Quakes of Diverse Sorts...

The past week produced quaking, if not exactly apocalyptic in dimension, certainly portentous of things to come. Tribulation birth pangs continue to contract and convulse, even though the full emergence of that devastating era awaits Antichrist's confirmation of the covenant that prophecy says will be made with death and hell.
Jesus foretold about the time leading up to His second coming: "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places" (Matt. 24:7).
Again, the past week produced quaking of diverse sorts that indicate tumultuous times ahead. Shocks of two completely different varieties shook up the status quo. Two were geophysical, the other was economic.
ICA, Peru - The death toll rose to 450 on Thursday in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. Survivors wearing blankets walked like ghosts through the ruins. Dust-covered dead were pulled out and laid in rows in the streets, or beneath bloodstained sheets at damaged hospitals and morgues. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send the structures crashing down. Destruction was centered in Peru's southern desert, at the oasis city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. ("Relief flows in after Peru quake kills 450," Americas, MSNBC.com, 8/16/07)
The earth continued to convulse in other places, at almost the same time.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 struck in the Solomon Islands on Thursday evening, the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors world quakes, said on its website… The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical quake and tsunami data. But it cautioned that quakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within 100 km of the epicenter. (AP, 8/16/07)
The financial markets of the world shook and shuddered violently, seemingly at the same time the grounds and ocean islands quaked.
Global share prices tumbled again on Thursday, with a brutal round of losses in Asia and Europe as investors took flight on fears of fallout from the US housing market crisis. Traders are worried about a global credit squeeze as more banks and investment funds around the world reveal their exposure to the slumping US subprime or high-risk home loan sector, analysts said…Markets in Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan and Stockholm all registered steep losses of around 2.0 percent in early trade. "There has been no let up in the financial market turmoil with equity markets in the US last night and Asia today all lower underlining the fact that fears and uncertainty remain to the fore," said economist Derek Halpenny at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. ("World stocks plummet yet again," AFT story, 8/16/07).
Even when there is relative calm in the geopolitical world, the planet continues to be pregnant with painful contractions of every kind, and in many places. Jesus prophesied that just such times will be prevalent while the end of the age approaches. About these conditions, the Lord said: "All these are the beginning of sorrows" (Matt. 24:8).
Conditions are prophesied to get much worse during the tribulation period. The type disturbances presently experienced are not without precedent. Thinking upon the days when Noah was preparing the Ark, and the times in which Lot and his family lived in Sodom, we can draw somewhat of a comparison with the conditions of our time. Business was being conducted, and society –as corrupt as it had become—continued as usual, despite wickedness and upheaval. Jesus said it would be like this when He comes back to intervene in the affairs of rebellious mankind:
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed (Lk. 17:26-30).
Jesus said to watch, to observe the times. He said that when certain things –in birth pang-like fashion—begin to come to pass, we are to look up, for He is drawing near.

(from Rapture Ready's 'Nearing Midnight'--Fri Aug,24th)

As in the days of Noah....