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Reason 4. Let’s look at some facts and apply a little logic.

Now we remember last year’s 9.0 quake in Sumatra created a deadly tidal wave which killed upwards of 150,000 and the 1976 quake in Tanqshan, China was only 8.0, yet killed between 200,000 – 600,000 (China has never supplied final numbers). See, see, modern disasters are getting bigger! Oh really? How about the 1556 quake in Shaanzi, China which was reported to have killed 830,000.

You see, without knowing history how can anyone say just how big any cataclysm is and whether the end is near? Let’s go a little further …

Krakatoa is infamous for its 1883 volcanic explosion and resultant tsunami which destroyed many Indonesian islands killing 50,000. What is forgotten was a larger Indonesian explosion of the Tambora volcano in 1815 which killed 80,000. Four years earlier and a half a continent away in the middle of North America a series of three 7.8 quakes near New Madrid, Missouri were powerful enough to force the Mississippi River to run backwards for three days. James Madison was president then and the Louisiana Purchase was barely a decade old.

Don’t let the ‘flood’ of information steer you away from the fact that massive disasters have been a natural occurrence since the fall of Adam. As bad as Katrina and Rita have been, you could go back to the central gulf coast and east coast of the US and find similar destruction in the hurricanes during the 1950s & 1960s.

Stop and ask yourself this question, too: “If God really judged New Orleans and Indonesia, why isn’t Washington, DC, the US state capitols, and the rest of the world capitols in smoking ruins?” Better yet, why isn’t the world full of smoking shoes, sandals and footprints full of ashes? It’s because God’s love has reached out to the lost. These are the walking dead who don’t even know they’re dead in trespasses and sins. In His love and grace He offers them life, life in His Son, Jesus Christ and we have come full circle to the opening passage of Scripture.

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life Romans 5:6-10

As children of God, we have also been proclaimed His ambassadors, His salt and His light to this world. The Spirit makes His case through us and directly to the hearts of all mankind. Study these passages so you can confidently understand that the issue is not the natural disasters of hurricanes and the like, but the super-natural disaster of remaining dead in trespasses and sins.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven [It hasn’t happened yet, but its on its way; the Holy Spirit and the Word of God are warning everyone!] against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:18-32

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
John16:7-11

“We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
1 John 5:9-12

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”
John 3:16-18

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