Has the weather gone haywire?

There is tremendous flooding throughout the American mid-west. Thousands of people have been evacuated in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma as the Missouri River crests. This flood is being compared with the Flood of 1993, which caused over $20 billion in damages. Unchanging weather patterns suggest more soaking rains will be in store for this region of the country (Denver Post, May 8, 2007).

As the Great Plains flood, fierce wildfires are roasting Southern California, Georgia, Florida, the Minnesota/Canadian border, and recently in New Jersey. In Florida alone there are over 200 separate wildfires burning, including a blaze in north Florida/south Georgia which has already burned over 250,000 acres, at the cost of $2.5 million, just to fight the fire.

The weather pattern that is dumping rain in the Midwest is also depriving the California coast, Florida, and southern Georgia of much needed rain. Weather scientists forecast that this weather pattern will remain in place for much of the summer (Florida Department of Forestry, May 17, 2007). The interesting thing is that the fire season has not officially begun yet.

The situations just mentioned only relate to the United States. Weather across the globe appears to be consistently severe and unusual. So what is happening with the weather? Is this an anomaly, a fluke, or is there a reason behind it all?

As our regular readers know, the people of the US, along with a number of other nations, are descended from sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob, or Israel (see our free booklet The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy). God prophesied to the ancient Israelites, and their modern descendents, "If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit" (Leviticus 26:3-4). Later, God warned that if Israel would not obey Him, "…I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze… your land shall not yield its produce…" (vv: 14, 19, 20).

Both droughts and floods act to prevent the land from yielding its produce. The prophet Amos prophesied, "I also withheld rain from you, when there were still three months to harvest, I made it rain on one city, I withheld rain from another city" (Amos 4:7). Jeremiah prophesied of a time when the ground would be parched because of no rain, due to the sins of Israel (Jeremiah 14, 1-8).

God is allowing extreme weather conditions to occur in order to get the attention of people that He cares about – you and me! He wants His people to repent of their sinful ways and obey Him once more.

The exciting thing is that Christ will soon return to the earth and establish His kingdom: "Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the harvest of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land in peace and safety" (Leviticus 26:5). At that time, God will again restore truth to the earth and its peoples will obey – true prosperity will encompass the earth and there will be no more starvation: "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose" (Isaiah 35:1).

The extreme weather of today is not chance or happenstance, it is occurring for reasons. If our nation will repent of its self-centered ways and return to God, He promises to bless us. Ultimately, this and other nations will repent, and Christ will return to establish His Kingdom on earth – it will be a time of unprecedented peace and bounty!

For more information on the climactic weather events now occurring, please see our booklet Who Controls the Weather?