Since 1994, when the entire world witnessed the planet Jupiter ravaged by an impact with the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, we worry that it could happen to us.  Every few years there is a new report of a threat of collision with an asteroid.  NASA call these NEO’s; short for ‘near earth objects’.  The ‘Near Earth Orbit Program’ tracks over 200 of these and ranks them on a ‘sentry risk table’.  The ‘Palermo’ scale rates them on expected cumulative and maximum hazard while the ‘Torino’ scale gives the potential between 0 and 10 for them to impact the earth in the next 100 years.  You will be happy to know that the values for the listed asteroids are all zero for now.  Asteroid 2012DA14 will pass about 35,800 kilometers away on February 15, 2013.  As a disclaimer, only a small percentage of earth crossing objects have been found and a new one can show up at any time.

Indeed, the Bible contains several accounts of stones or fire falling from the sky.  Every one knows the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, though that fire and brimstone may have had volcanic origins.  But look at Joshua 10: 11-14:  God destroyed the Amorites with stones from heaven and subsequently makes the sun appear stationary in the sky for a whole day.  The two events obviously joined by an astronomical event that most likely tilted the earth on it’s axis.  Like Alaska in summer, it left the midnight sun up long enough for Joshua to win his battle.  Ahab and Jezabel’s Baal priests and King Ahaziah’s soldiers had the unhappy experiance of watching Elija call God’s fire down from heaven.

In the very beginning of scripture, Genesis 1:2, the New American Standard Bible describes the earth as being ‘waste and emptiness’.  It is a picture of what the earth would look like after a major impact such as the one reported to have happened off the Yucatan Peninsula around 65 million years ago.  National Geographic has an excellent dvd documenting the catastrophe called “24 Hours After Asteroid Impact:”.  An asteroid larger than Mount Everest traveling at 40,000 mph hit the earth leaving the Chicxulub (prounounced: chick-shee-loob) crater, some 190 miles across.  It came in at a 30 degree angle, plowing deeply into the earth’s mantel, instantly vaporizing billions of gallons of sea water and blasting 100,000 cubic miles of earth into everything from dust and gas to chunks the size of buildings.  Super hot gases nearly the temperature of the sun and a supersonic blast wave killed every living thing for several hundred miles.  As the sea rushed back into the crater, it rose up again into a tidal wave several thousand feet high that deluged costal area.  The debris that went into low earth orbit began raining down as millions of new meteors that consequently started fires around the globe and super-heated the atmosphere to 1500 degrees.  Sulphur dioxide from the molten earth acidified fresh and sea water making it toxic to fish and animals.  As the dust, smoke and ash from the exploding meteor and burning vegetation filled the atmosphere, much of the sun’s light was obscured and brought the planet into a new ice age.  If all the combined nuclear weapons possessed by the Soviet Union and the United States were detonated simultaneously, the explosive power would still be 10,000 times smaller than the Chicxulub event.

Does the story of a mountain falling out of the sky into the ocean sound familiar?  It should.  The prophet John was not known as a man of science, or was there any historical evidence that he might have witnessed a meteor impact during his life time.  He penned these words by the Holy Spirit of a future cataclysm from his exile on Patmos some 90 years after the death and resurrection fo Jesus Christ:

Revelation 8: 6-12  ”And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them.  And the first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown down to the earth and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.  And the second angel sounded, and the sea became blood; and a third of the creatures, which were in the sea died; and a third of the ships were destroyed.  And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters;  and the name of the star is Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood; and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.  And the fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and third of the moon and a third of the stars were smitten, so that a third of them might be darkened and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way.”

The angels blow the trumpets, and a series of events take place ushering in the final seven year tribulation period.  The first four are so strikingly similar in description to the Chicxulub impact it is unmistakable.  But this time it is going to strike a planet full of humans instead of dinosaurs.

We need to realize that God’s methods of judgement do not change.  In Luke 17: 26-30, Jesus himself answers the question about when the Kingdom of God would come.  He said ‘as in the day of Noah, people were going about their business as usual until Noah entered the ark and the flood washed them away.  As in the day of Lot, they also went about their daily lives with no thought of impending doom.  As Lot walked out of the city, the fire came down and destroyed them all.’  He will once again use fire and flood to judge the unbelieving world in a swift and decisive blow that catches them off guard on the day he removes his people from the wrath.  Levitical law called for ‘stoning’ as the method of capital punishment.  It is poetic justice that God would cast a great stone from heaven to begin judgment.

The seventh trumpet sounds in Revelation 11: 15-19,  “The kingdom the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ…and the nations were enraged, and Thy wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to Thy bond-servants the prophets and to the saints and to those who fear Thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

It is logical to follow that the rapture of the church has taken place at the same time as the great meteor impact judgement has fallen on the earth.  Why?  Because God told us in His word His children would be spared from His wrath to come.  It would, by the nature of the global devastaion, hide any chance of an accountability of missing bodies and allow survivors left behind to believe a ‘great lie’ that something other than God caused the churches to vanish.  The ensuing economic and political chaos as surviving groups compete for remaining resources opens the door for the ani-christ to establish control.

The ‘History Channel’ has been airing a new program called ‘doomsday preppers’.  It is documenting measures some people are attempting to stay alive during which ever global threat they percieve will eventually come about.  The very best preparation you can make is to accept the payment for your sins that God furnished thorough His Son Jesus Christ.  Turn away from the sins He convicts you of and live for Him.  That way, you will not fear any future that comes.  Your future will be with Him! 

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Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens.

Genesis 19:24 

And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.

Joshua 10:11 

Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.

Psalms 11:6 

And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Ezekiel 38:22 

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

2 Peter 3:10-12