Earthquakes, Pestilence, Weird Weather

On Wednesday Chile was hit with an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7, leaving 15,000 people homeless, 150 injured, and 2 dead. The earthquake destroyed 4,000 houses, a local hospital, blocking roads, crushing cars, and knocking out power.

According to the USGS major aftershocks rocked the region Thursday, including one with a magnitude of 6.8, and one of a magnitude of a 6.2.There have been 15 earthquakes in the last two days with a magnitude of a 5.0 or greater.

We are seeing more and more diseases. Some of these are old diseases with new strains. They have somehow mutated. Let's look at ad14, it is a mutated form of a common cold virus. Adenoviruses usually cause respiratory infections that aren't considered lethal, but this virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months. A new variant has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington and Texas, according to a report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a Yahoo news report, Dr. John Su, an infectious diseases investigator with the CDC said,"What really got people's attention is these are healthy young adults landing in the hospital and, in some cases, the ICU,"
Ad14 was first identified in 1955, and in 1969 was blamed for illnesses in military stationed in Europe, but since then it has rarely been seen. Now it seems to be growing more common.

Sexual diseases are on the rise again. Over one million reported cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said. Gonorrhea has hit a record high with a new "super bug" version resistant to antibiotics. Syphilis infections rose for the first time in 15 years.

Britain faces possible flooding along its east coast due to a storm surge in the North Sea, creating waves only seen once in 20 years, the government and weather experts warned Thursday.
A cyclone ripped through southwestern Bangladesh Thursday night. The velocity of the wind was 145 to 155 miles per hour. Thousands of tin and bamboo homes have been destroyed, along with power outages. They are expecting the damage to be severe.

Cyclones, violent tornadoes, floods, drought, earthquakes, diseases, all seem to be increasing. In Matthew 24:7,8, Jesus said "and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." The NIV puts it this way, "There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains."
Most of us understand birth pains. When a women goes into labor her pains start off slow with a little cramping or slight pain. The closer it gets to the baby being born, the pain gets worse and the contractions are closer together. Before she knows it the pain is steady and severe, shortly there after the baby is born. This is the example Jesus used...birth pains...labor pains, He knew man could relate to that.
We need to look at all the signs, we are in hard labor, the Lord is coming soon.