10 Global Crises: could this really be the End Times?

I’ve been one of those Christians who have hesitated to jump on the “End Times Bandwagon” until recently. I got convicted by God to be like the people of Issachar who, “understood the times and knew what the people of God should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).

This recent report is what tipped the scales of my former doubt about being in the End Times: “The world’s animal population has halved in 40 years as humans put unsustainable demands on Earth, a new report warns. The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Index, released Tuesday, revealed the dramatic decline in animal species, and said the trend could cost the world billions in economic losses. Humans need one and a half Earths to sustain their current demands, it said.” (CNN reports 9-30-14.)

With climate change affecting the poorest people in coastal areas around the globe, with flooding, etc., and at the opposite extreme, severe droughts are being experienced in heavily populated areas, life California and Texas, ISIS beheading innocent people for some whacked-out ideology which thinks it’s doing God’s will, and Ebola breakouts, the news these days just keeps getting worse.

The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer has never been so true! “The top 1% control 46% of the world’s assets — and 86% of global wealth is owned by the richest 10%. Yet two-thirds of the world’s adults have wealth of less than $10,000.” These numbers, compiled by Swiss bank Credit Suisse in its latest World Wealth Report, underscores that income inequality has become an international crisis.

Now that marijuana has been legalized in California, many are calling it “The Green Rush,” (in reference to the Gold Rush), and many are coming from around the globe to set up huge green houses, deforesting 100-year old Redwood trees, and growing pot to sell.

The sex slave trade is alive and well on planet earth today, too, perhaps fueled by a humongous internet porn proliferation that feeds hedonistic sexual behavior. The International Labor Organization put the global number of slaves at between 10-30 million worldwide. At a minimum, 10 million. The United Nations estimates the total market value of human trafficking at $32 billion U.S. dollars. In Europe, criminals are pocketing around $2.5 billion per year through sexual exploitation and forced labor.

There is also a new social revolution going on today, where traditional marriage is being re-defined, gender is being re-defined, and it’s difficult to know how to navigate these changes culturally, as this has never happened before in mankind’s history.

Changes in biotechnology bring some wonderful advancements for sure, but there is always the potential for damage, like artificial intelligence, which could be a very disturbing creation with far-stretching consequences we can’t even imagine!

Lastly, the idea of relativism, where today’s society concludes that all truth is relative, and each person has the right to decide what is true for them, obliterates objective morality and absolute truth that God has ordained in the Bible. This leaves us open to whoever has control to be the one who makes up the rules of morality.

Listing today’s global problems, it’s easy to see that humanity is facing a ginormous crisis (not listed in any particular order):

1. 40% of the earth’s wildlife population has been decimated in the past 40 years.
2. Climate change is causing extreme weather variations, from huge flooding along poor coastal areas, to severe droughts in heavily populated areas.
3. ISIS is bent on murdering innocent people who don’t convert to their ideology, and has grandiose plans to takeover, at whatever cost!
4. Diseases, like Ebola, could have a devastating affect if loosed.
5. Income inequality is at an all-time historical record, forming a behind-the-scenes oligarchy made up of people who have made money their god.
6. Legalized marijuana is turning out to be a nightmare for Northern California’s environmental crisis, and may lead to other troubling spots around the world who follow this trend.
7. Sex-slave trade outnumbers all former slave times historically.
8. Social revolution re-defining marriage and gender.
9. Biotechnological advancement creating artificial intelligence, which could spell disaster for mankind.
10. Relativism – truth is no longer absolute, being defined individually as more “tolerant.”

These things are bringing me to my knees more than ever before, as I need to keep the oil full in my spiritual life, so that I can be led by the Spirit of God who promises never to leave or forsake me. I need His wisdom in order to discern and navigate these times in which we live. I pray you do the same.

“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” (Luke 17:28-30.)