Final War

What will the last Great War before Christ's return bring? According to Jesus Christ's revelation to John (Revelation 9:13-18), well over a billion people will be slaughtered. With the development in recent decades of terrifying arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, such staggering casualties are now a sobering possibility. You may remember the headlines of the 1960s and 1970s, when drought and exploding populations led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands in India and Africa. Later we learned that millions had died in China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia and Ethiopia during war's aftermath and communist takeovers in those countries. Famine doesn't have to be caused strictly by natural conditions; human beings have been shown to be capable of producing their own famines through ill-founded ideologies, policies and practices. Famine is also a natural consequence of disrupted economies, transportation and normal agricultural cycles during times of war. Widespread famines have taken hundreds of thousands of lives in African countries in recent years. It appears to be only a matter of time before a surging world population produces another round of drastic food shortages. In the last century alone the world population quadrupled to more than 6 billion. Some 80 million new people are being added every year, with another billion people expected to be added every decade. If the rate of growth continues, the global population will double again in 50 years. What troubles many world leaders and organizations is that most of this growth will occur in countries least able to provide food, shelter and clothing for a flood of new arrivals. With so many new mouths to feed, starvation—and accompanying social disruption—will inevitably spread. The situation is so tenuous that weather disruptions in food-producing areas could bring immediate food shortages. An often-overlooked factor in weather patterns is the relationship between people and God. We have lost sight of the fact that God sometimes intervenes in the weather to bless or curse peoples according to their attitudes and behavior. King Solomon understood this when he prayed: "When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because the people have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance" (1 Kings 8:35-36). As people's behavior continues to degenerate as the time of the end approaches, other prophecies indicate that drastic changes in weather patterns—and resulting famines—are a tool God will use to get the attention of an increasingly rebellious humanity.