World Wide Famine Soon?

Ask a Bible Teacher

Q. I have had some news items come to my attention from Christian sources that say world food shortages are about to happen in the near future and that we as Christians should be trying to prepare. It has been my belief up to now that the serious severity in food shortage and other products would most likely happen after the Rapture. I can see where things may get pretty tight as this is happening right now..cost of gas rising, cost of food rising, etc. My question is- Do you believe there are going to be very serious food shortages and other kinds of extreme hardships here in the U.S. before the Rapture happens? And if so, other then tightening our finances what else can we be doing?

A. There really isn't any Biblical basis for thinking that the shortages being experienced in rice and a few other commodities just now is a sign of impending world wide famine. Food and gas prices are rising, but for most of the people we know getting rid of a few luxuries they don't need anyway would solve the problem.

Jesus said that before the end comes there would be famines in various places, but that this was just the beginning of birth pangs. After the rapture, things will quickly get worse, but even so the famines of the 4th seal of Rev. 6:8 only effect 1/4th of the world. The trumpet and bowl judgments will be worse than that and eventually about half of the world's population will die. But by then the Church will be long gone.

A much more urgent problem lies in the fact that the average person in the US, Christian or not, is living so far beyond their means that even a little bump in prices hurts immediately. These people will soon discover that there's plenty of food to buy, but with their variable rate credit card, mortgage, and consumer debt, they'll have to make some painful choices in order to come up with the money.

We complain about $4.00 gas but many of the world's inhabitants are paying up to twice as much on less income and still manage to survive. It just takes re-ordering our priorities, and the more of our income that goes out in interest costs, the more urgent our need for doing so becomes.