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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
Matthew 24:6-7b
There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
Mark 13:8b
There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
Luke 21:11
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Today, we continue our series on signs, signs Jesus spoke about to four of His disciples - Peter, Andrew, James, and John - who were none other than the first four people He called to follow Him. We know Jesus was telling of these signs while sitting on the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem’s temple. This is why this particular conversation is often referred to as the last of the Olivet Discourses.
Well, today is part three of this series as we break down the indicators that would precede Jesus’ return. Thus far, we have been told to watch out for Jesus imposters and wars as nations and kingdoms fight against one other. Each of these first two signs is initiated by mankind but as we see today, nature will provide its own set of signals. Look again at these scriptures:
There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matthew 24:6-7b
There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. Mark 13:8b
There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. Luke 21:11
Everyone likes standing on solid ground so much so that we often take it for granted. This is why earthquakes are particularly scary events because the instability that causes the ground to tremor, quake, and even split comes from below. It’s what makes an earthquake unique from other natural disasters.
But note that it won’t only be earthquakes the earth will be dealing with. There will be other threats, threats that will originate more from above.
The first mentioned her is famine. Most often, this calamity which causes the loss of life sustaining food, results from lack of rainfall and nearly everything alive needs water to survive. This goes for plants, animals, and of course, human beings.
Famines happened often in biblical days, often times as an instrument of judgment from God unto His people. You can find mention of famines in the Old Testament books of Genesis, 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, Job, Ruth, Nehemiah, the Psalms, Lamentations, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos as well as in the New Testament within the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the Book of Revelation. In these times, many people would die along with the plants that went unwatered and the animals that went unfed and dehydrated. No food and no water was not a good combination then and it wouldn’t be today or any other time for that matter.
Of course, lack of rainfall wasn’t the only cause of famine. Go to chapter 10 of Exodus and you’ll find God sending locusts to plague the nation of Egypt as Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from captivity. The swarm of insects invaded Egypt and the scriptures share how devastating the event was:
Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. 15 They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt. Exodus 10:14b-15
It was complete devastation of all crops in Egypt and not a tree or plant was left undevoured. And to put a more modern day twist on this, recently a great swarm of locusts formed on the African continent and started to cause great destruction. There was such a concern about widespread famine that experts scrambled to come up with an urgent eradication plan to wipe out the insects before they had a chance to reproduce and get beyond control.
Whether caused by lack of rainfall or insects, famine is a serious event and before Jesus returns, we will see them happen in our world.
Going back to the scriptures, we find several other items of mention listed along with earthquakes and famine in Luke’s account. One of these additional signs is pestilence.
There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. Luke 21:11
What exactly is pestilence you may ask?
Going to the dictionary, we find this:
“A deadly or virulent epidemic disease.”
Hmmm. Sounds familiar, right?
We can definitely relate to this in 2021 after the COVID breakout but picture this happening on an even larger scale with a disease that is more contagious and deadly. Think about an epidemic raging around the world with no easy remedy, one that has not been seen before. That would be pestilence in its purest form.
It wouldn’t be pretty but in tandem with other signs, it would signal that Jesus’ return was imminent.
Earthquakes, famines, and outbreaks of pestilence.
Any of these would be terrible on their own but now put them in combination with other “fearful events” and “great signs from heaven” and you have the recipe for out and out chaos on a global scale.
It would be enough for anyone to cry out for change and when Jesus returns, change is what He will bring as He makes all things new.
Are you ready for that change when it happens?
You only will be if you accept Jesus as your personal Savior and my prayer today is that you will do just that if you haven’t done so already.
Tomorrow, we’ll see that Jesus is far from done sharing signs that will signal His return. Hope you’ll come back to learn more.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might
be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
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