugs were quickly consumed by ensuing waves of infestation. They called an exterminator but he admitted that there was nothing he could do. Several dozen crickets even found a way into their home, adding to the nightmare.

“Everybody’s like, ‘this is apocalyptic,” Colette told the New York Post. “It feels Biblical.’. And I have to agree.”

The crickets have attracted birds which are their natural predators.

“We’ve had hundreds of big crows and hawks and it’s pretty eerie feeling. It is an invading, disheartening feeling. You just feel hopeless. You feel violated. You feel isolated. I am so tired of seeing these things. You can’t eat because everything you look at just looks like crickets,” she said.

Mormon Crickets are native to western North America in rangelands dominated by sagebrush.  …

The Mormon cricket takes its common name from the prominent role it played in the “Miracle of the Gulls” in 1848 credited by Latter-day Saints for saving the Mormon pioneers’ second harvest in the Salt Lake Valley. According to Mormon legend, thousands of insects were devouring the crucial second harvest of the newly established community of 4,000 mormons. Seagulls miraculously appeared following fervent prayers by the pioneer farmers, saving the crops by eating the insects. …

For the Biblically inclined, swarms of crickets evoke images of the plague of locusts that hit pre-Exodus Egypt.

They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. (Exodus 10:15)

According to Jewish tradition, the ten-plagues will reappear before the Messiah as hinted by the Prophet Micah.

I will show him wondrous deeds As in the days when You sallied forth from the land of Egypt. Micah 7:15

Jewish sources predict that all of the plagues will reappear in the final Redemption but in even more powerful forms. https://www.israel365news.com/372542/nevada-hit-by-plague-of-mormon-crickets/

The old Worldwide Church of God published the following warning in 1969, related to locusts and destruction:

The Prophet Joel was inspired to write:

“Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come” (Joel 1:15).

This “Day of the Lord” refers to God’s intervention in mankind’s affairs — His return to restore peace and order to a world full of sick societies. Joel’s first chapter describes some of the events which will lead up to the grand climax of the Day of the Lord as described in Chapter 2. Here in the modern language of the Living Prophecies translation is what chapter 1 says:

“Listen, you aged men of Israel [the leaders of modern-day Great Britain and the United States of America]! Everyone, listen! In all your lifetime, yes, in all your history, have you ever heard of such a thing as I am going to tell you? In years to come, tell your children about it; pass the awful story down from generation to generation” (verses 2-3).

Yes, an event utterly unprecedented in history is about to be described! Here is what that event is:

“For after the cutter-locusts finish eating your crops, the swarmer-locusts will take what’s left! After them will come the hopper-locusts! And then the stripper-locusts, too!… A vast army of locusts covers the land. It is a terrible army too numerous to count, with teeth as sharp as those of lions!

They have ruined My vines and stripped the bark from the fig trees, leaving trunks and branches white and bare” (verses 4-7).

As man uses stronger and stronger insecticides, the insect pests adapt and become ever more difficult to kill. At least in part, God will probably use this very condition to bring famine upon us.

The prophecy continues:

“The fields are bare of crops. Sorrow and sadness are everywhere. The grain, the grapes, the olive oil are gone. Well may you farmers stand so shocked and stricken; well may you vinedressers weep. Weep for the wheat and the barley too, for they are gone. The grapevines are dead; the fig trees are dying; the pomegranates wither; the apples shrivel on the trees; all joy has withered with them. Our food will disappear before our eyes… the seed rots in the ground; the barns and granaries are empty; the grain has dried up in the fields (verses 10-17).

Notice it! Our vaunted grain surpluses will be gone!

“The cattle groan with hunger; the herds stand perplexed for there is no pasture for them; the sheep bleat in misery. Lord help us! For the heat has withered the pastures and burned up all the trees. Even the wild animals cry to You for help, for there is no water for them. The creeks are dry and the pastures are scorched” (verses 18-20).

What horrible conditions! When these things begin to come about, people will start to go hungry:

“And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied” (Lev. 26:26).

(Walter EM. Famine in Prophecy. Tomorrows World, November 1969).

Yes, locusts, even when they are not fulfilling prophecies such as in the Book of Joel, can cause many problems.

That being said, Jesus Himself warned that the “signs” of the end of the age would include pestilences and famines:

7…And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:6-8)

11 And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:11)

Reducing food supplies can lead to famines.

Notice something related to Ukraine:

Ukraine, once known as the ‘breadbasket’ of Europe, will need at least twenty years for its agricultural sector to recover following the eventual end of the war with Russia.

According to a report from the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine’s farming industry has been severely damaged during the past year of fighting with Russia, with staple crops such as maize, oats, rapeseed, and rye not expected to recover to previous production levels until at least 2050. Other sectors such as barley, sunflower, and wheat are meanwhile not expected to recover to pre-war levels until 2040. https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/06/18/global-food-crisis-ukraine-farming-sector-wont-recover-for-at-least-20-years-study/

Ukraine has been a major supplier of wheat, barley, and cooking oil.

In the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation, the ride of four horsemen are described. The passages about the third and fourth horseman are as follows:

5 When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.”

7 When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come and see.” 8 So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:5-8)

So, the opening of the fourth seal is the time that the pale horse of death is apparently increasing death by war, hunger, and pestilences (the beasts of the earth).

We are not there yet, but we do seem to be in the “beginning of sorrows” that Jesus foretold. And it is possible that the first three seals have been opened. Related to that, the Continuing Church of God put together the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

24:08

These Signs of the 4 Horsemen Have Begun

Are we at the time of the ride of at least some of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse? If so, are many prophecy watchers missing signs associated with them? History shows that authoritarian totalitarian regimes tend to arise after famines and/or pestilences. Those are events associated with three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Could the beginning of sorrows, and the associated ride of the first horseman of false ecumenical religion, have started in the Fall of 2009? What is the significance of this rider having a bow? Is Satan the prince of the power of the air? Did Dr. Thiel warn of a prophetic threat of a “novel” coronavirus back in 2013? Could COVID-19 been related to the taking away the peace from the earth that is associated with the ride of the red horse, the second horsemen of war? What are some of the ramifications of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict and the opening of the second seal? Was Amos inspired to write that God does nothing without revealing it to his servants the prophets? Who warned of these matters? The ride of the third horse, the black horse of famine and food price inflation–specifically wheat, barley, edible oils, and wine. Since Ukraine is a major exporter of the first three, could this, as well as fertilizer shortages, have anything to do with the ride of that horseman? The pale horse of the fourth seal mentions one-quarter of humankind being subject to being killed by the sword, hunger, and pestilence–will this be a factor in the rise of the Beast of Revelation 13? Is persecution associated with the start of the Great tribulation and the rise of the Beast? Why is the Beast going to be in charge of a European-based empire? Will the opening of the first four seals and the starts of the rides of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse get Europe to reorganize such as is prophesied in Revelation 17:12-13? What does Jesus say you should do? Dr. Thiel addresses these matters and more in this video.

Here is a link to our video: These Signs of the 4 Horsemen Have Begun.

That being said, is it possible that something like the ten plagues that hit Egypt before the Exodus will occur before the Messiah (Jesus) comes again?

Yes.

A related two-part sermon is available: Egypt and the Plagues (Part 1) and Exodus Plagues and Prophecy (Part 2)

A while back, the Continuing Church of God (CCOG) also put together the following short video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:

25:16

Here is a link to the sermonette video: Zombie Deer Disease is Here! Are the 10 Plagues on Egypt Coming?

Yes, we believe that a version of the ten plagues that affected Egypt will come again–‘locusts’ of some sort are part of that–though what is currently happening with Mormon crickets and lab-meat is not that.