“The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours. In a short space of time these tumours spread from the two parts named all over the body. Soon after this the symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other part of the body, sometimes a few large ones, sometimes many little ones. These spots were a certain sign of death, just as the original tumour had been and still remained.”
“One citizen avoided another, hardly any neighbour troubled about others, relatives never or hardly ever visited each other. Moreover, such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs.”
These words came from the pen of Giovanni Boccaccio in his book, The Decameron, which describes his experience living through the Black Death that occurred in the 14th century. By 1400, the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague, had claimed between 75 and 100 million lives in Asia and Europe. It was caused by tiny bacteria that were spread via rodents traveling on merchant ships from China to Europe.
The phrases ‘men and women’, ‘inevitable death’, and ‘sign of death’ tell us that the Black Plague was not a respecter of persons and it was unrelenting. Once infected, a person was certain to die from it in the 1300s.
So it is with the plague called sin. Romans 6: 23(Amplified) tells us:
“For the wages which sin pays is death, but the [bountiful] free gift of God is eternal life through (in union with) Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Sin, or rebellion against God, is unrelenting and ultimately brings death. Unfortunately, each of us is infected by sin from the time we are born. All of us will die physically because of sin, but the even greater plague is spiritual death, which means separation from God forever. Separation from God brings eternal isolation, horrific torment, and never being able to satisfy any longing or need.
The good news is that no one is forced to experience eternal death. God knew that no human could ever do enough to pay the price for their sin, so He decided to pay that price for us. God offers us the free gift of eternal life through the person of Jesus, God’s only Son. The catch is that you and I must make a choice to accept that free gift from Jesus in order to avoid spiritual death.
We will talk more about that in the next Back to Basics.
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