COINCIDENCE by Doris E. Howie In the light of new discoveries, scientists conclude that we live in an imploding universe, not the expanding system of worlds previously theorized. We watch meteor showers hit Saturn, demolishing huge chunks of that planet's surface that would equate to the instantaneous destruction of half of North America. The Toronto Star prints - in a shaded box, no less - a report that a vast shower of meteors has been sighted heading for our planet. (Naturally astrologers are reported to have said that this meteor shower may hit the earth a thousand years from now - no sense panicking the public, now, is there? It's bad for business! - yet, what a 'coincidence'(?!) that Christ should have predicted "signs in the heavens" would forewarn the impending end of the age!!) We read Isaac Assimov's predictions of Worlds in Collision, or John Wesley White's Thinking the Unthinkable - Armageddon: Are All the Pieces in Place? Books from the 1960's (The Late Great Planet Earth) to the present (Apocalypse Now - The Coming Judgment of the Nations); (The End of the Age, by Pat Robertson) warn that there is an awesome conjunction of circumstances now affecting our planet. Dare we call it coincidence that these circumstances were predicted thousands of years ago in the Bible? Are these not the signs in the heavens spoken of by Christ? What closer sign do we dare await before turning repentant and fearful eyes to God? Christ said the end times would come "in the twinkling of an eye" - and now our technology includes the paralyzing billionth-of-a-second ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) capability of incapacitating weaponry and communications systems alike on a target continent. Malachi foretold the day ". . . that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts . . ." (Malachi 4:1) - and how better could YOU describe a nuclear holocaust? Yet God promised through Malachi (4:3) that He would preserve those who fear His name, "and ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet" - nuclear ash? Ecologists and environmentalists warn of global warming, of depletion of the ozone layer, of acid rain, of a host of other fearful threats to our continued existence. Our media bombards us with horrendous stories of wars. One source contends there have been 500 wars in the past 50 years! Billy Graham - respected evangelical spokesman of our Lord and Saviour - reports over 50 ethnic wars are going on even today. And famines! Have any of us been blind to the piteous pictures of starving children gazing from our magazines for decades, and now filling our nightly news? If we have seen their need, how can we justify our continuing blas‚ attitude to their plight? Jesus said, "Not all those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, but those who do the will of my Father Who is in Heaven." Do we honestly think His will includes standing by while others perish? Or do we think our saintliness is proven by our being seen in a church every week! Is their need an opportunity for our Christian aid, or our viewing pleasure ? What about the homeless? In Brazil alone, for every Canadian there is a homeless child living on the streets! Scores of these little ones are killed - for sport? for bounty? - even as they sleep. Why? Because they represent a threat to the local economy, because they steal to live. We watch political events unfolding like the Prime Time War against Saddam Hussein, which - coincidentally? - occurred in Iraq and Kuwait - Biblical Persia and Babylon - and threatens to erupt anew at any time. For that matter, the tenuous striving for a mid-East peace between the Israeli nation and Palestine was predicted; the Bible says, "Peace, peace, but there is no peace!" (Jer. 8:11) Biblically predicted too is the ongoing alignment of all Europe into a ten-country economic alliance - the ten toes on the feet of Daniel's prophetic vision, some would say. We watch as systems of government as diverse as Russia's communist hierarchy and Britain's monarchy crumble - and in Canada, we wonder how long our own vaunted political integrity will last before Quebec, Newfoundland, or the Western province opt for official independence. "All systems of government shall fail . . ." We watch the moral dissolution of our society - the proliferation of violence and crime, the unconscionable self-gratification of rampant materialism. "Lovers of self, seekers after pleasure . . ." We watch the impotent apathy that seems to grip our churches as major Christian denominations consider ways of adjusting God's Word to man's world, instead of the other way around. "Times have changed," they say, "and we must change with them." What rubbish! Do we not worship a timeless and unchanging God Who "is ... the same today as yesterday"? And despite all these warnings that the Day of Judgment is drawing near, we scoff: Isn't it, after all, mere coincidence that these events were predicted in the Bible? Yes - the same kind of coincidence that fulfilled 300 major Biblical prophecies at Christ s birth! "Ye hypocrites, ye know the weather, but ye know not the signs of the times"! "Repent, and turn ye, and be saved"!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1994, 1996 by Doris E. Howie E-mail dhowie@wcl.on.ca URL: http://www.wcl.on.ca/~dhowie