Although The Disciples Themselves Didn't Try To ...

Although the Disciples themselves didn’t try to guess when Jesus would return they all expected him to return during their lifetime. At the turn of the first Millenium so many people were predicting that Christ would return that many farmers didn’t even plant their crops. In the 1500’s Martin Luther believed that Christ would return and usher in His Kingdom during his lifetime. Luther wrote, "We have reached the time of the white horse of the Apocalypse. This world won’t last any longer.”

In 1800 a man named William Miller predicted that Christ would return on or around April 3, 1843. All over the Northeast, half a million of his followers awaited the end of the world. Reportedly some of them made their way to the top of mountains, hoping for a head start to heaven. Others were in graveyards, planning to ascend into heavens with their departed loved ones. But of course it didn’t happen.

More recently a retired NASA engineer by the name of Edgar Whisenant sold 4.3 million copies of a book that went into great detail outlining his reasons for believing that Christ would return in 1988. I remember reading the book, and I admit it was interesting reading. From what I remember He had come up with a elaborate mathematical equation for calculating the 2nd coming. Of course 1988 came and went and Jesus didn’t return. Whisenant didn’t give up though. He went back to the drawing board so to speak and then predicted that he had just made a mistake in his calculations and that the Lord would return in 1989. Of course he was just as wrong the second time as he was the first.

On December 26, 2004, while most of us were still celebrating the Christmas holiday the most powerful earthquake in over 40 years took place in the Indian Ocean. It was centered about 100 miles from the coast of Indonesia. The massive earthquake, which registered 9.0 on the Richter scale, sent deadly Tsunami’s crashing into countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya, Malaysia, Somalia, and Tanzania. These Tsunami’s killed over 170,000 people in Asia and Africa.

In his book, “Apocolyptic code,” Christian author Hal Lindsey says, “Earthquakes have increased in frequency and destructiveness during the 20th Century. Between 1890 and 1950 there were an average of 2 to 4 devastating earthquakes every year in the world. In the Decade of the 50’s there were 9. During the 60’s there were 13; during the 70’s there were 51; during the 80’s there were 86, and from 1990 – 1996 there were more than 150 damaging earthquakes recorded.”

According to the National Earthquake information center in Golden, Colorado, 178 earthquakes have taken place around the world during the last 7 days. One seismologist at the Scripps Research Center in La Jolla, California, recently said, “It is almost as though the earth’s plates are gyrating in anticipation of the world’s greatest earthquake.”

In the Book of Revelation the Apostle John prophesied that the worst earthquakes to ever be recorded will occur during the Tribulation period.