Jun 2
Tornadoes: Stranger than Strange
One of the most important factors in understanding Bible prophecy is the linkage between end-time events. As we get closer to the tribulation hour, various birth pangs will become more numerous and give us a strong indication that the piece of the prophetic puzzle is coming together.
Two weeks ago, I posted an article about the massive earthquake in China. In the article, I noted that "it is very strange to have written an article about the sharp increase in natural disasters last week, and now, seven days later, to find myself compelled to comment about another major natural calamity." Of course, the first calamity I was referring to was the cyclone that struck Myanmar.
Less than a month after I wrote the first article, I have yet a third disaster to add to the chain. If my assessment of the second one was "strange," I guess we are now in the realm of "stranger than strange."
In the U.S., we are having a brutal season for tornadoes. So far this year, at least 115 people have died, and we have a preliminary count of 1,300 twisters. The record for the most tornadoes in a year is 1,817 in 2004. In the past 10 years, the average number of tornadoes has been 1,254. With seven months to go for the year, we could have a harsh summer drought and still break the record.
I have a personal reason to think the tornado count will continue to soar. As I'm writing this article here in Omaha, tornadoes are occurring all around me. The same thunder cell that caused widespread damage in Kearny, Nebraska just passed right over my neighborhood. Praise God, the storm dissipated before it got here.
The folks who live out in Parkersburg weren't so lucky. That community was devastated by a rare category 5 twister--the first in the U.S. since a tornado nearly obliterated Greensburg, Kansas, just over a year ago. The Parkersburg tornado was the strongest to hit Iowa in 32 years. The tornado killed five people in Parkersburg and two in nearby New Hartford.
Meteorologists are unable to explain why we are seeing so many twisters. "Global warming cannot really explain what is happening," said Greg Carbin at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK. "While higher temperatures could increase the number of thunderstorms, which are needed to trigger tornadoes, they also would tend to push the storm systems too far north to form some twisters," he said.
La Nina, the cooling of part of the Central Pacific that is the flip side of El Nino, was a factor in the increased activity earlier this year--especially in February, a record month for tornado activity--but it can't explain what is happening now, according to Carbin.
Most people have no idea that tornadoes have a "Goldilocks" issue. To make a tornado, the conditions have to be just right. If there is too much or too little of one ingredient, there is no tornado. For example, wind shear--when upper and lower level winds are at different speeds or coming from different directions--is crucial in creating a funnel cloud. If there is too little wind shear, there is no spin. Too much and the tornado falls apart.
Tropical storms and earthquakes have their own "Goldilocks" issues. Tropical systems need light winds aloft with good convection at sea level to form. Most of those that do develop are confined to the open sea or strike sparsely populated areas. Earthquakes need to hit three bull's eyes to cause major destruction: they need to be of a high magnitude, in a populated area, and close to the earth's surface.
I think we are at a point where skeptics need to take a good look at the statistics for natural disasters. The law of averages cannot explain why we are seeing so many today. Either we are in an amazing period of bad luck, or we are witnessing the advanced stage of the end-time warning signs.
Some might say we are having a 1 out of 100-year fluke with these tropical storms, earthquakes, and tornadoes. Of course, that is being very generous with the odds. Because they are occurring at the same time, they need to be multiplied together, giving us a 1 out of a million chance. Considering so many other last-days factors as well, the math of unlikelihood is too massive for my poor little calculator.
-- Todd
The Groaning
Friday morning just past brought the placement of the capstone on the building end-times volcano for me. It will be pseudo peace–or the inception thereof—that will cause the tribulation to explode upon the end-of-days generation and spew the contents of the apocalyptic volcano’s judgment and wrath upon an incorrigibly wicked world of earth dwellers.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, then representative of the Quartet as Middle East peace broker, set the capstone beneath which the volcano’s pressures continue to build. The currently visiting lecturer at Yale said on NBC’s "Today Show" that he thinks peace between Israel and it’s blood-vowed enemies could come as early as January of next year. He didn’t use the words “blood-vowed.” Those are mine. And, they are warranted as descriptive of the Arab/Islamic states surrounding the tiny Jewish nation. It is just the sort of “peace” guarantee that will set in motion the 21 specific Revelation judgments that will eventuate in Christ’s return to put an end to man’s murderous rage against the Jew--against God himself.
I’m not saying Blair is the Antichrist or that this prediction by him is going to produce that final tempest as given in Daniel 9:26-27 and throughout Revelation, chapters 6-19. But, this mindset by the world’s elite of the international community presages the eruption that will bring an end to man’s humanistic antagonism to the Creator. Israel’s falling for the pseudo peace arrangement will result in what the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah calls “Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7). Jesus said it will be the worst time in the history of Planet Earth (Matthew 24:21).
With the capstone of determination to impose luciferic compromise on Israel in place–through forcing the nation to divide the land God gave Jacob's descendants forever—all other prophetic ingredients that make up the lava broth continue to heat up within the sin-filled mountain of end-time earth.
The planet indeed groans within, as it did in the Apostle Paul’s day: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22).
Jesus himself spoke of the planet’s metaphorically biting its tongue while awaiting all of human history to play out. It yearns for the Master Director’s calling the geophysical elements forth to eruption during the last seven years preceding His second advent:
“And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;
Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.
And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:37-40).
Jesus, who made all things, and by whom all things consist–i.e., are held together (Colossians 1:17)--was saying that if man withheld his praise at that moment, the volcano that makes up this fallen, sin-filled world would have exploded. The very stones would have protested in opposition to mankind’s rebellion.
Creation itself would have attested to Christ’s deity, of His absolute right to rule. The world is boiling within today. It is groaning, and with increased convulsions of protest to anti-God human efforts to, like Lucifer himself, usurp the throne of the Maker of all things good.
Pundits on the nightly news are constantly commenting on the records being made in weather disasters. With the earthquakes recently inundating the planet from the U.S. to Chile, to China, to Iceland, to…you name it –even those who haven’t a clue about Bible prophecy are astounded and a bit intimidated, according to their on-air demeanor.
Their nervous laughter as they trade witticisms with the weather reporters turn serious when the tornadoes begin to rumble, apparently in record numbers, and in places that we used to think of as relatively safe from the EF-5 monsters like the twister that crushed and swept Iowa last week.
Nations are in what looks to be the advanced stages of end-times perplexity. While America boils in political turmoil and Israel deals with scandals within its leadership that threaten the Olmert government, the petroleum maelstrom continues to generate economic uncertainty for those who want to construct one-world order, which they alone–in their opinions—have the right to control.
Tony Blair, on the same "Today" program, told Matt Lauer that he feels it is the religions of the world that might provide the answers to the many problems around the globe. All religions, if they joined in a spirit of problem-solving, would be a powerful force. It would bring all together in a spiritual lovefest of new world orderliness. At least, that’s my take on Blair’s comments.
Blair is putting his rhetoric into organizational action. He launched his “Faith Foundation” on April 30. One definition of the organization is: “…a new coalition to harness the moral leadership of people of faith to do good and to show the relevance of faith to the challenges of the modern world.”
The folly of this misguided attempt at altruism is that only the Prince of Peace can do what Mr. Blair proposes–and He isn’t invited into the project. The world indeed groans under the building pressures to thwart any effort of God Almighty to set things straight. We revisit the Scripture, and get a follow-up scriptural glimpse of where we, as children of God, stand at the present hour in this Church Age (Age of Grace):
“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:22-26).
That groaning includes, as never before, the comforting words of Paul, the prophet who unveiled the rapture mystery of 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
--Terry
