Our Bible Reading by H.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 28, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 17.

Our Bible Reading

By H.

Signs of His Coming—Aging Earth

1. Among the signs of the Saviour's second coming what did He include in His answer to the disciples' questions? "There shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places." Matt. 24: 7.

2. What are these calamities said to be? "These things are the beginning of travail." Mark 13: 8.

3. How did the prophets of old speak of the condition of the earth "in the last days"? Joel declared: "The heavens and the earth shall shake." Joel 3:16. Isaiah wrote: "I will make the heavens to tremble, and the earth shall be shaken out of its place, in the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger." Isa. 13:13.

4. To what is the shaken earth compared? "The earth shall stagger like a drunken man, and shall sway to and fro like a hammock." Isa. 24: 20.

5. What can be said of the fulfilment of this prophecy? Wide-spread famines are experienced in many different parts of the world in increasing numbers and extent. India suffers from almost constant scarcity of food; China yearly witnesses thousands of deaths by starvation; Africa has wide areas of land where for season after season little or nothing is harvested; Australia in many sections is driven to want by drought and heat—the earth refuses to bring forth the fruits of the ground. Worn out with sin, the earth itself suffers.

The earthquake records of the past show a wonderful and striking increase, both in power and frequency, of these seismic disturbances. Robert Mallett, an English seismologist, has compiled the following tables to show the increase of earthquakes:

	No.	No. of yrs.	Average
Those recorded before A.D. 1	58	1,700	1 in 29 years
Thence to the end of 9th century	197	900	1 in 4 "
" " " " 15th	532	600	1 in 1 year
" " " " 16th	2,804	300	9 in 1 "
" " " " 1860	3,240	50	64 in 1 "
" " " " 1868	5,000	18	277 in 1 "

Of destructive earthquakes, such as have overthrown cities and destroyed many lives, the number registered is about as follows:

	No.	No. of years	Average
From B.C. 1700 to A.D. 96	16	1,796	1 in 112 years
From A.D. 96 to 1850	204	1,754	1 in 8 "
From 1850 to 1865	15	15	1 in 1 year
From 1865 to 1868	15	3	5 in 1 "

From 1868 to 1888 there were seventeen severe earthquakes, each of which destroyed from one hundred to fifty thousand lives. This is one destructive earthquake a year, practically, not to mention hundreds of less violence. There was an increase of one hundred per cent in the earthquakes of the nineteenth century over those of the eighteenth century. Thus far in the present century earthquakes have been almost weekly in occurrence. In four years there have been the following of unusual severity and destructive power: Calabria, San Francisco, Turkestan, Valparaiso, Mexico, Kingston, Messina, and Teheran, Persia, not to mention a number of great severity in different parts of the ocean.

6. All of these figures and facts illustrate the words of David concerning the heavens and the earth. "All of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them." Ps. 102: 26.

7. And all these scriptures look forward to one event, the coming of our Lord. "These things are the beginning of travail." "The earth shall be shaken out of its place . . . in the day of His fierce anger." "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. . . . They shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." See Mark 13: 8; Isa. 13:13; Matt. 24: 30. H.