Jul 19, 2021

Extreme Weather Events Are Becoming More Extreme

I’ve noticed that more Weather events are being labeled with the extreme. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. One area of the world is hot and dry while other areas are getting flooded out.

We have a massive drought in several Western states. On the eastern side, we have Pennsylvania and New Jersey under a Flash Flood Emergency. Some of the cities that got dumped on are Croydon, PA, which received over 10 inches of rainfall; Bristol Township, PA 9.85 inches; Bristol, PA 8.69 inches; West Bristol, PA 8.18 inches; and Florence, NJ 7.63 inches.

China is having to deal with crippling floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions across the central and southwestern parts of the country. There are 71 rivers already exceeding warning levels, and the rainy season has just started.

Eastern China’s Shandong Province was hit by its largest tornado outbreak in more than 10 years on July 11, 2021. At least 10 tornadoes were reported, with at least 3 of them violent. The reports are still coming in, and the number of reported tornadoes is rising.

China’s National Climate Center this month predicted “generally poor weather conditions” for the rest of the summer and warned that the country will face more extreme weather events than usual.

Last summer was also a bad year for flooding in China. The floods were said to be the worst floods in decades and forced China to import large volumes of corn, soybeans, and pork. With 2021 looking to be a repeat of 2020, the global food supply may reach a breaking point.

Heavy rain and floods have caused extensive property damage and the loss of over 160 lives in Germany’s western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, At least 70 people are still missing. Two firemen drowned and the army was deployed to help stranded residents, after a slow-moving low-pressure weather system caused once-in-a-generation floods

“In some areas, we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesman, told CNN. He added that “in some areas we’ve seen more than double the amount of rainfall which has caused flooding and unfortunately some building structures to collapse.”

Another extreme weather event is the heat. Cities are not just setting daily records for high temperatures; all-time records have been set all over the world.

Death Valley, California, is a very hot place. Last Sunday, the morning low temperature was a sweltering 107.7 degrees, the highest ever recorded in North America. By the late afternoon, the mercury had swelled to a blazing 128.6 degrees. The combination of the two produced the highest daily average temperature ever observed on the planet: 118.1 degrees.

We may have set a world record daily average temperature at the Stovepipe Wells weather station in the northern part of Death Valley National Park. The measurement will have to undergo review by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) before being declared officially valid. This process can take a few years. The current record holder is Furnace Creek, which reached the highest maximum temperature recorded on the planet: 134 degrees on July 10, 1913.

Canada has had a heatwave that smashed several records. On June 29, Lytton, a small town about 124 miles from Vancouver, hit 121 degrees, setting a national record for the highest temperature ever recorded across Canada.

A team of researchers says that the deadly heatwave that killed around 500 people was a one-in-a-1,000-year event. These 100, 500, and 1,000-year events are occurring on a regular basis.

Las Vegas tied its all-time high temperature of 117 degrees. Within a 24-hour period, Las Vegas went from record-breaking heat to record-breaking rainfall. The next day, Sin City registered 0.10 inches of rain, the most rain the valley has received on July 11 since records began in 1937.

The Middle East has always been a hot place during the summer. Last month a dozen major cities managed to set record highs. Nuwaiseeb, Kuwait, reached a record high of 127.7 degrees. I’ve been to Kuwait, and it is the most miserably hot place I’ve ever visited. Because it’s right next to the Persian Gulf, the humidity is very high.

All these extreme weather events can be attributed to global warming. The burning of fossil fuels is blamed for the greenhouse effect. Global warming should be a gradual process.

To find out why we are having so many extreme weather events, we need to turn to Bible prophecy. Jesus said that calamitous events would be the warning sign of the last days. They would get worse over time, like birth pangs. This is what we are experiencing, so the rapture must be very near.

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”  Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:3-8 NIV).

–Todd


These Days of Lot

Listening to a television news report one morning recently I heard noise almost like a howling pack of wolves, I thought. (No longer able to see due to blindness, I “listen” to TV on occasion.)

So, remote-clicking through the channels, wanting to catch a bit of news, I wondered what was going on when I stopped on a frequently visited news network, hearing this strangely mixed combination of what sounded to be both humans and animals making unearthly noises. The sounds continued with no commentary, so I continued to listen to find out why the howling.

After about two minutes of the narrator-less noise, the reporter said it was a large group of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters. They were raving—and I do mean raving—against a black, formerly gay, Christian pastor who stood before them. There were so many bleeps deleting the expletives in the audio that they were almost continuous, with the raving disrupted to the point of not being able to make sense of what was being said by individual protestors.

Among the protesting mob was a large contingent of LGBTQ.

The report then cut to the young preacher speaking with the reporter. They were then in a quiet setting, following the confrontation.

The pastor was explaining that he was now a Christian, a husband and father of two young children. He had been preaching in Chicago about what Christ had done for him in bringing him out of the homosexual lifestyle. He was completely free from that sinful life. He was now preaching that Jesus is the answer to those he formerly was part of in trying to convince them to get into a Christ-centered lifestyle rather than a sinful one.

The preacher said he received death threats, and even had his home damaged; his relatives had been surrounded in their homes and threatened to be burned along with their homes as well.

The TV report then went back to the video and audio, with the lunatic-sounding raving that was full of bleeped-out expletives.

Many years ago, I heard a radio news report of a group of twenty-five or so members of a pro-homosexual organization surrounding a small San Francisco church. They weren’t chanting, but in eerie, almost whispered tones, told what they planned to do in taking the children from the parents of the church parishioners and making them their own.

This was quickly dismissed as almost aberration. It was unusual at that time, even for San Francisco.

Today, that evil has grown into full-fledged threatening on the level of an infamous, ancient gathering in the now-disappeared city of Sodom. We remember the story as found in Genesis, chapter 19.

Angelic visitors, in the form of men, came into Sodom and entered the home of Lot, the only man God found as righteous—the only man who was a believer.

The men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s home and demanded that he send the visiting men out to them so they could “know” them. (That meant “know” them sexually.) These were raging homosexuals, burning in their lust to have sexual relations with the strangers.

The following is God’s Word on that time:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.” (Genesis 19:4–7)

Lot’s plea went unheeded. The homosexuals—and that must have been almost all of the males who were not younger children—said they would do worse to Lot than to the strangers if Lot didn’t comply.

The story, of course, is that the angels blinded the would-be attackers.

It’s most interesting that the next thing that happened was that Lot and his daughters were removed to Zoar and out of the city, which was then completely decimated by God sending fire and brimstone.

It is fascinating because Jesus said it will be just like that removal and judgment—just like in the “days of Lot” He next catastrophically intervenes by being “revealed” (read again Luke 17:26-–30).

This is the moment when Christ raptures His church from planet earth. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like that terrible time of homosexual evil when He makes Himself known to the world in a cataclysmic way. Judgment will begin falling the very day He removes the Church, just like it fell on Sodom and her sister city Gomorrah the day Lot and his daughters were removed from that wicked, judgment-destined area.

Evidence that we are quickly coming to be like in the days of Lot is shown in reports like the following.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has released, and then deplatformed, a new video with a threat to many American parents:

“You think we’re sinful, you fight against our right, you say we all lead lives you can’t respect. But you’re just frightened, you think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Fine, just this once, you’re correct,” the lyrics go.

“We’ll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it, you can keep them from disco, warn about San Francisco, make them wear pleated pants, we don’t care—

“We’re coming for them, we’re coming for your children! We’re coming for them, we’re coming for them, WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN!!!”…

“I guess it must be fun to fancy yourself a god!”

Explained the commentary, “Keep it up guys! You’re doing great. There is nothing more unifying than telling people you are literally coming for their kids. Nothing!”

At PJMedia was, “It seems the people who want to convert your children to their lifestyle and way of thinking don’t even bother to hide it anymore. The so-called ‘anti-racists’ who peddle racist, anti-Western ideology say it out loud. They even have pet thug blackshirts to scare people into it. Antifa holds a summer camp to teach protest tactics to children. Men who wish to normalize pedophilia now call themselves ‘minor-attracted persons’ (they used to be NAMBLA ) and pretend to fight for children’s sexual freedom. Don’t scoff, it’s picking up traction.” (“Gay chorus threatens: ‘We’re coming for your children’-‘You’re correct’ that agenda will ‘corrupt your kids’, Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily, July 8, 2021)

The raving, like howls of voracious wolves, can be heard across an increasingly, downward-spiraling society and culture. But, the Lord is still in complete control. His Restrainer is with us, so who can be against us?

And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draws near. (Luke 21:28)

—Terry