Earthquakes and Other Disasters: A Sign of the Times?

On Tuesday, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter in Virginia jeopardized Washington, DC–even opening a crack in the Washington Monument—and was felt hundreds of miles away up and down the northeastern U.S. Various reports of collapsed walls and falling objects punctuated reports. Some analysts said it was the worst quake to hit the region in 25 years. The same day, minor quakes hit California and Colorado.

Today, weather reports declare that Hurricane Irene is set to slam the east coast and slither northward with undetermined amounts of rain and wind.

All this is happening in the face of a tragic drought in Texas and adjoining states that has nearly decimated the wheat crop, pinching national and world supplies and no doubt ratcheting up food prices. Drought and famine are no strangers to Somalia and other African countries where millions are dead or teetering on the brink of starvation.

Meanwhile the financial world experiences its own earthquake of shaky U.S. dollars and unsteady European currencies underscored by America’s national borrowing, often from unfriendly nations.

The concentration of natural and man-made disasters has long been associated with end-time scenarios where men and nature seemingly revolt against standard behavior and herald an eventual Tribulation era of stunningly amplified catastrophes. We confess to not knowing the precise prophetic connection in the present conjunction, but neither do we conclude that they are not.

Toward the conclusion of history as we have known it, the Bible forecasts strange birth pangs as time moves toward the return of Christ toward the earth in the Rapture, as it is called, of I Thessalonians 4:17 and then a terrible conjunction of global geological, astronomical and financial disorders of unparalleled magnitude.

Mark 13:8 says, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.” (The word translated as “sorrows” means “birth pangs.”)

1 Thessalonians 5:3-4 repeats the warning: “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.”
Whether imminent or eventual, spiritual preparation is ultimately our best defense.

In the old song Day by Day, Lina Sandell wrote,

Every day the Lord Himself is near me,
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
He whose name is Counsellor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,” *
This the pledge to me He made.

Dave Virkler

* Deut. 33:25b – “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”