Turning Point

David Michael Jeremiah: Jesus said the end times will bring more disasters like famine, plagues, and earthquakes. When the ground is crumbling, can your faith remain unshaken? Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah returns to Matthew 24 to shed light on this prophecy as well as God's promise of protection. Listen now as David introduces today's powerful message, "In a World of Disasters, Be Confident."

Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, the other day I woke up to the news that an airliner had run into a fire truck in a US airport and the two pilots were killed and people injured. When you see the picture of it, you wonder how anybody ever got out of there with their lives. A disaster of disasters. If you're not careful, you can sit on the edge of your chair and not get any sleep at night just worrying about disasters.

Today we're going to talk about how to have confidence in a world of disasters. Matthew chapter 24 and verse 7 tells us that Jesus reported that in the end times, there will be wars and rumors of wars and there will also be times of disaster. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places, according to Matthew 24:7.

Have you ever wanted to ask yourself, what do you do about that? Well, I can't give you final answers about all of the details of disasters, but I can sure tell you what the Bible says we're to do in the middle of it. Because you see, this series is called *The World of the End: How Jesus' Prophecy Shapes Our Priorities*. We learn from what Jesus said is going to happen in the future and it helps us learn how to live today.

We'll get started with that in just a moment, but first, don't forget to get your copy of the book *The World of the End*. This is the resource for the month of April. It's 241 pages, a hardcover book, and you will discover how to navigate the world of the end. You'll study what Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 24 and receive practical biblical instruction about living for Christ in today's world. This book can be a valuable asset to you and it will add value to your life as a believer. It's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point. I hope you'll get your copy, and in the meantime, as you get your copy, help us do what we're doing to spread the word of God around the world. Your gift is used exclusively for airtime and production so that radio can go everywhere and we have the resources to do it.

Well, here's part one of "In a World of Disasters, Be Confident."

I don't know if you've ever wanted to visit a distant planet or to feel like you've been on one. Well, if you'd like to do that, take a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. The terrain is otherworldly and at times you feel like you're on the set of a science fiction movie. It pays to remember when you go to Yellowstone that you're walking on top of an active supervolcano. In 2021, 2,773 earthquakes were recorded in the Yellowstone area.

Reporter Brad Plumer of the New York Times explains, "Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is a reservoir of hot magma five miles deep, fed by a gigantic plume of molten rock welling up from hundreds of miles below." What would happen if the volcano blew? Plumer wrote that a major eruption would spew ash for thousands of miles and it would make Mount St. Helens look like a hiccup.

Natural disasters are part of our world today. But the Bible says they will be a part of the Great Tribulation and of the days that come before and after the Rapture of Jesus Christ. They aren't waiting until the end of history; we're seeing some of them even today. According to our Lord's message on Mount Olivet, these elements—earthquakes, famines, plagues, disasters—will continue to increase in intensity and frequency as we get closer to the day of our Lord's return.

So that brings us to our Lord's next prediction in Matthew 24. We've already heard that there's going to be deception. "See that you be not deceived," Jesus said. And there's going to be wars and rumors of wars. But then Jesus says this: "There will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places." What does that mean for the future and what does that mean to us now? In other words, the world of the end will increasingly be filled with devastation and disaster and all the things that go with that.

Let's begin with this clear understanding that global disasters are unavoidable. Nobody knows anything they can ever do to stop them. You say, "Well, there've always been national disasters, Pastor, so what's the big deal?" Every century has had famines. Every century has had pestilences and earthquakes.

But the answer lies in the birth pains principle that we earlier learned. The Bible says that the world of the end will be like a woman in travail for the birth of the baby, and that the pains will be more frequent and more intense. The Bible tells us that these things that Jesus is talking about, which have always been somewhat a part of our culture, will become more frequent and more intense as we move toward the coming of the Lord. That's what you have to remember: it's the birth pain principle.

The first thing that He says is going to happen is there will be famines. Standing on the Mount of Olives, Jesus used a frightening word, a word which to His disciples recalled a host of Old Testament stories. He said there will be famines. That wasn't a strange thing to the people Jesus was talking to, those four disciples.

Peter, James, John, and Andrew, they listened to the Lord speak and they probably thought about the famine that sent the Israelites to Egypt at the end of Genesis, or the famine that drove Naomi and her family to Moab in the book of Ruth. They might have thought of the famine triggered by Elijah's day when God withheld rain from Israel for three and a half years.

But notice what Jesus said in Matthew: "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and pestilences." That reminds us of the judgments of Revelation chapter 6. You should read them sometimes because they parallel almost exactly what Jesus said. They go in exactly the same order. It's uncanny when you see it.

So today's organizations like the Global Hunger Index, which is compiled and published in humanitarian organizations, actually use the language of Revelation chapter 6 in one of their writings. I thought this was amazing. Once in a while, the Bible breaks through in unlikely places. And in an online report called "Armed Conflict and the Challenge of Hunger," the index reported war and famine: "the two fearsome horsemen have long ridden side by side," right out of the book of Revelation.

Armed conflict disrupts food systems. So you can see how when there's wars and rumors of wars, one of the results of that will be the disruption of food distribution. And then all of a sudden when people can't get food and nutrition goes away, then you have sickness, pestilence.

The writer of the report made the observation that hunger is somehow different from other human stresses. Food and famine strike a deep emotive chord, even among people who have never personally faced starvation. Around the world, people believe that a government that cannot feed its people has forfeited its legitimacy. So everywhere you look around the world today, there are places where people can't eat. You don't respect those leadership constructs.

Hunger lurks near to the surface in America. One organization found that nearly 1.5 million New York City residents face food insecurity, including one in four children. And according to this report, 14% of America's military families are food insecure. The Bible says more frequent, more intense as we get to the time of the Lord's return.

And then the Bible talks about plagues. And once again, has there ever been a time when this is more appropriate for us to talk about? "And there will be pestilences." And the word there is the word *loimos*. It's a term that describes maladies of seasonal sicknesses. Rather, the pestilences Jesus predicted are huge in scale and impact, and they will sweep over large regions of the world and be difficult to control.

The Bible says there's a strong connection between famine and pestilence. If you go through the Scripture, you will see those two things connected more than once. For instance, in describing the curses that would befall the nation of Israel if they rejected God, Moses wrote: "They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured by pestilence."

Threatened by enemies, King Jehoshaphat of Judah declared his faith in God by saying, "If disaster comes upon us, sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this temple and in Your presence, for Your name is in this temple, and we will cry out to You in our affliction and You will hear us and save us."

So this isn't a random connection. War results in food shortage. And wherever food is scarce, people get nutritionally deprived. So public health suffers, which creates an environment for disease to flourish. The 20th century has had its share of these issues, beginning with the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed more than 40 million people around the world. Then the Asian flu and the Hong Kong flu both resulted in more than a million deaths in the '50s and '60s. Then HIV/AIDS epidemic has brought an additional 35 million deaths and is still raging. In the 21st century, we have already seen swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19.

So what does that mean? If I had been Jesus, I might have thought advancing medical progress would eradicate disease, given enough time in history, given all the intellectual wisdom that everybody has. But Jesus knew differently, and in a world of increasing medical miracles, disease has not been eliminated or eradicated. Instead, sickness is more prevalent than ever and the trend lines are not encouraging. We are making progress against some diseases, but as soon as we fix one, another comes that we hadn't expected and so it seems like we're always chasing a disease that's frightening to us all.

And then the Bible says as you get toward the end, there will be increasing in intensity in famine, increasing intensity in disease. And then what about earthquakes? I've got to tell you a little earthquake story. When I was a pastor in Fort Wayne back in the days before we came here, and we found out that this church wanted us to come to California, my wife and I struggled deeply with this because we had started that church. And everything in that church we'd been a part of.

We thought we'd be there for our lives, but God had different plans. Among the discussions were some of the things about California. I'll be honest and I have to tell you this, we talked a little bit about how crazy everybody was out here. Now we're a part of it, so we can't talk about that anymore.

The other thing we talked about often was, we had tornadoes in Indiana, but in California, they had earthquakes. Earthquakes are kind of scary. I remember one time particularly as we were getting close to the decision whether to come here or not. We were sitting in our little house not too far from the church we had started.

We were upstairs, Donna and I were in the little study I had built, which was in the room over the garage. And we were talking about whether we should come here or not. And then all of a sudden I said, "What in the world are those kids doing downstairs?"

And then it suddenly dawned on us that our kids weren't downstairs. And the next day on the front page of the Fort Wayne newspaper was the announcement that we had had an earthquake in Fort Wayne. It became apparent to us that God can send earthquakes anyplace He wants. And it also was a reminder to me that it took me an earthquake to get to California.

Earthquakes are a part of the future, they're a part of the present, but there's some interesting things about earthquakes that we should talk about while we're looking at this passage of Scripture. When God created the world, He designed it with a molten core of boiling magma covered by a mantle nearly 2,000 miles deep. On top of that, our surface lands and seas rest on tectonic plates, and as you know, sometimes those plates shift.

According to Revelation 16:18, when the angel pours out the final bowl of wrath on this world, there will be a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. The ultimate end of what happens here as we know it today will be a magnificent earthquake.

Isaiah 2:19 says, "They shall go into the holes of the rocks and the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily." I get this picture in my mind: God has been so patient with us. He's done everything He can do to try to get us right and He's going to just grab hold of us and shake us. "I'm done with you." And you can understand His frustration with our unwillingness to do what He asks us to do.

When Jesus died on Calvary, do you remember what happened? The ground of Jerusalem quaked. Not anything like what it's going to quake when He comes back the second time, but the ground shook. In special times throughout history, there have been earthquakes that have accentuated what was happening.

In the Old Testament, earthquakes are associated with God's power and His judgment. And when the Lord descended to Mount Sinai prior to getting the law, do you remember what happened? Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly.

And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him by voice. Go through the Scripture. When you see an earthquake, something important is going on. It's kind of like, "Okay, pay attention to this." Jesus on the cross, Moses getting the law, and there are others.

And when the Lord appeared to Elijah on the mountain centuries later, there was an earthquake and a still small voice. You know the stories. Psalm 18:7 says, "Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the hills quaked and were shaken because God was angry."

Now listen to me carefully. Winds come and go at random, and waves come and go at random. Much of the natural world is flexible and transitory. But the earth is not. Earthquakes are a specific sign of God's power and the Creator's control over creation. What is more grounded than the ground?

And that sign will increase as we move toward the end of history. I don't understand it, I can't explain it. For several years now, scientists have been warning about the possibility of super-quakes. I must tell you, every once in a while I feel something at home or I hear something shake a little bit, or I wake up in the middle of the night and think, "Hmm." And you do it too. I wonder if this is it. I wonder if this is the beginning of it. Is this an earthquake?

Now I have got you sufficiently scared so you will listen to the rest of what I'm going to say. All right. What you need to understand is that global disasters are unavoidable. You can't stop them. You can't stop famine. I mean individually you can do some things to help, and we'll talk about that.

But here again, I want to insert this thought: it is not about us trying to fix the circumstance. It's about the circumstance fixing us, making us better people. If we're not careful, all of this will make us shake.

But the way to combat the fear of natural disaster is by supernatural discipleship, which allows the Holy Spirit to flood your life and my life with encouragement and confidence and hope. And if you'll listen carefully during these next few moments, I want to tell you some of the things that can happen to us during the days that we're living in that are not things we should turn our head away from, but we should concentrate on.

First of all, we should be reminded of the confidence God gives us in His protection. From Genesis to Revelation, God is revealed as someone who watches over His people, keeping them safe in the midst of danger. Throughout the Bible, He's described in these following terms: He's our shield, He's our fortress, He's our hiding place, He's our keeper, He's our refuge, He's our rock, He's our shade, He's our shelter, and He's our stronghold. Those are pretty good words if you're looking for hope in the midst of uncertainty.

The Lord told Abraham, "Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you and your reward will be great." The psalmist added these words: "The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?" And Zechariah wrote, "The Lord of Heaven's Armies will protect His people."

Over a hundred years ago, Anna K. Scott was on a primitive mission field when an earthquake occurred. She told about it in her autobiography she wrote. It was January 10, 1869, and we experienced a very severe shock of earthquake. I had just closed my Bible class of young men and was sitting quietly reading letters from the dear home people when I heard the rumbling as of a distant freight train.

Soon the house began to rock and the frail bamboo walls began to bend and then there was crash after crash as cupboards and wardrobes and mirrors were thrown down. She said she rushed from the house to find the villagers standing paralyzed with fear. They were shaking uncontrollably and begging their Hindu gods to shush the elephant.

They believed that the earth stood on the back of an elephant and an earthquake was caused by the shaking of the elephant. It was so intense that everyone fell to the ground and Anna recalled the clock stopped and the river set upstream for a half an hour or more, and the earth opened in huge cracks and the yard where they all sat rose in apparent wavelets.

She and the other believers immediately pulled out their Bibles and they began reading from Psalm 90: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

The earth doesn't rest on an elephant's back but in the omnipotent hands of Almighty God, who tells us in His book: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

When these things happen, they point us back to the stability of Almighty God. When we realize the eternal God is our dwelling place and we're surrounded by His very real, His very powerful, His very comforting presence, we are encouraged and our hearts are full of hope. Psalm 46:2 says, "Even though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, God is still there."

So we should be confident in the Lord's protection. We pray for that a lot, don't we? We pray all the time. And you say, "Well, what about this?" I can't answer all the exceptions. I can just tell you what I know, that the more I pray for the God that I love to protect me, the more I feel protected. And that's one of the things we do during times like these. We pray for the strength and protection of God to surround us with His presence, confident in God's protection.

And then we can be confident in God's pardon. Here's an interesting sidelight to this story. I want to read to you from Joel chapter 2: "Now therefore, says the Lord, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. Who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him?"

Remember, this is the story of repentance. It's the story of the Philippian jailer. There was an earthquake that brought him to Christ, remember that? In great fear he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" What was that? It was a result of the earthquake.

Something happens to us when we live through these events. God works in the lives of people in different ways and oftentimes through tragedies, through things we don't expect, people are drawn to the Lord. When something happens that we are out of control and it comes from nowhere and we aren't expecting it, what do we do?

We automatically look to the one thing that at least in our hearts seems to be stable. We look to God. We don't use God when we don't need Him sometimes, and if there's nothing going on like that we put God on hold, we give Him time out.

But when things happen like floods and earthquakes and famine, we just automatically turn our hearts toward God. People who've gotten saved as the result of things that have taken place over which they had no control. God often uses these things to bring us to repentance and to remind us we aren't the ultimate answer. There is an answer beyond us and that answer is God.

And the most recent illustration of that, of course, was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, everyone reported across the United States that the Sundays after that event, church attendance went up, Bible sales ballooned. People turned to God because of the disaster. A terrible thing, an awful moment, an embarrassing moment for our nation that such a thing could happen here, and the obliteration of a very fine man.

Unfortunately, these mini-revivals don't usually last for very long, but they do remind us that God uses difficult things. If you came to Shadow Mountain Church and heard the testimonies from our baptistry, you would know what I'm talking about. Just about everybody who gets baptized tells the story of their faith and it often is a story of some tragedy or difficulty they went through and met God. We'll have more about this tomorrow. I hope you'll join us then as we continue our discussion of the world of the end. I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening.

David Michael Jeremiah: For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, *The World of the End*, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, *Turning Point*, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio.

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Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, *The World of the End*, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.