Luke 21:10-11 10Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues, and terrors and great signs from heaven.
Verse 10 repeats the idea from verse 9.. The world is full of fighting. Humanity cannot seem to get along. The inbred selfish and sinful nature tries to grab and control. Many battles are fought over limited goods, such as land or natural products. Other wars are fought over ideology. As time marches on, people have hoped that humanity would mature. World War I was called “the war to end all wars.” But that claim did not even last a generation with a soon second war that consumed the world. Millions of people lost their lives in those wars. As populations and technology increase, so do sophisticated weapons and ways to destroy one another. Jesus tells his followers not to be frightened by these things because their home is not earth but his kingdom of heaven.
Nature itself will turn against humanity with famines and earthquakes, which often happened in ancient Israel. A great famine affected the early church as mentioned in Acts 11:28. The war of Jerusalem left many people hungry. Like war, there have always been hungry people and movements of the earth’s crust. With the rise in population (now at over eight billion), famines and earthquakes affect more people. Populated cities take away farmland and water for growing crops. Jesus warned his disciples that these events would only be the beginning. When we see these things, we should take note and be prepared but also not live in fear.
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