Introduction
The plant species Asteraceae is commonly known as the “daisy family” which is one of the largest families of flowering plants containing some 32,000 species. It is only rivaled by the orchid family. So what do daisies have in common with the Tribulation? Good question and the answer is quite astonishing!
Asteroid called “Wormwood”
The scientific name for the daisy family of plants is as above Asteraceae which partly comes from the Latin word aster meaning star. The “aceae” part is a common suffix used in naming plants. You will remember from my article, “What is the Torino Scale?” that there will be a large asteroid (aster=star, oid=like) that hits the earth in the first half of the tribulation which forms the first four trumpet judgments. The 5th trumpet sees the release of the Antichrist from the abyss, entering the stage and quickly establishing his authority by killing the Two Witnesses. The asteroid is named in Rev. 8:11 as Wormwood and its purpose is to turn a third of the earth’s waters bitter. Interesting because the herb wormwood itself is part of the daisy family of plants which contains the star or aster in its name. So what is the purpose of bitter herbs such as those in the daisy family? Are they merely weeds and a nuisance or do they have a purpose?
Bitter herbs have a purpose
This last year since October 2019 I have been on a diet to get healthy and as part of that diet, both Cathi and I have been consuming bitter herbs such as milk thistle (purple flower pictured above) and stinging nettle which has a cleansing effect on the liver. Interestingly milk thistle is also part of the daisy family (asteraceae). The liver really is one of the most wonderful yet abused organs in the body and is one of the keys to good health and maintaining a healthy weight. Bitter herbs have the wonderful effect of ridding the body of accumulated toxins from years of eating too much sugar. Isn’t it amazing to think that God has allowed in His creation after the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden, weeds, and thistles? I never thought that they had a useful purpose but in fact, they do and I firmly believe that they have usefulness in both the physical world and are a kind of metaphor for dealing with sin in the spiritual sense too. They also represent the suffering and pain of slavery that Israel experienced in Egypt with bitter herbs being eaten with the roast lamb and the flatbread without yeast at Passover (Seder) meal every year.1 They help tell the story both past and present of the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Pharaoh in Egypt long ago but more recently the bitter herbs have also served as a kind of political and social commentary of the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Roman invasion and more recently in Germany and Russia in the 20th century as well.
Wormwood will be bitter medicine to the world
Not only do bitter herbs help deal with ridding our bodies of toxins and serve as a reminder of Jewish suffering but they have a purpose in the final Tribulation dealing with the effect of man’s accumulated toxic sin in order to force him to make a decision and ultimately bring about repentance just in time for the returning Messiah. Our society now has become so sick with financial manipulation, murder, abortion, deceit, and all kinds of godlessness in these last days that God’s plan is to force a kind of high-level cleansing on the earth by bringing a bitter herb in the form of Wormwood, an asteroid, so that mankind can have his eyes open and hopefully bring about one last chance of repentance. God is kind and merciful but His medicine gets stronger and bitterer as the problem gets worse and worse and we get sicker and sicker. The only chance is tough medicine. We tend to look at those last days as a kind of punishment by God but I believe what is closer to the truth is that He wants us to see just how sick things are. He wants us to repent and this will be a time when the bitterness of each plague makes each person think about what is happening. But all of these plagues will not bring about the required repentance of the masses.2 Instead they continue on with their addictive idol worship, drug use, and sexual immorality. This does not stop God from trying because ultimately we have free will to either reject or accept God’s plan of escape and man will have no excuse when standing at the judgment seat of God.
Daisies and bitter herbs such as the asteroid Wormwood have a purpose to bring about repentance upon the peoples of the earth just like they have the purpose of exposing and isolating the toxins in our bodies so that we can be cleansed and get healthy. The asteroid’s purpose will be the same on a macro scale and when God gives the earth its required bitter medicine, know that the time is near for the return of our Lord. The time will be near to escape to the safe place also. The key will be to believe and see the signs, the signals.
Take your medicine early
In the meantime repent now and prepare now by taking your bitter medicine now. Sometimes the best thing that we can do is to just take our medicine and God knows that. What does that mean for us today? It means to study prophecy now, watch now, pray now, and prepare now while you have time to think and ponder on these things. Because if you leave it too late you won’t be in the right head-space and have time to take action and when the real tough medicine comes (asteroid Wormwood) it will take you by surprise. You will be like a deer in the headlights.
