Rumble - Strips and Birth - Pangs

Last month, Becky and I drove over to the east-side by way of the inner-belt. As most of us will recall, there is a dangerous turn there named "dead-man's curve" for the number of lives it has claimed. For the safety of travelers, the ODE began 900 yards in advance of the up-coming danger and installed a series of "rumble-strips" to alert distracted drivers. There are 10 of these in all, and as you get nearer to the curve itself, they are spaced closer together so as to indicate that their meaning must not be ignored!  As we drove over these loud and obvious warnings, I thought how much they reminded me of the signs and signals of these endtimes we live. Consider these facts about global population, global violence and global weather...

When Israel became a nation (1948), the world's population was 2.5B, In 2010 the world's population will be 7.5B!! This is a 300% increase in just 60 years! Many experts point to this spike in population growth as the #1 or #2 reason for the world
food shortages we are seeing now across the globe.

It is estimated by experts that the number of people killed in all the wars fought from the time of Christ until 1939 totals 50 million. In just 70 years since that time, 115 million have died in armed conflicts, either in wars between nations or civil wars within nations. This has been a century of unparalleled carnage. Within the United States,
violent crime has increased 500% since 1960.

During the same period, the country's population increased only 41%

http://www.lamblion.com/articles/articles_signs4.php

You may remember this from last week's insert...
"Natural disasters have quadrupled over the last two decades, from an average of 120 a year in the early 1980s to as many as 500 today,
says international agency Oxfam..."

http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/2007/pr071125_climate_change_hits_poor_hardest

Space does not allow us to discuss other realities such as world famine, immorality and the awesome increase of knowledge (Daniel 12:4) whose growth has spiked suddenly and dramatically in just the past 20 years. The point is twofold...
Firstly, that all these are signs of the end-times spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, and, secondly, that they are increasing exponentially, not arithmetically over the last few short years!

Just like rumble-strips, all these signs have been installed by God to alert distracted travelers on the road of life that deadly danger is just up ahead! As we get nearer to the tribulation itself, these loud and obvious warnings are being spaced closer together so as to indicate that their meaning must not be ignored! You know what else is a lot like rumble-strips...? Birth-pangs! The faster they come, the closer is the time! No wonder Jesus said...

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs." -Mt. 24: 7, 8 / (NASB)