earthquake

birth pangs, chile, earthquake, end time, prophecy

Are the birth pangs happening now?

Posted on June 11, 2022June 11, 2022 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Birth pangs, or labor pains, are defined as “One of the repetitive pains occurring in childbirth. Often used in the plural. Also: Difficulty or turmoil associated with a development or transition.” Birth pangs are an event that is unstoppable, they increase in intensity and frequency, and result in a new creation. During labor, the mother is in throes, sweats, and travails. When it is over there is peace, and rest.

God is fully in control and He has always sent weather to show His wrath, or to shake up the people, or to render judgment. He sends snow: Job 37:6 “For to the snow He says, ‘Fall on the earth,’ And to the downpour and the rain, ‘Be strong'”

He sends hail. Psalm 105:32: “He gave them hail for rain, And flaming fire in their land.”

He sends drought, earthquakes, thunder, and so on.

In a different kind of judgment, He also lifts his hand of restraint and gives a people over to their desires. (Romans 1:18-32). It’s less dramatic than the showy weather related ones, but in all ways more devastating judgment. John MacArthur describes the wrath of abandonment:

In Hosea 4:17, it is recorded that God said, “Ephraim is joined unto idols; let him alone.” There comes a time when God abandons men. God comes to a point where He lets a people go, lets them go to the consequences of their own sinful choices. They will not accept His counsel, they spurn all His reproof, as Proverbs says, so they eat the fruit of their own choices and they have to be satisfied with the devices they have chosen. Of the Pharisees, Jesus said, “Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind.” Matthew 15:14, the most terrifying words, “Let them alone.” Source- John MacArthur

The runaway inflation the US is currently experiencing, the squeeze of our budgets to buy groceries and gas, the racial and sexual and gender agendas seemingly succeeding, even overtaking our children, the rampant abortions, is emotionally difficult to endure. God’s judgment on a nation as seen in the Bible is often displayed in giving us over to our desires and no longer restraining us. When a nation is under judgment He gives them bad leaders and women leaders. Surely America is under judgment…

Josh Love said recently,

Does everyone understand that America is reaching the level of Sodom and Gomorrah and in some aspects have surpassed it already? I fully believe America’s judgment is going to be much worse than Sodom’s or just as bad. Repent & trust Christ today to flee the wrath to come.
@JoshLove45

Cognitively, we understand we are no better than Sodom or Gomorrah and in many ways a lot worse, and we understand we are deserving of judgment. Emotionally, it’s so hard to watch, though. On the one hand, to see the LORD’S power is fearful and awesome. To watch His promises unfold is a blessing, hard as these particular promises are to endure. But also with the increase in intensity and frequency of birth pangs comes heartache and tragedy for people. People we know and love are travailing. People we do not know are weeping in grief. Children lose parents, parents lose children. The unsaved are at increased risk of their fate: eternal separation from God! The terrible times Paul said would come are indeed here.

and yet, to the good of those who love Him-

“Affliction awakens the sins in our hearts that we didn’t realize were there. Seeing the truth about ourselves produces the fruit of humility.” — Christina R. Fox

Are we in ‘the end time”? Yes. The last days spoken of by Christ in Matthew 24 and elsewhere in the New Testament, are the times between His ascension and His return. All of the Church Age, so to speak. So yes, it’s now. Christ has never been closer to His return than He has ever been since the writing of the New Testament.

We are not in the Great Tribulation but we are in the expansive period between 33 AD and the promised return of the future, which is characterized by birth pangs. One could assert the birth pangs began in 64 AD at the Great Fire of Rome, which Roman Emperor Nero blamed on the Christians. Thus, the first wave of persecutions started. The Church believers were martyred and those who survived dispersed over Asia Minor. How much more intense are birth pangs after 2000 years? Intensifying, even if the Lord tarries another 1000 years, birth pangs intensify over time, and we are feeling their intensity here in American and elsewhere on earth.

For me, it is a most terrible time knowing that as each day passes, many more unsaved are sent to their eternal destiny. The loss of so many unsaved is a heartache beyond comprehension. I know that for the Lord it is even worse, for “God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8-10). Unfortunately we know that many still go on the broad way, to their destruction.

Hardest of all though is watching coldness overtake love, and apostasy or apathy overtake zeal. People are falling away from their first love at a terrible rate. It’s hard to watch church betrayals, spiritual abuse, denominational political agendas, all substituted for strength in the Lord and love for His people.

Provost & Research Professor of Theology, @GBTSeminary Owen Strachan said, “The thief in the night is coming, so keep your bags packed and ready by the door. I urge you to pray for the church in this hour, saints. Denominations aside, Satan is pressing his attack on the bride of Christ. Pray hard for the strengthening and endurance of the body, assaulted from all angles as we are. Pray that we will trim our lamps and await our King.”

Christian, please continue praying. Stay strong, appealing to the Holy Spirit to stand us upright. Now is not the time to quail, cower, or quit. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,” (Philippians 2:14-15).

The world needs the light of Jesus now more than ever. Be that light, in prayer and in love.

jesus, prophecy, earthquake, end time, hurricane sandy, frankenstorm, shell shock

Spiritual warfare and battle fatigue

Posted on June 5, 2021June 5, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Are you battle weary? Our daily battle as Christians is tiring, isn’t it? We battle our sin. We battle intrusion of other peoples’ sin. We battle false doctrine. We do this daily. There are some bigger battles that crop up, like the one happening at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention on June 15-16. There, a host of like-minded representatives sent from the member churches, called “messengers,” will voice their opposition to Critical Race Theory and Egalitarianism (and its result, women preaching) to the mass who have gathered. The intention is to thwart the liberal drift. A previous battle like this had occurred in 1979-1980, called the Conservative Resurgence. It was an attempt, like the one coming up next week, to re-steer the Convention away from creeping liberalism and toward conservative, more biblical waters.

Continue reading →

earthquake, ecuador, god's wrath, sin

Powerful 7.8 quake hits Ecuador

Posted on April 17, 2016May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

7.8 magnitude quake 170 miles WNW of Quito Ecuador.

Screaming shoppers run for their lives as powerful 7.8 earthquake strikes Ecuador

… Ecuador’s Vice President Jorge Glas said in a televised address that the dead were located in the cities of Manta, Guayaquil and Portoviejo. He said the earthquake was the strongest to hit Ecuador in decades. … The major jolt came as rescuers in Japan were racing against the weather and the threat of more landslides to reach people still trapped by two big earthquakes that hit that country’s south.

Deadly earthquake hits Ecuador

A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake has killed at least 28 people in Ecuador, Vice-President Jorge Glas says. A state of emergency was declared in six provinces and the National Guard has been mobilised. The quake, centred near the coastal town of Muisne, destroyed an overpass in the city of Guayaquil about 300km (190 miles) away, local media say. The tremor also shook buildings in the capital Quito, forcing residents to flee their homes. “We have 16 people dead in the city of Portoviejo, 10 in Manta and two in the province of Guayas,” Mr Glas said at a news conference.

It has been a busy week for quakes. I’d written yesterday, Powerful series of jolts hits Japan. At that essay you can see the list of powerful earthquakes this week, as well as a short paragraph noting the link between God’s displeasure with sin and earthquakes, from john Newton.

The Lord shakes the earth as He wills, as a token sign of His anger with sin.

earthquake, end time, japan

Powerful series of quakes in Japan cause landslide, kills 11

Posted on April 16, 2016May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Earthquakes: a token sign of God’s displeasure over sin. See below, John Newton’s Messiah.

Update at bottom: “Swaying every hour“

A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake occurred in Japan today, causing a landslide and 11 deaths. The large temblor was followed by a series of 5.7 and 5.4 magnitude quakes and other aftershocks as well.

It has been a busy week for quakes these last two weeks. After a period of several months of relative quiet, there have been 13 quakes in the 6.0-6.9 range.

A more powerful earthquake has rocked the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto in the middle of the night, a day after an earlier tremor killed nine people. The magnitude-7.3 quake hit at a depth of 10km (six miles) at 01:25 on Saturday (15:25 GMT on Friday) in Kyushu region. At least three people died and hundreds were injured. A village has been evacuated after a dam collapsed, media reports say. (Source)

Rescue crews scrambled through rubble Saturday morning in a desperate search for survivors of a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Japan’s Kyushu Island, the same region rattled by a 6.2 quake two days earlier. (CNN)

Small eruption on Japan’s Mount Aso after earthquake

A small eruption occurred at Mt. Aso in southern Japan on Saturday around 8:30 a.m. local time (2330 GMT Friday) following a strong earthquake in the area, with smoke rising about 100 meters (300 feet) high, public broadcaster NHK reported. The Japanese Meteorological Agency kept its alert level at 2 on a scale of 5 for Mt. Aso, which has had eruptions in the past.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Editing by Michael Perry)

Update: Japan earthquakes: Dozens killed, region ‘swaying every hour’

One can but hope and pray for the soon return of Jesus Christ. Since the fall of man into depravity and sin entered the world, life has been a terrible cycle of disasters, diseases, and death

Messiah, Vol 2, by John Newton (author of Amazing Grace hymn)

Can there be a stronger confirmation of what we read in Scripture, concerning the depravity of man? Can we conceive an employment more suited to gratify the malignity of Satan and the powers of darkness, if they were permitted to appear and act amongst us in human shapes? Could such enormities possibly obtain, if the mild and merciful spirit of the Gospel generally prevailed? But it shall prevail at last, and then the nations shall learn war no more (Isaiah 2:4).

How transporting the thought! That a time shall yet arrive, when the love of God and man, of truth and righteousness, shall obtain [shall prevail] through the earth. The evils (and these are the greatest evils of human life) which men bring upon themselves, and upon each other, by their wickedness, shall cease; and we may believe that the evils in the natural world will be greatly abated. Sin will no longer call down the tokens of God’s displeasure, by such public calamities as hurricanes, earthquakes, pestilence, and famine.

creation, deep focus quake, earthquake

Strong, deep-focus earthquake hits off Japan coast

Posted on May 30, 2015 by elizabethprata

Strong earthquake hits off Japan coast

A powerful undersea earthquake south of Japan has shaken buildings in Tokyo. The US Geological Survey said the 7.8-magnitude earthquake was centred 874km (543 miles) from the Japanese capital, at a depth of almost 700km. It struck at 18:30 local time (11:30 GMT). Buildings in the capital swayed for almost a minute as the quake built in intensity, AFP news agency says. There are no reports of serious damage or casualties. No tsunami warning has been issued.

The unusual thing about this quake is its depth. What scientists call deep-focus earthquakes are an anomaly, they aren’t supposed to be able to happen. At least, according to the scientific theories of why quakes occur.

Deep Earthquakes: About.Com Education- Geology

Deep earthquakes were discovered in the 1920s, but they remain a subject of contention today. The reason is simple: they aren’t supposed to happen. Yet they account for more than 20 percent of all earthquakes.

Shallow earthquakes require solid rocks to occur more specifically, cold, brittle rocks. Only these can store up elastic strain along a geologic fault, held in check by friction, until the strain lets loose in a violent rupture.

The Earth gets hotter by about 1 degree C with each 100 meters of depth on average. Combine that with high pressure underground and it’s clear that by about 50 kilometers down, on average the rocks should be too hot and squeezed too tight to crack and grind the way they do at the surface. Thus deep-focus quakes, those below 70 km, demand an explanation.

And so all the articles go on and try and explain it.

A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, (Psalm 24:1)

Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. (Job 41:11)

Shallow-focus earthquakes are quakes that occur between depths of 0 and 70KM below the surface.
Intermediate-focus earthquakes are quakes that occur between depths of 70Km and 300KM below the surface.
Deep-focus quakes are quakes that occur between depth of 300-700KM. (source)

So we can see that the Japan quake was the deepest of the deep-focus quakes. It was the deepest this year, being exactly 677.6 KM. There were 4 deep-focus quakes 4 in Fiji this year at 600-613 depth. All the other deep quakes that have occurred so far were shallower than 600KM.

There have been 23 deep-focus quakes this year so far. Here is a screen shot from my search on USGS for quakes between the magnitudes of 5.0-9.9 this year thus far exceeding a depth of 300K, AKA deep focus quakes at a meaningful magnitude. Click to enlarge.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) data presents an average number of annual quakes.

In the 5.0-5.9 range so far this year there have been 565.
In the 6.0-6.9 range so far this year there have been 52.
In the 7.0-7.9 range so far this year there have been 8.
In the 8.0-8.9 range so far this year there have been 0.

This article, Greatest Earthquakes of the Bible, by Dr Steven Austin at the Institute for Creation Research, is excellent. I recommend it. Here is Dr Austin’s conclusion:

Conclusion

A review of the 17 earthquakes listed above shows that virtually the entire story of the Bible can be summarized by its association with earthquakes. Biblical events emphasized by earthquakes are creation, Noah’s Flood, separation of Abraham and Lot from judgment of the wicked cities, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, authentication of the leadership of Moses, God’s provision in the conquest of Canaan, vindication of the messages of Hebrew prophets, the crucifixion of our Lord in Jerusalem, the resurrection of our Lord, the ministry of the apostles and the church, the modern “birth pangs” sign of the end times, the national conversion of Israel, and the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. History, archaeology, and geology appear to confirm independently many earthquakes mentioned in the Bible.

Earthquakes have been used distinctively by God to highlight some of the most important events of the Bible. The three main purposes for biblical earthquakes are judgment, deliverance, and communication. The lesson is obvious—God does not do anything really big without emphasizing it with an earthquake! In our fast-paced, man-centered, technology-based society of the twenty-first century, God would have us pause and consider His sovereign nature and the program He has been accomplishing in the world.

earthquake, God, mighty, nepal, prophecy

Nepal’s large quake: a tragedy and an opportunity

Posted on April 25, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The large earthquake in Nepal is saddening to the extreme. As of 1:00 today there have been over 27 aftershocks. It is shocking and upsetting to see a headline like “Everest shaken.” Our earth’s tallest mountain, solid, strong, stalwart against all storms, it is shaken like a toy in a moment of time. Yet we know in the Tribulation, all the mountains will be thrown down.

The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. (Revelation 6:14)

O, Nepal, your dead idols cannot help you now! Turn from them and repent to the True and Living God!

Source

And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground.” (Isaiah 21:9)

This warning given in Isaiah regarding the fall of Babylon was fulfilled in 689BC when Babylon fell to the Assyrians, and again in 539BC to the Persians. Yet there is one fulfillment left, the future when by Revelation 18 Babylon the city, the spiritual Babylon and Economic Babylon all fall at the mighty arm of God. No more idols! No more prayers to dead Vishnus or Ganeshas or Shivas.

Our Lord God is alive. Every single person on earth has a “relationship” with Jesus. Either they are His enemy or they are His friend. The difference is repentance. Have you turned from your sin and appealed to Jesus for forgiveness of sins, acknowledging the resurrected King as the only One who can forgive? He is perfect, holy, and just, and He will demand an account of every life lived.

The tragedy is that with a thousand dead and more to be discovered, hell is receiving many who worshiped the dead gods of Hinduism and not the Living God of all. (81% of Nepal is Hindu, second is 9% Buddhist). May those who are in Nepal and those who are watching Nepal’s tragedy unfold, give glory to God in heaven. Is now the time to press for honor and glory to God, with so much death and strife? Yes. Look what happens in the future Tribulation when there is a great quake:

And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. (Revelation 11:13)

The God who can shake Mount Everest is the God who holds in His hand life and death of all who dwell on the earth. You can have everlasting life in Him, by repenting and giving Him glory.

I pray that those who are affected repent and understand the might and patience of the True and Holy God. I pray that those who by going there to participate in humanitarian aid bring with them the TRUE Gospel to share with those who are homeless, hurt, and spiritually lost.

Pray for Nepal

earthquake, israel, sbc

Netanyahu appears to have won a victory in the Israel Election, Baptist college elects openly gay president, SBC-affiliated churches with women clergy

Posted on March 18, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Some news roundups:

A major election was held in Israel today. Unlike in the US where we vote for a person from a party, in Israel, they vote for a party and then select the front person of that party to be Prime Minister. In the election today, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party stunningly pulled ahead and appears to have won a very close match against the Zionist Union Party. Interesting,y at the eve of the election, Netanyahu reversed his stand on whether he supports a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State, and said he did not. The Zionist Union supports two states and wanted to work with the Palestinians.

The opposition and its front man, Isaac Herzog, have refused to concede, and indeed, the election is still very close. However it seems that at the last moment, Netanyahu and his party may have won. In any case, it seems, as the NY Times puts it, the closeness of the race “promising a protracted and messy process of forming the next governing coalition.”

Current PM Netanyahu giving election day victory speech to supporters

Meanwhile, a 6.6 quake has just occurred in Indonesia at the Molucca Sea. The blue dot is the quake. It had initially been rated as a 7.3, which is why the editor of Breaking News referred to it that way. Here is the Editor’s note:

Editor’s note: According to data we are monitoring from the USGS, Indonesia is still experiencing several aftershocks dozens of miles off the coast of Kota Ternate after a 7.3 quake earlier. None of these have reached an intensity to trigger a tsunami warning, but we will continue to watch data from the area. – Aaron

Apostasy is running apace, at a shocking level. In this example, once considered the most conservative denomination, the Baptists of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently been giving evidence of internal rot leading to collapse. The denomination’s acceptance of the different gospels of Rick Warren, Beth Moore, the non-remarking of President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore’s visit to the Vatican in a partnership in an ecumenical pursuit of social justice (marriage issues), the Convention’s demonstrable divisiveness against its Reformed brothers, and more, it seems that the issues in the once-conservative Baptist denomination are percolating to the top.

What makes all this so interesting is that the Baptists, especially the Southern Baptists (16 million Americans enrolled) are thought to be the most conservative, sticking closest to living out the principles in the Word, which they state to be the unerring word of God. Richard Dudley wrote in Baptist Why and Why Not:

The fundamental principle of the Baptists is their belief in the supreme authority and absolute sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures; and their separate existence is the practical and logical result of their attempt to apply this principle in all matters of religion. (source)

Witness the recent news from the Baptist News of the Harrisonburg Baptist Church of VA, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliated church, in this article from several days ago discussing the acceptance of pregnant pastors in the pulpit.

Stacy Nowell

Baptist women say faith deepened as pregnant ministers

The first time around as a pregnant Baptist minister, Stacy Cochran Nowell harbored worries few other moms-to-be are likely to share. Chief among them was that older church members might object to the sight of an expectant mother in the pulpit. It never happened, said Nowell, the associate pastor at Harrisonburg Baptist Church in Virginia. “I just never received any negative feedback,” she said of the pregnancy that produced her now 3-year-old daughter. “I anticipated them, but they never materialized.”

Note that the opposition they expected was the fact that the female pastors were working while pregnant, NOT that the church had installed a woman minister. Yet the bible says,

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.” (1 Tim. 2:12-13).

Pr. Nowell of Harrisonburg Baptist Church

Interestingly, the SBC states that it does not support female clergy. In 1998, Richard Melick wrote in the SBC Life, the Journal of the Southern Baptist Convention, “Summary: Should Women Be Pastors? We have seen that the explicit texts of Scripture forbid women to serve as pastors.” Their current FAQ still states the same.

Six months ago, the SBC cut ties with a SBC-affilated church that voted to retain a pastor who declared that same-sex unions can be blessed by God, and had performed a “marriage” of his own gay son in the church. To my knowledge, no disciplinary action has been lodged against Harrisonburg Baptist Church for its installation of female pastor, pregnant or not.

Here is news from a few days ago, from Baptist News again.

Historically Baptist college elects gay president

Though not Indiana’s first openly gay college president, Thomas Minar is the first for Franklin College, a small-town college 20 minutes from Indianapolis historically rooted in the American Baptist Churches USA. While one Baptist college in Tennessee defended inviting a lesbian to speak on campus, another in Indiana with little fanfare recently elected a president who is openly gay. Franklin College, a small liberal-arts college in “voluntary association” with the American Baptist Churches USA, announced Jan. 23 the selection of American University administrator Thomas Minar as the school’s 16th president effective July 1.

I am sure that the homosexual lobby will hail this as a “victory”, but we know what true victory is. It is as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:57,

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus gives us victory OVER sin, sins such as homosexuality, not victory in submitting TO sin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unusual quakes in CT, TX, Smoky Mountains

Posted on March 2, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

We haven’t had a good old earthquake update for a while. I think that nothing expresses His sovereignty over the earth as much as when He shakes it.

who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; (Job 9:6).

People will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from the fearful presence of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. (Isaiah 2:19)

There was a small quake in the Smoky Mountains. What is notable is that it is only the third earthquake in that region, ever.

Earthquake strikes the Smoky Mountains

Early in the morning on Wednesday, February 26, 2015, a minor earthquake shook up the Smoky Mountains. For a little over a week, the Smoky Mountains have been covered in snow and ice, but that didn’t stop the earthquake that rumbled in the mountains sometime between 4-4:15 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The earthquake registered at a 2.1 magnitude about 7 miles south of Gatlinburg, closer to Clingmans Dome. According to local news station WATE, this is only the third earthquake that has been recorded within national park boundaries. The first was in 1979 and the second in 2011. Thankfully, no earthquake in the Smoky Mountains has been powerful enough to cause any damage.

Another location has been experiencing quakes: Connecticut

Connecticut’s quakes unusual

Geologists are trying to make sense of about a dozen small to moderate earthquakes that have peppered eastern Connecticut in and around Plainfield, a sleepy town that hasn’t seen much excitement since its textile industry moved out in the 1920s. The largest of these was a magnitude 3.3 quake that was felt at 6:36 a.m. on Jan. 12. “We’re getting a swarm of earthquakes, which is a little unusual for Connecticut,” said Susan Long, professor of geology at Yale University who specializes in earthquakes.

2.2 Magnitude Quake Is the 12th in a Week

The ground shook again in Eastern Connecticut on Thursday morning as the area experienced its 12th earthquake in a week. On Friday local and state officials will be holding meetings to inform residents and discuss how prepared the state is should a damaging earthquake strike here.

Plainfield gets another quake

PLAINFIELD- Earthquakes, no matter how minor, can rattle one’s nerves, not to mention pictures and plates. Still, the people of Plainfield appear to be settling into their new existence. The Quiet Corner has morphed into the Quake Corner. Tuesday morning, at approximately 9:30, the Plainfield Police Department fielded roughly a dozen phone calls, most from Green Hollow Road, reporting yet another earthquake. This one was a 2.1 magnitude. “And, that’s nothing like the hundreds (of calls) that we were dealing with earlier when this was all occurring,” said Plainfield Police Capt. Mario Arriaga. … Dr. Long says seismologists worldwide remain interested in the state’s recent rumbles.

Jeepers! New Look at ‘Creeping’ San Andreas Fault

A small part of the San Andreas Fault that was thought to quietly slide without shaking its neighbors may actually be capable of strong earthquakes, including magnitude-6 shakers, a new study finds. The San Andreas Fault is divided into three legs. The middle leg has long been treated as a benign barrier between the more seismically active northern and southern segments. That’s because the central section “creeps” — rocks on either side of the fault slip past each other without snagging. On the other two legs, rocks lock together, building up strain that is unleashed as powerful earthquakes. … Scientists had thought that San Andreas Fault earthquakes primarily struck in the locked zones, so it was a surprise finding locked patches big enough to trigger sizable earthquakes in the creeping zones, said lead study author Romain Jolivet, a geophysicist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in Pasadena, California. … Scientists have recently raised the possibility that an earthquake could rupture the entire length of the San Andreas. The biggest recorded earthquakes on the fault either started or stopped in the transition zones.

Earthquakes in Texas…Again

In the relative calm of an early morning where North Texas was bracing for a rare snow storm, the Dallas suburb of Irving got a wake-up call, literally, on Friday, February 27, when a small 3.1 magnitude earthquake struck at 6:18 AM, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). This was the first temblor felt in a month. The City of Irving has been the site of “roughly two dozen quakes to hit since the beginning of 2015, and more than 40 earthquakes have hit since April of last year,” CBS DFW reported. They stated that the USGS located the epicenter as just east of the former site of the Texas Stadium off of State Highway 193. … Although the team has not yet been able to provide an answer as to what has been causing all the seismic activity, it does indicate “there is a narrow two-mile fault extending from Irving into Dallas, running 3 to 5 miles deep,” also according to CBS DFW. … Dallas residents are not used to having earthquakes and their nerves have been frayed by the constant seismic activity of late.

You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open; repair its breaches, for it totters. (Psalm 60:2)

earthquake, rapture, signs

Signs: Earthquake and sinkhole update

Posted on November 23, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

As a person living on planet earth, I’m fascinated by earthquakes. In Maine, when a quake happens it’s usually below the shaking level and we only hear a boom or two. I never had experienced but one or two quakes in my area during the time I lived there. (30 years).

Georgia’s proximity to a seismic area in Charleston means that sometimes residents in this state can feel a shaking or two. A year ago or so there was a quake that I felt. It rattled the house and the window air conditioner bounced up and down, as if a heavy succession of overladen trucks had passed by.

It was eerie to be walking through the living room and suddenly the ground under your feet shakes and shakes. You think that the ground is solid, but it’s not!! During particularly rough quakes, the ground actually liquifies!

Many millions of people live in areas where earthquakes are more of a hazard and are even a life-threatening danger. Many live in places where the ground more than shakes for a moment, but actually ruptures and swallows people or collapses buildings on top of them. [shudder].

As a Christian I’m interested in earthquakes because of the way God uses them. He is the creator of this planet. The earth and everything in it is His.

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; (Psalm 24:1)

If the LORD wants to announce His presence on Sinai before talking with Moses, He will. (Exodus 19:18). If the LORD wants to open the ground under rebellious Korah and his cohorts, He will. (Numbers 16:32). If He wants to use an earthquake to announce His Son’s death, He will do so. (Matthew 27:51-54). Likewise when His Son resurrected, He announced the glorious news by, among other methods, shaking the earth. (Matthew 28:2)

God uses earthquakes in many ways and for many reasons. In the future prophetic times there will also be great earthquakes, to split Jerusalem into three parts (as part of the Tribulation’s ongoing re-arrangement of the earth to ready it for a return to pre-flood perfection). A great earthquake will defeat the hordes come to attack Jerusalem in the last days, so we can clearly see that quakes are used by God to smite an enemy’s military or to aid His people Israel during battle- as He did to the Philistines at Geba. (1 Samuel 14:15).

God communicates His greatness through earthquakes, and He demonstrates His ownership of the earth as its Creator when He shakes it.

Jesus said that earthquakes will be a sign of approaching tribulation of the end of days. (Matthew 24:7). He said the signs He was speaking of will be as birth pangs. Birth pains get worse and worse and more and more painful as the moment of birth approaches, and many people take His metaphor to mean the signs He spoke of will increase painfully also. This is the way I interpret verses 4-8 in chapter 24, as being signs during the Age of Grace, with verse 9 swinging into the discussion of the actual Tribulation.

So, are earthquakes increasing? Until 2014 most scientists said no, or they denied that they were increasing, anyway. However as I’ve been showing my annual December 31 “By the Numbers” posts for several years now, the United States’ Geological Survey’s own data and their 100-year averages show that they are.

Now scientists are saying, well, yeah, earthquakes are increasing. The following article is from LiveScience this past June

Big Earthquakes Double in 2014, But They’re Not Linked

If you think there have been more earthquakes than usual this year, you’re right. A new study finds there were more than twice as many big earthquakes in the first quarter of 2014 as compared with the average since 1979. “We have recently experienced a period that has had one of the highest rates of great earthquakes ever recorded,” said lead study author Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.

The article quotes scientists who had previously surmised that larger quakes trigger smaller ones, but the increase in large quakes in the present day has not triggered any other ones, hence the second part of the title to the article, ‘they’re not linked’. The article continues,

As our group has been interested in the ability of an earthquake to affect others at a global scale, we wondered if we were seeing it happening. I really expected we would see evidence of something we couldn’t explain by randomness,” Parsons told Live Science’s Our Amazing Planet in an email interview. The new study isn’t the first time researchers have tried and failed to link one earthquake to another in time and across distance.

Here is another article from just several days ago reporting earthquakes on the rise. This article narrows the scope to just earthquakes around Oklahoma. We take note not just of the sheer number earthquakes increasing, but Jesus said they will occur in diverse places. An earthquake can be of note because of the location it occurred. It can be of note due to the magnitude. An earthquake doesn’t have to be a 9.0 to attract attention, but a 3.3 can be equally interesting. More on that in a moment.

Earthquakes on the rise; scientists warn of larger quake possibilities

It’s been such a dramatic increase the state and seismologists like Austin Holland can barely keep up. With 4,600 quakes this year alone so far, it [the state capitol] averages to 14 quakes a day. “It’s pretty remarkable how many significant earthquakes we’ve had,” Holland said. While the state’s biggest quake remains at a 5.6 that hit Prague back in 2011, large quakes are happening more often. Holland says the trend doesn’t bode well for the state.

This week’s quakes show several significant ones. USGS embeds the data in a pink banner to show the significance. Others were simply of interest because they were big.

3.3 magnitude ENE of Irving, Texas
6.3 magnitude NNE of Omachi, Japan
6.5 magnitude WNW of Tobelo, Indonesia
3.8 magnitude NW of Eutaw, Alabama
4.2 magnitude S of San Juan Bautista, California
6.7 NE of Gisborne, New Zealand

Why is the Irving TX quake in pink, indicating it was an event of significance to USGS? I don’t know. I have not been able to find an explanation on the USGS site explaining why they consider certain quakes highly significant. I can only guess: the location would seem to indicate it is a low-seismic area. Here is an excerpt from a news article about the quake–

Quake centered in Irving rocks Dallas area

In the past year, about three dozen earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or more have struck communities in North Texas. Some quakes were strong enough to crack home walls and foundations. Most of the quakes hit months ago, though three of them rattled the Dallas-Fort Worth area in September, waking some residents from sleep.

Small North Texas quake triggers social media stir

A magnitude-3.3 earthquake has shaken North Texas strong enough to draw reaction during a Dallas Stars hockey game. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred about 9:15 p.m. Saturday and was centered about 2 miles beneath east Irving, around 6 miles northwest of Dallas. It was the sixth and strongest quake centered near Irving in two months. Small quakes have become more common recently in Texas.

It should be noted that scientists believe that both in TX and in OK that hydraulic fracturing as part of the oil extraction process is what is triggering these quakes.

SINKHOLES

A sinkhole opening up is something I’m quite nerved up over and fascinated by, both. It’s the same vein as earthquakes- thinking the ground is solid under your fet (and if you can’t trust the solid ground, what CAN you trust?) and then suddenly it’s air. Do you see in the recent sinkhole that opened up in Russia, the row of houses, and then the hole? Did houses fall into the hole? People? [shudder]

Wall Street photo of the day
A view of a sinkhole stretching 20 meters by 30 meters at the Solikamsk-2 mine in Russia’s Perm region. Tass/Zuma Press

Natal, Brazil:

Sinkhole grows just miles from World Cup Stadium

A sinkhole that opened up last week in the wake of record-breaking rainfall in the World Cup host city of Natal, Brazil continues to expand, swallowing homes and cars and forcing the evacuation of 150 families. More rain fell on the coastal city in three days last week—more than 13 inches worth—than the area usually sees in the entire month of June, sparking landslides, flash flooding and opening up the sinkhole four miles from the Arena das Dunas stadium in a hillside favela, according to the BBC. No one was killed or injured, the Associated Press reports. The Associated Press also reports that some 150 families have been evacuated from the affected area. According to local news reports, some of those families are being sheltered by government agencies and local schools and churches.

BBC: Huge sinkhole near World Cup Stadium

Photo BBC

Residents have been evacuated from a favela near one of Brazil’s World Cup stadiums, after a huge sinkhole opened up. Footage shows partially-collapsed homes perched on the edge of the crater in Natal, already filled with household appliances, furniture and vehicles. The hole is four miles (6.5km) from the Arena das Dunas stadium, which will host the Group D match between Italy and Uruguay on Tuesday. The sinkhole opened up earlier this week after record rainfall, but has continued to grow since.

A massive sinkhole near Tampa, Fla. swallows up a car and driveway, Nov. 10, 2014. The family had five minutes to escape.

Third Sinkhole Forms, Swallows Part of Car

HOLIDAY, Fla. — Nov 16, 2014, 10:47 AM ET Associated Press A third hole has formed in in the driveway of a Tampa Bay-area neighborhood and swallowed a car to its bumper. Pasco County spokesman Doug Tobin says the new hole opened Saturday in the front yard of a resident’s home. It was about six feet deep and grew about 10 feet wide. The resident is temporarily relocating. Two other holes formed earlier this week about a quarter mile away. Engineers have to confirm that the depressions are sinkholes. The first hole grew to 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The mobile home at the brink of that hole was condemned. Five other homes were evacuated. Tobin says work has been suspended on a nearby sewer lift station due to the subsurface activity

The Lord will come back when He comes back. It seems like it might be soon, but only the Father knows for sure. I pray that when He does, I will be counted as one who was longing for His appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8). I so yearn to see His face, to be sinless, finally. I long for the world to claim Him as LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, whether voluntarily or not. I want every knee to bow, including mine. I want the world to be restored and released from its curse, where the ground doesn’t cry out from the blood shed on it. (Genesis 4:10). I want no babies to be aborted but each one (in the Millennium kingdom) to be cherished. I want to love perfectly.

Praise the Lord that someday, I will. Thanks to His grace and His desire to gather a people unto Himself, someday, soon I hope, we will be with Him.

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Institute for Creation Research: Great Earthquakes of the Bible

By the Numbers 2013

By the Numbers 2012

By the Numbers 2010

ABC News: Incredible sinkholes around the world

earthquake, prophecy

A synopsis of quakes today, and a list of prophesied Tribulation earthquakes

Posted on September 11, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

USGS quakes in continental US as of Sept 7

I look at the USGS map of 2.5+ quakes everyday. After a few years your mind gets used to seeing the visual pattern. Anomalies then stand out.

You’d be surprised at how many 2.5-plus quakes hit different spots of the US nowadays, as opposed to years ago. I knew that the Americans were jolted when a large quake hit Virginia a few years ago and cracked the Washington DC monument. Small quakes happen in Maine. In Georgia last year there was one that was felt for a wide range of the state.

Typically we think of quakes happening in the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, or California. But they happen in Texas, too. And ALabama. And Tennessee. And almost everywhere else. Occasionally. I think the only state not to have regular quakes is Florida. Only one quake centered in the state caused damage, but quakes outside of Florida have caused peripheral damage, notably Cuba in 1880 and Charleston SC in 1886.

But when I saw the above map I was struck. Usually there are not so many quakes at once in the unusual parts of the US.

Of course, the ongoing quake swarm in Oklahoma has people rattled. Since 2009 there has been an upsurge in felt-quakes and no one knows why. They attribute it to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) but Texas fracks much more than OK and they have less than a quarter of the quakes OK does, so who knows.

This map above showed 14 single, stray quakes in unusual parts of the US. The one over the farthest right is centered in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, location of one of the worst US quakes ever (in 1811-12). Yes, Missouri. The USGS article on the subject is titled,

The New Madrid Seismic Zone is at Significant Risk for Damaging Earthquakes

Last year, Joel Rosenberg wrote about earthquakes in the Tribulation.

Fifth earthquake in five days hits Israel

Every 80 years or so, Israel has a major, catastrophic earthquake. So Israelis know they are “due” for a “big one.” Those who pay attention to Bible prophecy also know that both the Old and New Testament Scriptures describe major earthquakes occurring in Israel in the last days. Earthquake preparations are on the increase by government agencies and among private companies and such preparations will now accelerate, especially in the wake of five minor earthquakes in Israel in the course of the past five days. Among the steps being taken: a new earthquake alert system is being developed by the government and is expected to be ready in 2016.

“Israel’s last major earthquake rattled the region in 1927″ reports the Times of Israel, was “a 6.2-magnitude tremor that killed 500 and injured another 700.” Before that, “an earthquake in 1837 left as many as 5,000 people dead.”

Here is a synopsis of the prophesied quakes that will happen in the Tribulation. We are in the last days. We have been since Jesus ascended. When I say the last of the last days, I mean now. After that, the Tribulation are the very last days of the age before the Millennium Kingdom.

Revelation 6:12-14
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

In the verse 12 where it describes a “great” earthquake, the Greek word is megas. It’s defined, “large, great, in the widest sense.”

Revelation 8:5
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake

The text isn’t specific about what magnitude or where it will occur.

Revelation 11:13 predicts a quake in Jerusalem. When the Two Witnesses have lain dead in the street for three and a half days, God will call “Come up here!” and they will resurrect in front of the amazed and fearful world. Then-

“And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

More earthquakes…
There are noises, thunderings, lightnings, an earthquake and great hail. (Rev 11:19)

As great as the quake in Revelation 6 was, there will be an even bigger quake at the end of the Tribulation. We know this is true because the verse in Revelation 16:18 predicting it says there has never been a quake like this on the earth.

And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found.

As rich in specificity as Revelation is, it is not the only book that predicts last days (Tribulation) quakes. Joel 2:10 says,

The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble.
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.

Ezekiel 38:19

For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.

In Indonesia today there was a 6.5 quake, no tsunami, thankfully.

There was a 2.1 in Alabama today, no damage.

Iceland’s erupting volcano is sparking quakes. Or maybe the other way around.

After a brief lull, eruption concerns spiked again as a 5.5 magnitude earthquake shook the northern rim of the caldera of Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano Wednesday morning, according to the Icelandic Met Office.

And that is your quake report for today.