Prophecy 1. Earthquakes

“There will be great earthquakes.”​—LUKE 21:11.

● Winnie, 16 months old, is pulled from the rubble in Haiti. A TV crew reporting on the disaster had heard her faint moans. She survives the earthquake, but her parents do not.

WHAT DO THE FACTS SHOW? When a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, more than 300,000 people were killed. An additional 1.3 million were rendered homeless in an instant. Although extreme, the quake in Haiti was not an isolated event. At least 18 major earthquakes occurred earth wide between April 2009 and April 2010.

WHAT IS A COMMON OBJECTION? We are not experiencing more earthquakes; because of modern technology, we are just more aware of them than people were in the past.

IS THAT OBJECTION VALID? Consider this fact: The Bible does not emphasize the number of earthquakes during the last days. However, it does say that “great earthquakes” will occur “in one place after another,” making them one of the notable features of this momentous period of history.​—Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Are we seeing great earthquakes, just as the Bible foretold?

Earthquakes alone may not seem to be conclusive evidence that we are living in the last days. Yet, they are only one prophecy that is being fulfilled. Consider a second.

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“We [geophysicists] call them great earthquakes. Everybody else calls them horrible.”​—KEN HUDNUT, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

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© William Daniels/​Panos Pictures