Courage in Overcoming these End Times

Discussing current events and how they relate to Biblical prophesy. What are some critical signs are pointing to the imminent Rapture of the Church?

Wait for the Lord; be strong and courageous. Wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)

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Youths may faint and grow weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30-31)

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Heavy rains over Texas have led to water rescues, school cancellations and evacuation orders AP, May 3, 2024

HOUSTON (AP) — Heavy storms slammed the Houston area again Friday, widening already dangerous flooding in Texas and leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes. Officials redoubled urgent instructions for residents in low-lying areas to evacuate, warning the worst was still to come.

“This threat is ongoing and it’s going to get worse. It is not your typical river flood,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the nation’s third-largest county.

She described the surge of water as “catastrophic” and said several hundred structures were at risk of flooding. There had already been at least two dozen water rescues in the county, in addition to getting 30 pets to safety. Schools in the path of the flooding canceled classes and roads jammed as authorities closed highways taking on water.

For weeks, drenching rains in Texas and parts of Louisiana have filled reservoirs and saturated the ground. Floodwaters partially submerged cars and roads this week across parts of southeastern Texas, north of Houston, where high waters reached the roofs of some homes.

Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dumped historic rainfall on the area, flooding thousands of homes and resulting in more than 60,000 rescues by government rescue personnel across Harris County.

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Weather Disasters Leaped to a Record Number During 2023 Ag Weather Forum, January 15, 2024

The year 2024 is starting out with a rash of extreme weather and climate events, including blizzards, treacherous icy roads, bitter cold, deadly tornadoes and crashing ocean waves. As these events unfold, a look back at 2023 shows that a record number of high-damage disasters, with a cost of at least $1 billion occurred. And, that record was not just a minor step to the front either; 28 $1-billion-dollar weather and climate disasters occurred in 2023, beating the former record of 22 such events in 2020 by 27% — a true leap into new-record territory. The tracking of billion-dollar damage events dates back to 1980.

The total cost of the 28 disasters with the $1 billion threshold in 2023 comes to a preliminary figure of $92.9 billion. These events also claimed the lives of at least 492 people.

Drought from spring through fall in the South and the Midwest, along with a deadly summer heat wave, caused the most damage in the record-breaking 2023 year. The total damage from this event reached $14.5 billion. 2023 also featured a wide swing in drought coverage, from a maximum 46% of the contiguous U.S. on Jan. 3 to a minimum 19% on May 30, which was the lowest such figure since 2020.

Other details in the weather and climate disaster summary include:

-2023 featured 20 named tropical cyclones, the fourth highest total since 1950.

-The preliminary 2023 tornado count was above average at 1,197; an additional 97 possible tornadoes between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 are being verified.

-2023 was also a record 13th consecutive year where the U.S. experienced 10 or more billion-dollar disasters and the fourth consecutive year (2020–2023) where 18 or more billion-dollar disasters impacted the U.S.

-Over the last seven years (2017-2023), 137 separate billion-dollar disasters have killed at least 5,500 people and cost greater than $1 trillion in damage.

-Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 376 separate weather and climate disaster events with the overall damage or cost of at least $1 billion per event (based on the 2023 Consumer Price Index). The total cost of those 376 weather and climate disasters is more than $2.660 trillion.

-The record number of weather and climate disasters in U.S. occurred in a year when global temperatures were the hottest in recorded human history, according to Europe’s top climate agency as reported by the Washington Post. World temperatures beat the previous record by almost two-tenths of a degree, the largest jump scientists have ever observed.

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Perhaps no other question in theology is more troubling than the problem of suffering. The question may be formulated in one of two ways, depending on one’s belief system. In the first way, “If God exists, why is there suffering?”. In the second way, “If God is all good and all-knowing, why is there so much suffering in the world?”.

Moral evil is much better known as sin. Sin is an act against the will of God. The capacity to sin is born of man’s free will. To be in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) is, among other things, to possess free will – to be able to choose.

The belief that free will leads to the capacity for sin begs the question, why would God create beings that could act against Him? The answer seems to be that to be made in the image of God (as all creatures are to varying degrees) is to possess the capacity for free will. Put another way; God values freedom even if that freedom means we act against Him.

Still, if moral evil comes from man’s free will, why does man choose evil?

Now it must be that all things seek the good. However, since man’s intellect is fallible and finite (and damaged by original sin), man often errors by thinking something good when it is evil. This error usually involves passion or selfishness. Often too, we mistake a means for an end. Too quickly, we equate sex with love or money with happiness. Both are good, but only when placed within the proper context.

From the perspective of theology, natural evil is even more vexing than moral evil. Natural evil encompasses such diverse events as droughts and disease. While moral evil is the result of choice, natural evil is beyond the control of human beings. Indeed, one cannot attribute natural disasters and disease to sin. Or can we?

The Bible tells us that God created everything, and it was very good (Genesis 1:31).

Moreover, God made a universe that operates in accord with natural processes. The same wind that aids ocean currents and allows plants to spread their seeds is the same wind that causes a tree to fall on a house.

A universe of natural processes allows for free will and for intelligibility. If the universe did not operate according to natural processes, it would mean that there would be no discernable cause and effect. The universe we inhabit would be entirely random, and a random universe would make science impossible.

So far, so good. Yet we are left with another question. Why would an all-good, all-knowing God create a “good” universe capable of causing natural disasters?

Original sin is often understood to affect human beings and their relationship to God. While this is undoubtedly part of original sin, it does not tell the whole story.

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A Curse on the Ground

The Bible provides the rest of the story. In Genesis 3:17, we read that an effect of original sin was a “curse on the ground.” Ground in this sense may be interpreted as the earth or even all of creation.

This understanding that original sin has damaged the universe is given voice by Paul, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8:22).

Drawing upon the biblical view that original sin has distorted God’s creation, we may infer that even such things as climate change and droughts result from humanity’s disobedience to God. In a world damaged by sin, nature itself has become corrupted.

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How then can we be saved?

“But you say, ‘The Lord’s way isn’t fair.’ Now listen, house of Israel: Is it My way that is unfair? Instead, isn’t it your ways that are unfair? When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, he will die for this. He will die because of the iniquity he has practiced. But if a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will preserve his life. He will certainly live because he thought it over and turned from all the transgressions he had committed; he will not die. But the house of Israel says, ‘The Lord’s way isn’t fair.’ Is it My ways that are unfair, house of Israel? Instead, isn’t it your ways that are unfair?

“Therefore, house of Israel, I will judge each one of you according to his ways.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so they will not be a stumbling block that causes your punishment. Throw off all the transgressions you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in anyone’s death.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “So repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:25-32)

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Comfort for God’s People

“Comfort, comfort My people,”
says your God.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of forced labor is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.”

A voice of one crying out:

Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A voice was saying, “Cry out!”
Another said, “What should I cry out?”
“All humanity is grass,
and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flowers fade
when the breath of the Lord blows on them;
indeed, the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flowers fade,
but the word of our God remains forever.”

Zion, herald of good news,
go up on a high mountain.
Jerusalem, herald of good news,
raise your voice loudly.
Raise it, do not be afraid!
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Lord God comes with strength,
and His power establishes His rule.
His reward is with Him,
and His gifts accompany Him.
He protects His flock like a shepherd;
He gathers the lambs in His arms
and carries them in the fold of His garment.
He gently leads those that are nursing.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand?
Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure
or weighed the mountains in a balance
and the hills in the scales?
Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
or who gave Him His counsel?
Who did He consult with?
Who gave Him understanding
and taught Him the paths of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge
and showed Him the way of understanding?
Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are considered as a speck of dust in the scales;
He lifts up the islands like fine dust.
Lebanon is not enough for fuel,
or its animals enough for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before Him;
they are considered by Him
as nothingness and emptiness.

Who will you compare God with?
What likeness will you compare Him to?
To an idol?—something that a smelter casts,
and a metalworker plates with gold
and makes silver welds for it?
To one who shapes a pedestal,
choosing wood that does not rot?
He looks for a skilled craftsman
to set up an idol that will not fall over.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you
from the beginning?
Have you not considered
the foundations of the earth?
God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He reduces princes to nothing
and makes judges of the earth irrational.
They are barely planted, barely sown,
their stem hardly takes root in the ground
when He blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.

“Who will you compare Me to,
or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.
Look up and see:
who created these?
He brings out the starry host by number;
He calls all of them by name.
Because of His great power and strength,
not one of them is missing.

Jacob, why do you say,
and Israel, why do you assert:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my claim is ignored by my God”?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Yahweh is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the whole earth.
He never grows faint or weary;
there is no limit to His understanding.
He gives strength to the weary
and strengthens the powerless.
Youths may faint and grow weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.

(Isaiah 40:1-31)

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If you are not sure that you are a member of the family of God, you can accept Christ into your life right now, by praying:

“Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.  Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life.  I ask you in to my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior.”

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Current events are aligning with Biblical prophecy