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Earthquakes in Various Places…

January 12, 2010 at 6:12 PM Leave a comment

Recorded eyewitness account of Sodom's destruction

A few years ago I was reading a book by Richard Abanes called, End-Times Visions.  In it, he lambasted those of us who take seriously (and literally), the Bible’s revelations concerning the End Times.  Much of what Christ says in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21) addresses this period of time (I believe).  Some of it, applies to the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred in A.D. 70 as well, but the majority of it seems to point to a time much further away from Christ’s day.

Abanes spent a great amount of time condemning and castigating Premillennialists, looking for any piece of what he considered to be evidence to negate our viewpoint.  Two of the things that he attempted to do was to point out that not all historians believed World War I was the actual first world war.  So, looking high and low, he was able to find two historians (now deceased) who believed that the War of the Spanish Succession (early 1700s), was actually the first real world war.  Must be that everyone else is wrong.

Abanes also tackled the signs of the times, the beginning of birthpangs, or whatever you would like to call it.  He spoke of the fact that though many have made a great deal of the earthquakes that have been recorded around the world, there really has been no increase in seismic activity, or that activity has been because of better ways to sense and record earthquakes.  The problem is that Jesus said nothing about the increase of earthquakes or seismic activity.  He simply said that they would accompany the first world war (nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom).

What I find fascinating (apart from the fact that Abanes tries so hard to negate any semblance of literality within Scripture, that he makes himself look like a moron when he believes two historians as opposed to the rest of them), is that in the past week, Northern California has experienced a 6.5 earthquake.  Because it was horizontal and not vertical, there was no accompanying tsunami, even though the epicenter was in the ocean.

Just today, as I checked the Internet, I note that there has been another huge earthquake in Haiti, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, and hundreds dead so far.  May the Lord be gracious to them as they attempt to pick up the pieces.  Apparently, the quake’s epicenter was right near the presidential palace, which completely collapsed during the quake. 

Along with this, was another news story highlighting the 9 worst earthquakes in recorded history.  I’m going to quote verbatim from the story by John Roach, MSNBC.com contributor:

1. Earthquake 1:  “The deadliest earthquake in recorded history rattled the Shensi province of China on Jan. 23, 1556, and killed an estimated 830,000 people.”
2. Earthquake 2:  “The California earthquake of April 18, 1906, ranks as the most deadly in U.S. history: About 3,000 people perished.”
3. Earthquake 3:  “The most powerful earthquake in North American history shook the state of Alaska on March 27, 1964, the Friday before Easter. The magnitude-9.2 temblor triggered a tsunami that was responsible for 113 of the 128 deaths…”
4. Earthquake 4:  “The magnitude-7.9 earthquake that struck just off the west coast of Peru on May 31, 1970, reduced the coastal towns of Casma and Chimbote to rubble and killed at least 3,000 people.”
5. Earthquake 5:  “The deadliest earthquake in modern times flattened the industrial city of Tangshan, China, in the early morning of July 28, 1976. The Chinese government put the death toll at 255,000, though many geologists believe it was much higher – up to 655,000.”
6. Earthquake 6:  “On Sept. 19, 1985, a magnitude-8.2 earthquake off Mexico’s Pacific coast wreaked the greatest havoc in Mexico City, about 220 miles from the epicenter. There, hundreds of buildings were toppled, and thousands of people died.”
7. Earthquake 7:  “On Dec. 26, 2003, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake crumpled the adobe city of Bam, Iran, killing an estimated 30,000 people.”
8. Earthquake 8:  “On Dec. 26, 2004, a magnitude-9.1 earthquake ruptured the ocean floor off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, and triggered a series of destructive tsunamis that killed at least 225,000 people in 11 countries.”  This particular quake, notes Roach, was estimated to be 1,500 times more powerful than the energy released from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima!
9. Earthquake 9:  “At least 86,000 people were killed when a magnitude-7.6 earthquake hit the Kashmir region of northern Pakistan on Oct. 8, 2005.”

If you’ll note, all of these earthquakes except one, occurred starting from the 1900s.  One, as you can see, occurred in the 1500s.  Now, someone might come along and say, “There you go – proof that we have better ways to sense and record earthquakes today!”  That’s fine.  Anyone who would like to continue thinking that is welcome to do so, however if people recorded the events of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (outside the Bible), as was discovered recently, when a small, smooth, round, inscribed clay tablet was finally deciphered.  Turns out that this “clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.”[1]

You would think if people took the time to record an event like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, they might be inclined to record an event like a massive earthquake, if one happened.  But, maybe not.

In spite of all of this, what we know is that starting in the very early 1900s, massive earthquakes occurred, which destroyed cities and villages, and took the lives of thousands and thousands, leaving total devastation in their wake.  I think people need to start waking up to the fact that strange things are happening.  Too many people are like the frog slowly being boiled to death in the pot of water on the stove, which does not realize the temperature is rising to boiling until it’s too late.  Too many individuals cannot see the forest for the trees.  They are myopic individuals, blinded by their own narrow focus.  This is keeping them from seeing even the possibility that what Jesus spoke of He meant to be taken in a literal fashion.

My heart and prayers go out to the people of Haiti.  May the Lord give them relief and strengthen them during this time.  May at least some come to know Him as Savior and King through this horrendous event.

[1] – http://www.eso-garden.com/index.php?/weblog/C47/

Entry filed under: Atheism and religion, dispensationalism, Life in America, Posttribulational Rapture, Pretribulational Rapture, Religious - Christian - End Times, Religious - Christian - Prophecy, Religious - Christian - Theology. Tags: abanes, dispensational, dispensationalism, earthquake, earthquake haiti, end times vision, premillennialism, pretribulation rapture, prophecy, richard abanes, richard abanes end times vision.