Archive for the ‘Prophesies concerning Christ Jesus’ Category
Natural disasters
After saying in the first part of verse 7 that wars and rumours of wars would precede His coming Jesus says in the second part of verse 7 that there would also be natural disasters; particularly famines and earthquakes.
Matthew chapter 24 verse 7b; and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
There have been many earthquakes over the last two millennia but the numbers are increasing. The number of earthquakes appear to have been steadily rising, in 2008 there were 168 recorded earthquakes and in 2011 there were 185 recorded earthquakes measuring 6.0 to 6.9 recorded by usgs.gov statistics. Earthquakes measuring 7.0 to 7.9 went up from 12 to 19 in the same period.
Who could forget the Tohoku earthquake of 2011? It struck about 43 miles off the Japanese coast and was the most powerful earthquake to have hit Japan measuring 9.03 on the Richter scale. Since modern record keeping started in 1900 it is also in the top five of the most powerful earthquakes ever in the world. The earthquake started a tsunami with waves that reached an estimated 133 feet in height. Over 15,500 people lost their lives, some 2,000 plus are missing, several thousand were injured. Getting on for one million buildings were damaged or destroyed. Japanese infrastructure was badly damaged including a dam, roads, rail and a nuclear power station which went into a partial meltdown. It is reported to be the most expensive natural disaster in world history.
Famines have also been with us through the ages one in Rome was recorded as far back as 440bc. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that in 2010 there were some 925 million people in the world who were undernourished. That is about 13% of the world’s population and over half that number came from the Asian continent. Some 5 million children die each year due in some part to malnutrition.
There have been some well known famines in the 20th century such as the Chinese famine. This famine lasted from 1958-62 and the estimated death toll was somewhere between 15 million (government figures) to 43 million (unofficial figures). The Soviet famine of 1932-33 saw some 10 million die. The Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 killed about 1 million. The North Korean famine started in the early 1990’s killing some 3 and a half million by the late 1990’s. There are still reports that the famine continues to this day. In this the 21st century there have reputedly already been some 18 famines/food crisis’ the latest being in Somalia.
Yet, Jesus said that all these would be but the beginning of birth pains.
Matthew chapter 24 verse 8; All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
Birth pains increase in intensity until the actual birth. How much more intense will these natural disasters get before Jesus returns? The answer is only God knows
Matthew chapter 24 verse 36 says; “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.