THESE ARE THE LAST DAYS!

FEATURES OF THE LAST DAYS

"Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom." (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:4) Writer Ernest Hemingway called World War I "the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth." According to the book The Word in the Crucible -1914-1919, this was a new scope of war, the first total war in the experience of mankind.  Its duration, intensity, and scale exceeded anything previously known or generally expected."  Then cam World War II, which proved must more destructive than World War I.  "The twentieth century," says professor Hugh Thomas, "has been dominated by the machine gun, the tank, the B-52, the nuclear bomb and finally, the missile. It has been marked  by wars more bloody and destructive than those of any other age" True, much was said about disarmament after the Cold War ended. Still, one report estimates that after proposed reductions some 10,000 to 20,000 nuclear warheads will remain-more than 900 times the firepower used during World War II.

"There will be food shortages." (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:5, 6, 8) Since 1914 there have been  at least 20 major famines. Afflicted areas include Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Chine, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan. But famine is not always caused by a lack of food.  "The world's food supply over recent decades has grown faster than its population," concluded a group  of agricultural scientists and economists.  "But at least 800 million people remain in deep poverty, . . . they are unable to purchase enough of the abundance to lift them out of chronic malnutrition." Political meddling is involved in other cases. Dr. Abdelgalil Elmekki of the University of Toronto cites two example in which thousands starve while their countries  were exporting massive amounts of food.  The governments seemed far more concerned with raising foreign currency  to finance their wars than with feeding their citizens.  Dr. Elmekki's  conclusion?  Famine is often "a matter of distribution and government policy."

"Pestilences." (Luke 21:11; Revelation 6:8)  The Spanish influenza of 1918-1919 claimed at least 21 million lives.  "The world had never in history been ravaged by a killer that slew so many human beings so quickly," writes A.A.Hoehling in  The Great Epidemic.  Today, pestilences rage on.  Each year, cancer kills five million people, diarrheal diseases claim the lives of more than three million infants and children, and tuberculosis slays three million. Respiratory infections, mainly pneumonia, annually kill 3.5 million youngsters under five years of age. And a staggering 2.5 billion-half the world's population-suffer  from sicknesses that stem from insufficient or contaminated water and poor sanitation.  AIDS looms as a further reminder that man, despite his significant medical accomplishments, is incapable of eradicating pestilences.

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From the book: KNOWLEDGE That Leads to Everlasting Life