Copyright 2004 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr., Used By Permission.
Taken from his book Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System.

4. A Godlike Overview of CATASTROPHES

Human beings live on an Earth of unending catastrophes, with calamities and disasters surrounding you on all sides... and the calamities that come upon you daily are only being multiplied, year by year, with ever-increasing frequency and severity.

Has the poor planet Earth always been so dreadfully beset by calamities and disasters as it is today? No, the truth is that things have been getting worse year by year -- for almost all of the decades in this last half of the 20th century! Your modern technology has made some aspects of life more pleasant and comfortable, but in spite of this, life on Earth is more stressful and unsafe than it has ever been before in the history of the world.

It is a time-period of the most severe testing that your world has ever yet seen! In the midst of all these disasters and the seemingly chaotic conditions there on Earth, Christians (and even pastors!) are not immune from these trials, but are forced to suffer equally with all the other persons living on this troubled Earth. You can expect things to get worse before it gets better!

This may come as a shocking new revelation, but here's some more bad news for you. The Bible and its authorities teach you that these terrible catastrophic conditions, now seen worldwide and easily visible to everyone on Earth, are going to get more and more severe... things are going to get worse and worse-- until finally the whole Earth is destroyed in a cataclysmic series of awesome catastrophes!

In this present communication, you should consider the current devastation of the Earth... you will consider why God is allowing such horrible catastrophes to overwhelm the entire Earth... and you will reflect on whether you may find any small degree of safety in such a world as this one in which you now exist.

You humans should know that Jesus Christ predicted these current developments nearly two thousand years ago. He did so when he declared of this future time that "Then there will be a great tribulation on Earth, a time of distress unequaled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equaled again." [Mt. 24:21-22]

This world of yours has long been deteriorating, has been degenerating for countless centuries, and soon it will come crashing down around you as the frightful Final Catastrophes come upon the Earth.

You might say that the Earth is rather like a defective motor vehicle that is careening wildly and heading for a horrendous crash. Spaceship Earth is also rather like a malfunctioning space vehicle -- it is like the Space Shuttle Challenger heading out with a defective structure, hoping to reach the starry heights, but actually doomed to be a burning fireball in the tragic catastrophe that will be its end.

Now a hard question which is continuously troubling all the peoples of the Earth is this: Why does God allow all these horrible plagues, disasters, catastrophes, and calamities... which are now overwhelming the entire Earth?

1. Natural disasters, catastrophes, and calamities are meant to show you that your world is rejected by God and doomed to destruction.

Your world is not what God wanted, and He will not tolerate its evil ways forever.

2. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to show you that your world is sick and corrupt, condemned by God, and under God's judgement.

Your Earth will pass away, but God's words will never pass away.

3. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to show you that your world is being destroyed from within and thoroughly devastated by its sinful condition.

4. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to show you that your Earth has been moving toward chaos and a degenerate immorality -- not progressing by any natural means toward order, nor by evolution toward a superior consciousness.

Rather, your ancient Earth has been deteriorating over many centuries as it falls farther away from God. The Catastrophic Momentum of this Fallen Earth is making it fall into an ever-greater blindness and wickedness.

5. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to show you that you should fear God and His power to judge the world -- that you should therefore repent of all your wrongdoing and seek the rescue and safety that is possible in the protection of God's love.

6. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to remind you that this present Earth has rejected all of God's messengers, has rejected all of God's prophets, and has even rejected His own supernaturally-conceived Son Jesus Christ... and these should let you know that God will therefore soon dispose of your Earth and replace it with a New Earth that honors Him.

Your God is angry with your world for all its rampant wickedness.

7. Catastrophes and calamities can remind you that just as God had power enough to destroy the world of Noah with a flood of water, and power enough to destroy the immoral cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with a rain of fire, so God also has power to destroy your present Earth when He can abide its wickedness no longer.

After Noah's Flood, God promised never again to destroy your world with water, but He later revealed that your present Earth would one day be destroyed by fire!

8. Catastrophes and calamities are meant to remind you that there are dark forces in your world that wish to injure and destroy the people of Earth.

There are also demonic powers that exist in your world, who may sometimes be more directly responsible for certain kinds of catastrophe. Most biblical authorities are teaching you that these can only assault you when God Almighty is willing to let them carry forth their attacks.

9. Catastrophes and calamities can remind you that those whom God has loved and removed from the Earth are far better off there in the Heaven of God's Presence than are all the living humans who must remain longer on the horrendous battlefields of the Old Earth.

The martyrs of God, being brought into the Heaven of His Presence by the passage through death, will surely be among the most loved and honored of all those who are gathered into that Heaven.

10. Catastrophes and calamities can also offer you a clear reminder of a possible inner conflict which may be raging within God's consciousness.

As He beholds the many evils and afflictions that torment the surface of the Earth, God must make a choice: Should He cut the reign of Satan short by annihilating the Earth now and replacing it at once, or should He forbear a while longer?

On the one hand, God loves you dearly and wishes to protect and preserve you. But as a God of Perfect Righteousness, He might also have a strong urge to eliminate this degenerate and evil world which has rejected His laws and His loving offer of reconciliation.

This will finally happen when the time of the Great Tribulation begins with a cataclysmic series of Final Catastrophes.

You should know from this turmoil in God's behavior-pattern that the destruction of the Earth and its final judgement may be very near.

11. Catastrophes and calamities should remind you that your world is not what it ought to be, and that it must be transformed by God into what He wants it to be.

This will happen when the present Earth has been annihilated and replaced by God's New Earth.

My servant Luke has written in My Book of a prophecy which Jesus made. My Son Jesus has given warning to the people of your Earth: "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole Earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man." [21:34-36]

To accomplish this GREAT ESCAPE from the Fallen World, one must seek salvation through the only "lifeboat" that God has provided -- one can find safety and deliverance in Jesus Christ.

In this present world you find death and destruction, but in Jesus Christ you find life. Jesus really is the only way of escape; He is the truth, and He is life for a great multitude of people who desperately need rescue.

Copyright 2004 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr., Used By Permission.
Taken from his book Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System.

The above material is one section of a book by Kenneth Street entitled

Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System

and is Copyright protected by him, with all rights reserved by the author.