Hint Of Coming 'Superstorm' Emphasizes Need To Pray About Sin And Conversion

By Michael H. Brown

Continuing where we left off -- a discussion of possible coming natural events -- we note here several fascinating trends this winter, still grabbing headlines. In one part of the country, in the East, there is biting cold, or record snow -- while in Kansas, which can get quite bitter, there is record warmth (74 degrees in Topeka and Concordia a few weeks ago, although not now). The same occurred up in Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota (while fire raced once again across the California landscape). That was last month. Now, there is a "Blizzard of 2003."

This is precisely in line with what we have been calling the "climate gyration": Of all signs of the times, extreme weather -- whether rainfall or drought -- is the most consistent harbinger in the Bible, and our weather is both extreme and tumultuous. Changes in global temperature have inserted much more moisture into the air, so that when it snows or rains, there are larger events (although there may be abnormally long dry spells between them). Despite colder temperatures on parts of the planet, 2002 was the second warmest on record, and through the first part of the current year, we have even heard from residents of Alaska. "Today is 42 degrees, just as it has been for the past several days," wrote Jackie Minatra of Soldotna. "Unlike the rest of the country, I think winter missed us this year. What is so interesting about that is I saw two mosquitoes this afternoon. Yep. In Alaska on February 5. Believe me, I was dumbfounded, amazed, and totally shocked. While the rest of the U.S. is freezing cold, our snow is melting, tree buds are getting bigger, and mosquitoes are out and about. Just so you know, we don't usually get spring-like signs like this until the end of April."

It is a time of extremes ("the seasons will be altered," said a prophecy from LaSalette, France), and these shifts will not just produce unusual temperatures. In Sent To Earth, it was warned that the climate gyration would also cause what can only be described as superstorms -- cyclones that may have sustained winds (not just gusts) of more than 225 miles an hour. As radical as this may have seemed at the time, we note that at the beginning of January a system labeled precisely as a "superstorm" struck Tikopia Island in the Solomons with winds estimated to have been in excess of 200 miles per hour (and possibly gusting to 225). Compare this to famous storms like Hurricane Fran, which had top gusts of "only" 137 miles per hour when it hit the U.S.

There is a shift in our climate and this will be the era of the superstorm -- not just in wind speed but in storm size. Back in the Middle Ages, when mankind was heading into a similar purification (with nearly identical trends in climate), super-hurricanes hurled great waves along the Gulf Coast. That's according to Dr. Kam-biu Liu of Louisiana State University. "From the historical record there's evidence of some extreme hurricanes that hit this state from A.D. 800 to 1400," asserts Erle Peterson of the Dade County emergency office in Florida. Look also to California, where winds recently reached 100 miles an hour at the summit of Mount Diablo. Such is all good to pray about and keep in mind as we hear word that researchers predict the 2003 hurricane season will be unusually active. As one newspaper noted, the forecast is for a dozen tropical storms -- those with winds of 39 mph to 73 mph. Forecasters also see a 30 percent greater chance that at least one major or "intense" hurricane will strike land somewhere along the Eastern seaboard, Florida or the Gulf Coast.

While we don't know what to make of those specific predictions, in the next few years, and over the next three decades, we expect a series of unprecedented events. Is it a vengeful, angry God? Is it a God Who wants to punish? God is not vengeful. He certainly does not seek to hurt us. He is loving. He is love itself. But in seeing eternity, He sees farther than the meteorologist. Precisely because of His love, He wants us with Him -- and He tries to nudge us in the right direction. We are the ones who leave His goodness, balance, and protection. Those who doubt this or have fallen into a New Age state of mind should re-read Matthew 24: What happens in the physical world is often a reflection of the spiritual. Or Job 38: 22-23: "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?"

This all gives us a call to prayer, not just that such storms be stopped (which they can), but that our society halt the sin -- the straying from God's protective embrace -- that draws purification to begin with.

[Resources: Sent To Earth]