Zechariah 14:12

And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

Have you ever read or heard a more accurate description of a nuclear blast? I haven't. I was a child the first time I stumbled across this scripture, and my reaction was  "Ewww! That's awful!"  Awful is right, and a very real possibility in the world we live in today. Pretty amazing that one of the biggest threats we face today was written about and described in 518 B.C., over 2500 years ago. And yet people say they do not believe in God.

I don't know why people claim not to believe in God. They say He is a fairy tale, a myth, a holdover from prehistoric times when man did not understand the world around him. They claim that a belief in God is only for the uneducated.  They would have you believe that the stories in the Bible are just that, stories. That they never happened. That the Earth was not created out of a formless void in 6 days, the sun and moon did not stand still at Joshua's command, the walls of Jericho did not fall down after the Israelites seventh trip around the city, and Jesus is not the Son of God. 

    Well,  Peter tells us that he was an eyewitness to the accounts recorded in the Gospels. He says:

 (2nd Peter 1:16-21): For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were  eyewitnesses of his majesty.

17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

 Peter, James, and John were Jesus closest confidantes. They were always at His side. Remember, Peter is the one that walked on the water? He didn't start to sink until he looked around him and realized that what he was doing was an "impossibility" in the natural world. That is why the Bible says that we must come to Him as little children.  

(Matthew 18:2-3)   2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 

3 And he said:“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Moreover, the Bible also teaches us that without the help of the Holy Spirit, the contents of the Bible appear as foolishness. 

 (1 Corinthians 2:12-16)    12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 

14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 

15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 

16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.

        

Ephesians 4:18

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 

Today, nine countries - China, India, Israel, France, North Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—hold nearly 16,000 nuclear weapons. Among the top threats are China’s build-up, the confrontation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, and an utterly rogue North Korea, who is knocking on the door, threatening and testing it's long range capabilities. Countries with smaller nuclear arsenals, such as India and Pakistan, are actively engaged in regional conflicts, making the possibility of regional nuclear war a concern. Other countries, including Iran and Syria, have violated their nuclear safeguards commitments and are suspected of covertly pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities. If ever there was a time when the world needs God, it is now.

2 Corinthians 11:13,14

13For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.…

I remember sitting in church as a child and hearing many times that "for everything God has, Satan has a counterfeit."

That lesson was made clear to me when I began to get interested in foraging.  Being able to go out into the wild and pick your own food has many benefits.  Many of your wild plants are highly nutritious, more so than what you will find at your local supermarket. Plus you are getting fresh air and exercise, as well as learning more about the world around you.  But foraging also has its downfall. Many of the plants have a poisonous look-alike, which could prove deadly to the untrained eye. So before you forage, make sure you have studied well. I have put together a small chart showing some of the more common plants to forage, as well as their poisonous look-alikes. Just for fun, I have also included a few that have no poison look-alikes but are highly nutritious.

Edible	Poisonous Look-Alike
Purslane- Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable. It is also high in antioxidants like vitamins A, C and E, and essential minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium and potassium. You can easily distinguish Petty Spurge by its milky sap, seen when you break the stem.	Hairy stemmed spurge Hairy-stemmed spurge is distinguished by a milky sap, which can be seen if you squeeze the stem. This milky sap is toxic so be careful not to confuse the two plants.  That it is hairy is a big clue that it is NOT purslane
Queen Annes' Lace The best way to distinguish the two is to smell the root of the plant since Queen Anne's Lace root smells like carrots. Queen Anne’s Lace has a hairy, completely green stem. Poison Hemlock is smooth, no hair,  and has purple or black spots, or streaks on the stem.	Poison Hemlock, Water Hemlock Similar to Queen Anne's Lace, Poison Hemlock has large white flowers. One major difference is that the Queen Anne's Lace flowers occur much tighter together. Also, Queen Anne's Lace flowers often have a solitary purple flower in the center.  Water hemlock also has some lookalikes, but it is very easily identifiable by the roots and the spindly appearance of the plant as well as the long skinny jags of leaves it produces. (Bur and wild chervil are two varieties of plants that may not be dangerous in the slightest, but they are also close in appearance to the dangerous hemlock.  Typically they do not have the purple and reddish streaks or spotting in the stems. Hairs on the stem to leaf joint may give the plant away as a non-hemlock; the plant tends to be a smaller size in total, and the leaves tend to be a bit less shiny and not quite as bright in coloration, though that does not mean you are safe if these characteristics are present.)
Cattail Cattails are also a good source of vitamins A, B, C phosphorous, and potassium. Pollen from cattails can be used in lieu of flour.  a dangerous look-alike called the Iris, which sometimes grows in the same swampy areas. Know the difference before you eat anything. A rule of thumb is to look for the distinctive cigar-shaped head. The iris don’t have those. If you see a patch of what appears to be cattails, but there are no cigar heads, the plants may be irises.	Wild Iris  Know the difference before you eat anything. A rule of thumb is to look for the distinctive cigar-shaped head. The iris don’t have those. If you see a patch of what appears to be cattails, but there are no cigar heads, the plants may be irises. Only the Cattail has the brown seed spike.  All members of the Iris family are poisonous. Another look-alike which is not poisonous, but whose leaves look more like cattail than iris is the Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus). Sweet Flag has a very pleasant spicy, sweet aroma when the leaves are bruised. It also does not possess the brown seed head. Neither the irises nor cattail has the sweet, spicy aroma.
Broadhead Arrowhead (Sagittaria Latifolia) Names: Indian potato, wapato, duck potato Wapato will flower during mid-summer with a three-petaled white flower. It typically grows 1-4 feet tall with arrow-shaped leaves that are 4-12 inches long and 2-6 inches wide. The tubers of this plant and it's poisonous cousin look nothing alike.	Poisonous look-alikes: Arrow arum (Peltandra Virginica) Arum leaf is vein-less nor does it blossom the same way as the Wapato. This plant is very toxic. High levels of calcium oxylate If eaten it feels like needles are in your mouth and going down your stomach. Causes vomiting, sweat, increased heart rate, and diarrhea
Fox Grapes, Wild Grapes A grape vine is a climbing, woody perennial, best recognized by its alternate simple leaves that are lobed and toothed, and by its purple, seeded berries that grow in bunches. Grapevine leaves taste like grapes.) The wild grape vine is truly a vining plant; this means it has no solid, upright trunk.   Grape vines grow thicker and higher than most other native vines.  Wild grapes grow in pyramidal, hanging bunches and are blackish, dark blue or purple.	Virginia Creeper, Moonseed Be wary of confusing wild grape vines with the Virginia Creeper vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), which has poisonous fruits resembling grapes in size and color. The difference is that the Virginia creeper, unlike the grape, has palmately (spread out like fingers from the palm of your hand) compound leaves, each with five leaflets. The branches holding the purple fruit clusters are conspicuously red. Another look-alike is Moonseed (Menispermum canadense L.), which has leaves that can be very similar to grape leaves, although the lobes tend to be noticeably rounded, usually not as sharp as with grape leaves and the stems are attached to the leaf margin, instead of at the edge of the leaf as with grapes. To make matters more difficult, the moonseed has small fruits that resemble grapes. However, one look at the single flat, crescent moon shaped seed and you'll know you're not dealing with a grape.
Wild strawberry Wild strawberries produce one or more clusters of flowers. The wild strawberry flower, which is white, normally begins blooming in late spring or early summer and lasts about one to two months. These blooms are followed by the familiar red strawberries.	Indian Strawberry Indian strawberry is an almost exact replica of the wild strawberry.  Some say it’s harmless, but there are cases that show it has a dangerous poison, and at a minimum the ability to cause allergic reactions.  The only real way to tell the two apart is the wild strawberry has a white flower and sweet tasty fruit, whereas the Indian strawberry has a yellow flower and fruit with little to no flavor.
Eastern Hemlock Short dark green needles up to 2 inches long with two white bands beneath which are arranged in two opposite rows.  Needles are attached to twigs by slender stalks. They bear small pendant short-stalked seed-bearing cones that are up to one inch long and are either a light tan color if male or green if female.	American Yew While often mistaken for the Eastern Hemlock, the American Yew has longer needles and bright red fleshy pulp surrounding seeds.
Common Camas, Camas Lily, 20 inches long, 1/2 inch wide, narrow, grass-like, lance-shaped, emerging from the base.  Camas Lily flowers range from light to dark violet-blue, 6 elliptical petals each, 1 1/2 inches long, several blooming at a time in spike-like clusters borne on the ends of leafless stems that grow taller than the leaves. The six stamens have yellow anthers. Fruits: egg-shaped capsules, splitting into three parts to release many black, angled seeds.  Ovoid bulbs are about 1 inch by 2 inches	Death Camas, The Death Camas are flowering plants that are native throughout the United States and generally reach several feet in height. The flowers grow as panicles – a cluster of flowers – that can resemble those of onions (Allium). Making matters worse, both have bulbs, which is unfortunate because the Death Camas are highly poisonous.  One bulb, raw or cooked, can be fatal. Poisoning result from confusing these bulbs with those of edible species. In most cases, the bulbs are mistaken for onions. The bulbs of death camas are oval and covered with blackish scales.
Wild Onion, Wild Garlic all oniony scented wild onions/garlic are edible.  Wild Garlic produces hard-shell bulbs or cloves immediately adjacent to the original bulb and has an extremely potent garlic flavor. Wild Onion has hollow, mostly hairless, flat, grass-like flexible, leaves with a strong onion odor when broken. In spring, the erect, flowering stems will grow up to 12" tall from an edible egg-shaped 1-inch bulb with a brown fibrous outer coat. The flowers can be pink or white, 6-parted star-shaped, that usually bear white to reddish purple oval miniature bulbs that dry and fall to the ground to sprout the next growing season. The Wild Onion and Wild Garlic look very similar. One sure way to tell them apart is to remember that the leave of the Wild Onion are flat and solid, while the leaves of the Wild Garlic are round and hollow.	avoid all onion-like plants that lack onion odor. In many cases, the Death Camas is mistaken for wild onions or wild garlic.
Morels are very distinctive but novice hunters caught up in "Morel Fever" may mistake several other mushroom species for the golden prize of Morels. All false Morel species should be considered potentially deadly. Things to remember: 1. Only Morels will be completely hollow from the base of the stem to top of their conical head whereas false Morel mushrooms will have solid stems which pass through the caps and attach to the top inner surface of the hollow, cup-like cap.  2. The interior and exteriors of Morel stems have tiny bumps while false Morels will have cotton like fillings.  3. The indentations of true Morels take the form of pits and ridges forming complete enclosures whereas false Morels will have long, wavy ridges that don't circle back to make enclosed spaces.	For all the varieties of mushrooms, there are just as many horror stories associated with basic misclassifications leading to death or bad sickness. The all-encompassing little brown mushroom probably accounts for more issues to a mushroom seeker than any other mushroom class.  Unfortunately, with a vast majority of the little brown mushroom varieties, there are several which are deadly or dangerous amongst an ocean of safe ones. They are very difficult to identify, especially in the field. It’s a hard thing to ask a mushroom lover to do, but in the field, avoid these mushrooms when selecting what to consume, as it is just too risky to eat something you cannot be sure of.
Dandelion: 100 grams (just less than half a cup) of dandelion leaves provides 14,000 I.U. of vitamin A, 35mg of vitamin C and some B-complex vitamins as well. In addition, you get 309mg of calcium, 397mg potassium, 66mg phosphorus, and 3.1mg iron.	No Poison look-alikes
Stinging Nettles Nettles tastes a little like spinach, only more flavorful and more healthful. They are loaded with, vitamins A, B, and C, as well as minerals like calcium,  iodine, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, silica, sulfur and zinc.   They have been used to treat conditions like arthritis and seasonal allergies for many years. Nettles also have more protein than most plants. Do not try to pick these without the use of garden gloves.  They live up to their name and will cause a painful rash!	No poison look-alikes

2 Timothy 2:15  

15Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Revelation 8:8-11

8The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood,9and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed. 10The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters.11The name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.…

Today I want to talk about water. I haven’t always been a Christian, and for many years I pooh poohed all the warnings about Global Warming and Climate Change. I refused to give any credence to the warnings. Then certain things began to come to my attention, that made me take notice. I discovered that Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming all have water laws restricting and governing the use of water. I grew up in Colorado, and it was common to be restricted to only being able to water the lawn on certain days.  I no longer live in Colorado, but I now understand that Colorado has much stricter laws. After 911, Colorado, as well as many others, passed a law that all water that is inside their states boundary belongs to the state. It is illegal to collect rainwater, because that water also belongs to the state. Kind of hard for me to wrap my head around that, how the state can come in and claim ownership of something so basic as rainwater.  While in other areas of the United States, people collect rainwater, and think nothing of it.

Add drought and pollution to the mix, and the availability of water shrinks even more. Just recently Investigators from the Silent Spring Institute “found 27 unregulated contaminants, including a dozen different pharmaceuticals, a variety of chemicals used in non-stick coatings, flame retardants, and an artificial sweetener. It also found Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic used to treat urinary tract infections, and carbamazepine, a drug used to treat seizures, nerve pain, and bipolar disorder, when testing private wells in Cape Cod.1

Additionally, More than 1,400 wastewater treatment plants in the United States and Canada discharge 4.8 billion gallons of treated effluent into the Great Lakes basin every day. After 10 years of study, a report found that only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants.  Six chemicals were detected frequently and had a low rate of removal in treated effluent: an herbicide, an anti-seizure drug, two antibiotic drugs, an antibacterial drug and an anti-inflammatory drug.  The wastewater plants had a low removal rate (less than 25 percent chance of removing 75 percent or more) for 11 of the 42 chemicals that were found.2  In all, more than 165 individual pharmaceuticals and personal care products have been identified in water samples.

The immediate concern is for the fish that live in these waters. Intersex fish are particularly prevalent downstream from wastewater plants, but  I find it rather alarming that researchers have discovered intersex fish in Protected Waters. Scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey studied fish in 19 national wildlife refuges in the U.S. Northeast, including Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge near the US-Canada border, which is among the most pristine wetland ecosystems in the Northeast.3 They found that 60 to 100 percent of all male smallmouth bass they examined had female egg cells growing in their testes. This interferes with their ability to reproduce and thereby threatens fish populations. And it is not just fish that are affected. Amphibians are also being affected, as are otters.4  The culprit? It was long thought that these changes were caused by birth control pills. While birth control may play a huge part, more research indicates that metformin, a drug for treating Type II diabetes, also plays a large role.  Metformin was "found in almost every sample, and in the highest concentrations compared to other emerging contaminants"6 Since birth control pills and metformin both are taken worldwide, this has become a global problem.

And lastly, let’s talk about China. I think everyone knows how polluted China is. Sixteen of the twenty cities on the World Banks list of “worst air cities” belong to China. In an interview with the head of the Communist Party of a village, Wang Lincheng told the New York Times, ''All the water we drink around here is polluted,'' Wang said. ''You can taste it. It's acrid and bitter. Now the victims are starting to come out, people dying of cancer and tumors and unusual causes.'' A 64 year old fisherman in Yumin, Song Dexi, tells us, 'If I had wanted to, I could have gone on the river and filled a boat with dead fish. It was smelly, like toilet water. All our fish and shrimp died. We don't have anything to live on now.''  There is no scientific evidence to prove that pollution is causing cancer rates to rise, but Dr. Zhao Meiqin, chief of radiology at the county hospital, said cancer cases in the area rose sharply after heavy industry arrived in the 1980s and '90s. Before, the area had about 10 cases a year. ''Now, in a year, there are hundreds of cases,'' she said, putting the number as high as 400, mostly stomach and intestinal tumors. ''Originally, most of the patients were in their 50s and 60s. But now it tends to strike earlier. I've even treated one patient who is only 7.''5

Jeremiah 8:14

Why are we sitting still? Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities And let us perish there, Because the LORD our God has doomed us And given us poisoned water to drink, For we have sinned against the LORD.

Matthew 24:6-9

 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. 

9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 

Doesn't this sound much like the earth we live in today?  The frequency of earthquakes has increased, as has the size and ferocity of hurricanes and tornadoes.  I am sure everyone remembers Katrina. And how about the 2013 El Reno, Oklahoma tornado? It is the largest tornado on record at 2.6 miles wide. While we are talking about Oklahoma, Live Science reports that the USGS actually issued a rare earthquake warning for Oklahoma in May 2014, stating that "the risk of a damaging earthquake-one larger than magnitude 5.0- has significantly increased in central Oklahoma."

In July 2015, in an article by The New Yorker, the author Kathryn Schultz interviewed Chris Goldfinger, who is a paleo seismologist at Oregon State University, and one of the worlds leading experts.  Counting from the earthquake of 1700, we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle. Meaning we are seventy two years overdue for the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA's Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, "Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast."1     You can view the earthquake map for recent activity worldwide here: earthquake.usgs.gov. 

The USGS website also has a drought monitor map that you can view. According to an article on PBS NewsHour, by 2050, the US could surpass the "mega-drought" conditions of the 12th and 13th centuries, with severe droughts lasting multiple decades. 

Switching gears a bit, the Nansen ice shelf, which is twice the size of Manhattan Island, "looks ready to calve off into a tabular iceberg," wrote Ryan Walker, a researcher at NASA Goddard.2  "There's a huge crack, miles long and sometimes over a hundred yards wide, which runs more or less parallel to the front of the ice shelf."  If all of Nansen collapses, it will reduce Antarctica's ice shelf coverage by just 0.1 percent. However, ice shelves like Nansen do act as vast barricades for glaciers behind them. When an ice shelf is removed, glaciers begin to tumble into the sea at surprisingly fast speeds--sometimes moving ten times faster than normal--and these will definitely cause the sea level to rise.3

Lots of stuff going on all at the same time, huh? And it seems like everything's getting bigger and faster all the time. Why do you think this is? Many people say it is because of global warming. There is a lot of argument about global warming.  Many people believe that global warming is real, and that mankind is causing it. Some  claim that global warming is the result of a natural heating and cooling cycle that the earth goes through every so-hundred years. Then you have the camp that claims that global warming is NOT real, that it is all just conspiracy theories. And lastly, you have the ones that are turning in circles from one camp to the next, unsure what to believe.  Whatever you believe, the Bible does predict this.

Luke 21:25-26

25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; and the sea and the waves roaring;

26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven will be shaken.

Matthew 24:13

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.