Signs in the Heavens

It looks like among the missions NASA will have in the post-Shuttle era will be to provide solar weather reports. Authorities in Washington DC are conducting a meeting June 8th to discuss the vulnerabilities of our technological society to the anticipated solar storms that are expected to increase in intensity. NOAA and NASA's Heliophysics Division are the two federal agencies primarily involved.

Solar storm activity has be cyclical in nature but we are now particularly more dependant on satellite communications than in past solar storm peaks. What ever happens, this will certainly make for more awareness of how solar activity affects life here on earth. I’d like to think this will cause more people to reevaluate the idea that human-generated carbon dioxide is what is causing the earth to heat up but the global warming dogma is a strong religion.

The Bible tells us that global warming is in fact coming and it will be so bad that people will be forced to admit that it is not due to carbon emissions. In fact, the only explanation will be that God is allowing it to happen; not that this acknowledgement will cause them to obey Him… Revelation 16:9 says, “men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory” (NKJ). Men’s hearts will become hardened against God as what happened to Pharaoh during Moses’ day so that the full consequences of living apart from God would become known.

In other recent news from space, a huge fireball has been spotted on Jupiter in yet another collision from space caught on camera and video by amateur astronomers.

The increasing incidents of big objects being observed slamming into Jupiter are bound to make people concerned about that happening on earth. Granted, Jupiter is a bigger target with a stronger gravitational field than earth but it does demonstrate the potential for a similar such disaster here. Indeed the Bible tells us that something like this will happen during the Tribulation… “Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood” (Revelation 8:8).

The Tribulation will be a fearful time due in part to what people will observe going on in the heavens. “There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

We are not yet in the Tribulation but Jesus told us that the signs of the Tribulation would be like birth pangs, increasing in frequency and intensity (Matthew 24:8). It is no coincidence that we are starting to become concerned about what is happening in space.

By themselves, individual indications like this that we are getting closer to the Tribulation could easily be dismissed. But taken together with other natural events on earth, signs associated with Israel, and the geopolitical stage setting, it is hard to deny that the current Age of Grace is about to conclude. And since the Rapture occurs before the Tribulation, we don’t have long to persevere in this world.