Commentary: Great Earthquakes

So Far Few Have Struck Israel
#1042c
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 19-Apr-11; 6 minutes

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Each week in these commentaries, I try to give you something that is going through my mind. Either that, or something that has to do with prophecy being fulfilled. At least we think that prophecy is being fulfilled, and I think in most cases it is prophecy being fulfilled.

When I open up my computer, it always opens up the MSN news page. They had a little thing there the other day that said, "The Greatest Earthquakes." And so I thought I would write some of these things down. In this case, what they meant by "greatest" was the most intense ones that they have recorded since the Richter scale has been in existence. I do not know how long the Richter scale has been used, but I thought that I would give you these things and let you know that some very significant things are taking place. These are not necessarily in order, but of course, the one in Japan was a 9.4, and it is now ranked as the world's most costly disaster from natural forces ever: $310 billion, the Japanese government is estimating that it is going to cost them to make the repairs just from that one event, the earthquake and the tsunami. And of course, that happened March the 11th this year.

Chile, in February 2010, had an 8.8 earthquake. Haiti in January of 2010: 7.0. Incidentally, 222,000 people died in that one. In China—noticed the dates here—May of 2008, was an 8.0 earthquake. In October 2005 in Pakistan: 7.6. In Sumatra, in March 2005: 8.7. Death toll: unknown. That's the one that created that tremendous tsunami that went through Thailand, especially. Listen to this one: July 1976 in China: 7.5. The count of dead passed 200,000, almost, they said, on the way to 300,000 people died.

Alaska—the only one of this top 10 that hit an Israelitish country—March of '64: 9.2. But only 130 people died. It made me wonder: Is anybody living in Alaska? And then they included in that the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. In today's money, they said, that would be—just to give you a comparison with Japan—$9 billion worth of damage, compared to $310 billion. That's $9 billion in today's money, and about 3,000 people died.

One of the significant things to me in this was that these are all taking place—the overwhelming majority of them—are taking place in Gentile nations. The earthquakes are circling the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and so forth, but these nations are not being hit. How long its God's patience going to continue on? When they do start hitting—and they are going to hit—how big are they going to be, and where?

We have two especially dangerous areas in the United States. Of course, the West Coast is right in the Ring of Fire. I do not know whether you understand this, but Seattle is considered the most likely place, and of course, San Francisco and the San Andreas Fault are right there with them. Then there is the New Madrid fault that is in the central United States.

I do not know whether you saw this, but geologists have detected that there is a fault, very much like the San Andreas fault, that runs right down the heart of the Appalachian Mountains from New York to Alabama. Very interesting. They said you cannot see it on the surface, but magnetic imagery picks it up clear as anything—it's there.

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