You are probably familiar with the expression, “confession is good for the soul”. That said, I have a confession to make. Back in December when I wrote my article “2020”, the truth is that although I firmly believed what I said, even I am surprised at the number of events which have occurred already this year. The troubles of this past week have only served to convince me that the world is fast approaching its final destiny. The greatest sign this past week for me was actually one that none of you are aware of. As my daughter was driving my six year old grandson home from school, after a day where the subject in first grade was the coronavirus, his question to my daughter was; “mommy is this Revelation”?
The fact that he even knew what the Bible says in Revelation at six ears of age is a testament to how his parents are raising him, yet the truth be told, that question is one which a great manyothers are asking as well. I want to again today share with you a couple of exerpts from articles which may help shed some light on the times we are facing and what we can probablyexpect in the very near future. The first is from Chuck Missler of Khouse.org which was written back in 1995, but deals specifically with the threats we are facing today.
“Most of us are familiar with the plagues inflicted upon Egypt in Exodus 5. After the Egyptians were stricken with a series of plagues, including infestations of lice and flies, Pharaoh condemns himself and his land by stating, "I and my people are wicked, and deserve what is brought against us," and he allows the Jews their freedom.
Commentator Matthew Henry writes, "The plagues were standing monuments to the greatness of God, the sinfulness of sin and standing monitors to the children of men in all ages not to provoke the Lord to jealousy nor to strive with their maker."
In Revelation 16, immediately after John's vision of Armageddon, seven "bowl" judgments are poured onto the earth. "And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the bowl of the wrath of God unto the earth." The bowls include "foul and painful sores upon men" (Rev 16:2) and the sea becoming "like the blood of a dead man" (Rev 16:3). They will cause man to "blaspheme the name of God, who has power over these plagues; and repent not to give Him glory" (Rev 16:9).
Plagues can be expected as part of the scenario that the Bible predicts for the "last days". They will also be exploited to justify a centralized world government-- the "New World Order."
For those who know their Bible and have a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, rather than creating an atmosphere of fear these tragic incidences should draw us closer to the Creator Himself and our incredible destiny now on the horizon. But it's time to do our homework. May we be prepared to minister to those who have yet to discover the Redeemer of Mankind.
https://www.khouse.org/articles/1995/78/
Our Safety:
In Revelation, we find the pale [chloros, green] horse as one of the four horsemen:
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. -Revelation 6:8
We usually infer that the "beasts of the earth" are of the four-footed kind; we rarely include in our perspective the possibility that they might be microbial. There are many passages that may take on a different complexion when viewed from the vantage point of the current technological revolution in genetics, and the potential Bibilical implications are provocative.
In these uncertain times, more than ever we need to put all our trust and comfort and faith in the person of Jesus Christ and the love of a God who has all of our hairs numbered. Our job is not to fear, but to trust wholly in Him. Whether dealing with deadly diseases or simply crossing the street, He is our true source of safety.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. (Psalm 91:5-10)
http://www.khouse.org/enews_article/2012/1877/
Global Threats
by Steve Elwart, Senior Analyst,
Koinonia Institute
|
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in
divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Matthew 24:7–8
The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a quasi-governmental organization
consisting of 34 countries. It was founded in 1961 to stimulate economic
progress and world trade. Truly globalist in nature, some of the founding
countries consisted of most of the European countries, the United States and
Canada, with Japan joining three years later (Turkey was also a founding
member). During the next twelve years Finland, Australia, and New Zea-land also
joined the organization. The OCED website1 states that its purpose
was to: “… work with governments to understand what drives economic, social and
environmental change. … We analyze and compare data to predict future trends.”
[Emphasis added].
On June 21, the OCED held a closed
webcast to present their findings of what they determined were “Future Global
Shocks.” Global shocks are active threats that spread across the entire planet.
They may take the form of health, climate, social, or financial issues.
The impetus of the report came from
the 2008 financial crisis, which demonstrated the fragility of world systems.
The OCED was afraid that another shock of that type would challenge economic
recovery, social systems and possibly political stability. The crisis revealed
the national vulnerabilities through economic imbalances, un-stable commodity
prices and currencies, large public debts and severe budget deficits.
The organization commissioned the
study to investigate these vulnerabilities and recommend remedies. The report
draws primarily from analysis contained in four case studies. The webcast
reviewed the report, which identified the types of events that could lead to
global shocks.
These disruptive events, such as
earthquakes, volcanoes, financial crises and political revolutions will
destabilize critical systems, producing economic disruptions that can have
effects far beyond their point of origin. In today’s world of
interconnectivity, these disruptions can circle the globe faster and more often
than ever before. An example of a global shock would be the July 2010 wildfires
in Russia, the world’s third largest wheat producer. Those fires consumed
twenty percent of the nation’s wheat crop. At the time of these wildfires,
there was also a record drought that had already threatened the country’s crop
harvests. Because of the double threat, Russia halted its wheat exports, which
resulted in an increase in the world wheat price.
While Russia was decreasing its
wheat exports, massive floods were occurring in Australia, Canada and the
United States that further reduced wheat supplies.
Meanwhile, in North Africa,
repressive governments, access to the Internet, a “youth bulge” in its
population, and relatively high unemployment pushed social stability in the
area towards its “Tipping Point.”
The effects of rapid and multiple
price hikes in wheat combined with the natural and man-made problems produced
social unrest, which in turn spread into Egypt, Libya and throughout several
countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.2
Four Global Shocks
The OCED reported on four global
shocks that are probable events in our future:
1) Pandemic
The first global shock discussed in
the webinar is the pandemic. A pandemic is the spread of an infectious disease
through a human population across a large region. While the timing of a
pandemic cannot be predicted, experts seem to agree that a viral outbreak that
will reach pandemic proportions will be some form of influenza A, for which
there is little or no immunity and spreads easily among populations.
Influenza virus strains are always
circulating in the world, and flare up during the “flu season” in the temperate
climate zones of the world. Most epidemiologists3 consider the next
flu pandemic to be inevitable, but they do not know precisely when or where it
will begin.
Over the past three centuries, a flu
pandemic has been identified every 25 to 30 years. Three influenza pandemics
occurred during the 20th century: 1918-19, 1957-58, and 1968-69. The most
severe influenza pandemic of the 20th century occurred in 1918-19 when an
estimated 40 to 50 million deaths were caused world-wide.
The World Health Organization (WHO)
considers 2.0 to 7.4 million deaths globally as a conservative estimate of a
flu pandemic, with substantial effects on both the physical and financial
health of countries. The most severe impacts are concentrated in the very young
and the elderly, although school children may have the highest attack rates.
Persons with certain underlying chronic illnesses are also at higher risk of
serious complications.
During a pandemic, shocks to supply
systems are expected in transport, trade, payment systems, and major utilities.4
A separate study assuming a pandemic that causes 200,000 deaths in the
Unites States, and more than 700,000 hospitalizations estimated that the
economic losses would be US $550 billion across all developed countries.
Modern air travel means that an
outbreak of infectious disease in one country could spread worldwide in a
matter of days where in the past it would have taken months or years. The 2002
outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) illustrated that one
person in the densely populated city of Hong Kong, China could transmit a virus
to guests staying in the same hotel, thus enabling the virus to spread quickly
worldwide once they returned to their homes in airplanes. There were 8096
recorded cases with 775 deaths, a 9.6% mortality rate.5
2) Financial Crises
Well before the global financial
crisis of 2008, regional and national financial crises had been increasing in
number over the past twenty years. Japan, Mexico, Southeast Asia, Russia,
Turkey and Argentina all suffered financial crises that were bellwethers of
what was to come.
Financial experts had put forth
theories about how crises develop and how they can be prevented, but there is
no clear consensus. What is clear though is that the crises did not end in
2008. They will continue and be at least as bad as they have been in the past.
When an individual overleveraged
borrower defaults, the spread (or contagion) of the effects of the default,
while serious, is spread to a small group of people and institutions. When the
borrower is a sovereign nation or major financial institution, the “financial
contagion” will have far wider implications.
The default will affect only a few
financial institutions at first, but then spread to the rest of financial
sector and other countries whose economies were previously healthy. It is very
similar to the transmission of a medical disease in a pandemic.
The financial woes of the United
States, Ireland, and Greece illustrate how defaults carry the risk of contagion
in a globally interconnected economy. In complex systems like those exhibited
by financial institutions, financial shocks can emerge from inside the system
it-self, meaning that the system can collapse from within. It does not
necessarily take a shock from outside forces to trigger a financial crisis and
eventual collapse of the system.
A good example of a “financial
contagion” is the May 6, 2010 “Flash Crash.” Because of computerized trading
(the “inside system”) the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 900 points
or nine percent of its total value in minutes. About $1 trillion in market
value dis-appeared. The financial contagion from this crash was seen in the
Standard & Poor’s 500 (a competing stock market). Congressional
investigations indicated that while the drop was temporary and the stocks
rebounded, the United States dodged a large financial bullet.6
3. Cyber Risks
It has been well documented that
cyberrelated events can generate a great deal of harm and financial
disruptions. Many cyber experts hold that a single cyber attack using current
technology is unlikely to cause a full-scale global shock. For such a shock to
occur, the attack would have to exploit a fundamental flaw in the Internet. It
would also have to be a flaw that could not be easily remedied. The attack
would have to disrupt a minimum amount of major hubs to spread the attack
across the entire world-wide network.
One scenario for a global shock
consists of several simultaneous attacks on key infrastructures by attackers
with sophisticated skills, probably a nation-state as opposed to a hacking
group or an organized crime ring. In this scenario as well, while there could be
area or regional disruptions, a global disruption is unlikely. The Internet was
designed not to have a “single point of failure,” so a damaged section of the
Internet can be routed around along a different path.
However, an attack that targets
about 5% of central hubs, such as telecommunication switching centers, has the
capacity to make the Internet collapse, very rapidly breaking down the entire
network to small, unconnected islands containing no more than 100 computers
each.7
Such a scenario for a global shock
due to a cyber at-tack would entail a combination of events, the proverbial
“Perfect Storm.” Such a storm could occur if a cyber attack occurred while some
other form of disaster or attack (such as a pandemic or physical attack)
prevented technical experts from defending and patching the system or rerouting
computer traffic.
In another scenario, electricity,
gas, water and oil services require constant monitoring. Monitoring operations
present cyber-vulnerabilities that could be exploited, potentially leading to
massive disruption for households, manufacturers, retailers and public
services.8
Since the 1960s many of these
services have been monitored and controlled by using Supervisory Control and
Data Acquisition (SCADA) computing equipment. SCADA are used for the flow of
gas and oil through pipes, the processing and distribution of water, the
management of the electricity grid, the operation of chemical plants, and the
signaling network for railways. Newer industrial control systems
communicate using the Internet. These systems are more open to cyber attacks
than older systems.9
Evaluating risks of global shocks
from cyber incidents is different from natural incidents. Earthquakes occur
along fault lines, floods occur along rivers and large bodies of water. Cyber
attacks are not that straightforward. They come from intentional acts and
target specific vulnerabilities in the system. Natural events have occurred
along with some sort of predict-ability while cyber events cannot be predicted
unless there is a warning by a person or organization. This is why
organizations take the position that any vulnerability discovered will be
exploited.
4) Geomagnetic Storms
Every eleven years, geomagnetic
disturbances oc-cur that have the potential of causing a global shock of
long-lasting duration.
Geomagnetic storms are the result of
eruptions of plasma from the Sun’s corona, or its “atmosphere.” The storms that
head toward Earth take two to three days to make the trip and when they get to
Earth, they interact with the Earth’s geomagnetic field. Disturbances in the
geomagnetic field can disrupt the operation of critical infrastructures relying
on signals from satellites involved in the Global Positioning System. They can
also overload the circuits and trip breakers of electrical systems and in
extreme cases melt the windings of heavy-duty transformers, causing permanent
damage.10 Due to limitations of manufacturing replacement
high-voltage power transformers, affected areas could experience very long
outages.
The most severe space weather event
recorded in history is the Carrington Event of 1859, which disrupted telegraph
networks and outages around the world as a result of the currents generated. An
event of the same magnitude today could be catastrophic, with some damage
estimates as high as several trillion dollars.11
Beginning of Sorrows
The webcast closed with
recommendations for more study and estimates of the social and financial
consequences of global shocks.
Jesus tells us in Matthew that the
“beginning of sorrows” will give the world strife on a grand scale, “nation
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Some believe this describes
normal conflicts of interest that through the centuries have led to war after
war. Others believe there will be forces at work beyond the control of the
nations. This is certainly the case when we move to pestilences and geomagnetic
storms.
These and the other global shocks
are beyond the control of kings. Other disasters (i.e. tsunamis, floods,
droughts, and famine) form part of the general unsettlement that will
characterize the end time. “In divers places” means that the disasters in
question will be widespread, truly global, shocks.
While even the most secular of
organizations realize we are entering a period we have not experienced be-fore
and give estimates and make plans, we as Christians need to go a step farther.
We need to pray for His coming.“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
The question that is constantly running through my mind these days is
just what will it take for the world to realize God is speaking? The time when the Church, the body of Christ,
is taken out of this world in the event called the rapture could occur at any
time. Anyone who is sitting on the fence
about their salvation is in truth, playing with fire. If you
have never made the decision to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and accept
the free gift of eternal life He has offered you, I urge you to do so right
now. You can do that by praying this prayer and accepting the gift of eternal
life God has offered you by the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.
Father, I know I am a
sinner in need of salvation. I believe you sent your Son Jesus to die on the
cross for my sin, and I ask you now to forgive me of my sins. I want to receive
your gift of salvation so please come into my heart and help me to live and
follow you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Keep watching.
