The greatest famine in history is just a few short years ahead.
It is absolutely certain to reach into YOUR home — unless you understand and heed!
MASSIVE FAMINES in the remaining years of this century are inevitable! Nothing can be done to stop them. This very next decade of the seventies is a crucial time.
Most scientists warn that worldwide famines lie ahead. "It's too late to stop a famine in this century," said Dr. John Rock of Harvard. "It has already started. Despite all the advances in agriculture and the increases in national output, the population has increased faster than the food supply."
But how does this fact affect you? How many in overfed America and the English-speaking nations really comprehend what this bleak outlook for the future portends for them?
The prophecies of your Bible speak in great detail about this dire world threat!
Joel's Fearful Prophecy
The Prophet Joel was inspired to write: "Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come" (Joel 1:15).
This "Day of the Lord" refers to God's intervention in mankind's affairs —His return to restore peace and order to a world full of sick societies. Joel's first chapter describes some of the events which will lead up to the grand climax of the Day of the Lord as described in Chapter 2. Here in the modern language of the Living Prophecies translation is what chapter 1 says:
"Listen, you aged men of Israel [the leaders of modern-day Great Britain and the United States of America)! Everyone, listen! In all your lifetime, yes, in all your history, have you ever heard of such a thing as I am going to tell you? In years to come, tell your children about it; pass the awful story down from generation to generation" (verses 2-3).
Yes, an event utterly unprecedented in history is about to be described! Here is what that event is:
"For after the cutter-locusts finish eating your crops, the swarmer-locusts will take what's left! After them will come the hopper-locusts! And then the stripper-locusts, too! . . . A vast army of locusts covers the land. It is a terrible army too numerous to count, with teeth as sharp as those of lions! They have ruined My vines and stripped the bark from the fig trees, leaving trunks and branches white and bare" (verses 4-7).
As man uses stronger and stronger insecticides, the insect pests adapt and become ever more difficult to kill. At least in part, God will probably use this very condition to bring famine upon us.
The prophecy continues: "The fields are bare of crops. Sorrow and sadness are everywhere. The grain, the grapes, the olive oil are gone. Well may you farmers stand so shocked and stricken; well may you vinedressers weep. Weep for the wheat and the barley too, for they are gone. The grapevines are dead; the fig trees are dying; the pomegranates wither; the apples shrivel on the trees; all joy has withered with them. Our food will disappear before our eyes . . . the seed rots in the ground; the barns and granaries are empty, the grain has dried up in the fields (verses 10-17).
Notice it! Our vaunted grain surpluses will be GONE!
"The cattle groan with hunger; the herds stand perplexed for there is no pasture for them; the sheep bleat in misery. Lord help us! For the heat has withered the pastures and burned up all the trees. Even the wild animals cry to You for help, for there is no water for them. The creeks are dry and the pastures are scorched" (verses 18-20).
What horrible conditions! When these things begin to come about, people will start to go hungry:
"And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied" (Lev. 26:26).
Do these prophecies of devastating famine and drought apply to our generation? WHY would a loving God want to allow such horrible things to happen, today?
Famine — in 20th century America and Britain — is it really possible?
You need to know the answers. These are not merely the predictions of men but the prophecies of the Word of God!
Put YOURSELF in the Picture
Anyone who has even casually studied the world food situation knows that widespread famine is so certain that it is just a matter of waiting for the grisly details — the time, the place and the number of the dead.
But how many even remotely grasp the magnitude of the horror that is just ahead — and the swift severity with which it will engulf the entire world?
How many understand that utterly unprecedented famine is going to strike, not in some far-off land, but in America, Britain and the other English-speaking countries?
And how many see themselves, personally, in this grim setting of impending hunger and starvation?
Do you?
You need to put yourself in the picture and seriously think about where you will be when this fearful calamity strikes. But that isn't all. Just worrying about your own skin won't save you when this horrible scourge is unleashed.
Put GOD in the Picture
Throughout history there have been many famines. Almost everyone has been caused by a decrease in the food supply, not an increase in population.
"The primary cause of famine almost invariably has been a failure of food crops. This failure has often resulted from a variety of natural causes — long-continued drought, blasting hot winds, insect armies, earthquakes, severe and untimely frosts, and destructive inundations" states the article "Fearful Famines of the Past" in the National Geographic Magazine July, 1917.
Today we seem to have forgotten this important fact. Even those who predict the coming famine base their projections on the assumption that our food production will remain stable or even increase a little — and that the population explosion alone will produce worldwide famine — which is true, but . . .
No one seems to even consider that a dramatic DROP in food production could occur at any time. No one seems to even think about God — and the fact that He controls nature and the weather.
The prophesied coming famine is not going to be caused just because of an exploding population. Rather it is going to be caused primarily because of huge crop losses, violent and upset weather, and severe disturbances in nature caused by the hand of Almighty God.
God is overlooked! Yet He controls and rules everything. It's time we put GOD in the picture and begin to consider what He says.
God does not take delight in human suffering. He is bringing the bitter curse of famine upon us for a very definite and just reason. And He alone can protect and deliver in the days ahead.
WHY Famine
Throughout history God has used famine as a means of punishing His people when they have sinned. Physical suffering, pain and misery is the only language that somehow "gets through" to rebellious, sinning mankind. It is the only way God can get man's attention so that He can teach man and have man be willing to learn.
Time after time the Old Testament shows that God uses famine to help bring man to his senses. Now God is about to use famine to once again wake up His people and show them their sins.
One full third of the Bible is prophecy, and about ninety percent of this prophecy is for us today. Most of it is directed specifically at the nations of modern Israel — we in the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other English-speaking lands. (For proof of this amazing fact request our free book, The U.S. and British Commonwealth in Prophecy)
Today we in these nations of modern Israel are sinning. So is the rest of the world. But as God's chosen people and the ones who have His Word, the Bible, we ought to know better. Therefore God is going to punish us first, and the other nations only after we have been punished.
We, in the blessed "have" nations of the world, need to realize what a tightrope we are walking on when it comes to our food supply. We need to realize what a futile thing our vaunted "burdensome food surpluses" will be when God sets His heavy hand to punish.
Most of us — and especially we in America — have a completely erroneous picture of our food supply. We need to get the picture straight and in focus. We need to realize how utterly dependent we are on God and His continued blessings for our daily bread.
A Warning to Prosperous, Overfed America and Britain
"For she [our modern English-speaking nations] has not taken notice, understood or realized it was I [the Lord God], who gave her the, grain and the new wine and the fresh oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold, which they used for Baal and made into his image. Therefore will I return and take back my grain in the time for it and my new wine in the season for it, and will pluck away and recover my wool and my flax which were to cover her [Israel's] nakedness" (Hosea 2:8-9, Amplified Version).
Our modern nations have NOT given God credit for all the material prosperity we have received. We have not taken notice of Him, or been thankful. Rather, people congratulate themselves on their genius, their skills, and their wealth, never giving God a second's thought.
This is the same way our ancestors behaved — ancient Israel!
Notice what God said to His people whom He prospered. "He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock; butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape. But Jeshurun [Israel] grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he FORSOOK GOD who made him, and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation" (Deut. 32:13-15, Amplified).
Our modern nations have never known such prosperity as they enjoy today. The English-speaking nations have greater wealth and riches than any nations in history.
But WE HAVE FORGOTTEN WHERE THIS WEALTH AND PROSPERITY CAME FROM!
God thunders: "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you shall eat food without shortage, and lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good land which He has given you. BEWARE that you do not forget the Lord your God,
by not keeping His commandments, His precepts, and His statutes, which I command you today, Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all you have is multiplied [what description more aptly shows the condition of our countries, today!); then your mind and heart be lifted up, and you FORGET the Lord your God . . ." (Deut. 8:7-14 RSV).
This is the exact condition in which the United States, and other English-speaking nations, find themselves, today! We have been prospered and blessed. We have unheard-of wealth. Millions believe smugly, "Famine couldn't happen here. We have nothing to worry about."
But God says differently!
And it is time you wake up to what GOD says! This part of the article will continue on page 3. Page 2 is a Synopsis of American Reserves in 1969.