ROARING WAVES

...Luke 21: 25 The Sea and The Waves Roaring !!!..........

Jesus, in the sermon on Mount Olivet, in which He warns of these things, said that prior to His coming, "there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations . . . mens hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke 21:25, 26).
Jesus did not leave us a date for His return, but He foretold what would transpire in space and on earth before His coming.

Rogue Waves

A rogue wave is fortunately a once-in-a-lifetime event for offshore sailors.

Captain Warwick peered out of a bridge port and watched what looked like a small mountain looming out of the night. Piloting one of the largest ships in the world did not make him feel more comfortable about what he was seeing. The wave seemed to take forever to reach the ship but struck actually less than a minute after being sighted. The monster wave broke over the bow with incredible force, followed immediately by a shudder throughout the entire ship. Warwick reported that there seemed to be two waves, one following closely behind the other. As the massive ship fell into the hole left by the first wave, the second inundated the foredeck, ripping away the forward whistle mast.

According to Captain Warwick, it was difficult to estimate the height of this wave. Its crest was more or less level with his line of sight on the bridgeabout 29 meters (87 feet) above the surface of the water. The other officers on the bridge agreed with Warwick that it was a true wave, not a swell. The presence of extreme waves was also recorded by Canadian weather buoys moored in the area, and the maximum measured height from one of these buoys was 30 meters (98 feet).

The ship was the Queen Elizabeth II and the event was recorded en route from Cherbourg, France, to New York. During this trip the ship changed course several times in order to go around Hurricane Luis. The Grand Lounge windows, which are located 22 meters (66 feet) above the surface, were struck with such force that they caved in.

One wave larger than all the rest can easily catch sailors off guard.

These events are generally referred to as "rogue waves," and they sometimes appear under ostensibly calm conditions. Many people refer to such events as "tidal waves," a misnomer that has stayed with us for generationssuch waves have nothing to do with the tides. Mostly due to the movement of the sun and the moon, tides can rise and fall in open water with no effect at all on shipping or the state of the sea. Indeed, even tsunamis generated by underwater seismic activity only create the towering walls of destruction near shore where the water becomes shallow. On the open sea, a tsunami might pass under a ship unnoticed.

Wind waves, or the rippling of the ocean surface by the friction and driving force of the wind, is the most ever-present oceanic feature. Winds blowing across the sea surface form a series of irregular hills and valleys. Light winds create small wavelets, but when strong winds blow, huge storm seas can develop.

Waves travel quickly across the surface of the sea, deceiving our senses into thinking the water is moving. In fact, the water itself does not move very rapidlyit is mainly traveling up and down in a circular, or rotary, motion. This is actually a fortunate illusion of nature, since water moving at the speed of most storm waves would make ocean navigation in ships nearly impossible.

How big the waves get depends on three thingsthe speed of the wind, the duration, or how long the wind blows, and the fetch, or the distance of open water over which the wind is blowing. Light winds, or those that only blow hard for a short time, cannot generate large waves. Ships seek out the safety of a harbor in a storm because they can block a portion of the wind with a body of land, thereby reducing the fetch of open water. Storms of equal size generate much larger waves in the open Pacific than in the Adriatic Sea where fetch is much more limited.

It takes a while after the wind begins to blow before large waves agitate the sea surface. As the wind continues to blow, the waves get higher from trough to crest, and both the wave length and period become longer. Wave length is measured from crest to crest, while the period of a wave is the time it takes for one full wave from crest to crest to pass the same point. Wave height is actually less important than the steepness of the seas and this is a critical point for sailors since steepness is a product of the height and the length, being the angle between crest and trough. Sailboats will glide over very high, long ocean rollers and barely notice them but when the wave length is shortened, the waves become steep.

It is never just the height or the length of the waves that matter, but the relationship between the two.

It is this wave gradient that creates dangerous conditions for small boats. Waves are generally steeper at the beginning of a storm and are at their worst near its center. As the wind continues or strengthens, the water first forms whitecaps and eventually the waves start to break. Waves as high as 30 meters (nearly 100 feet, or as high as a nine-story building) have been recorded during severe storms. This is referred to as a fully developed sea, and in one way this is good because it tends to limit the waves future growth. Good, that is, if youre not out among them.

These waves radiate out great distances from the storm that generated them, eventually lengthening and becoming reduced in height. We call these swells, and mariners have known for centuries that an increasing swell means bad weather is coming. Beach lovers are often warned of high swells and surf on beautiful sunny days because of storms that may be far over the horizon.

The longer the wave, the faster it travels. As waves leave a storm area, they tend to sort themselves out with the long ones ahead of the short ones, and the energy is simultaneously spread out over an increasingly larger area. As the waves close in on the coast, they begin to feel the bottom and their direction of travel might change due to the contour of the land. Eventually, the waves run ashore, increasing in height up to 1.5 times their height in deep water, finally breaking up as surf.

A sight that none of us ever want to see.

A dramatic change occurs when the energy in a wave meets the land. In the area of the surf, the waves become steep and the water begins to move forward at the speed of the waves. Waves can also be amplified when traveling into an opposing current, forming dangerous riptides and undertows. These two effects together make the surf area a potentially dangerous place for both people and boats. Many cases of rogue waves actually have their origins in high swells from a distant storm moving over an area of reduced water depth, around a headland, or into an opposite current. Areas with these land features, like the Hourglass Shoals, between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico in the notoriously rough Mona Passage, have developed nasty reputations among sailors.

The most common explanation for rogue waves involves the chance meeting of two smaller waves from different wave trains. It is not uncommon to have a swell from one, or even several directions, at the same time as seas are being driven by a local wind. If a large local wave happens to coincide and be reinforced by an unusually large swell from a more distant area, a wave much bigger than those surrounding it occurs. Statistically, this is not uncommon if we take the number of waves on the ocean into account.

Rogue waves are believed to have been the cause of numerous marine accidents and fatalities. Sailors' logs show that these uncharacteristically large waves occur with no warning, especially along exposed coastlines. Annually, at least one person is swept off the rocks by rogue waves on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island when the seas are reasonably calm. In April 1991, a man was swept from the rocks and drowned by large waves at South Beach near Tofino, BC, during a time when there was no unusual wave activity.

These are obviously very unusual events; however, rogue or freak waves are regularly reported during all sorts of weather including calm days. The unusual confluence of wave trains usually last only several moments, but they are totally unpredictable. The fact that they sometimes come in groups probably contributes to the popular belief that every seventh wave is the highest. Research has shown that this is not the case, but that large waves come in groups of various lengths. In fact, groups of waves of random lengths would be more likely to cause one single freak wave larger than all its peers than if every seventh wave was the largest.

New Evidence In May 2000 researchers set out to sea from the Virginia coast hoping to find answers to a new scientific riddle: Could tsunamis, our popularly misnamed tidal waves that have terrorized Japan and the rest of the Pacific for centuries, pose a threat to the mid-Atlantic coast of the US as well?

The scientists looking into this have just returned from a follow-up research cruise, during which they found seafloor formations that appear to have been formed by blowouts of surprisingly huge quantities of gas trapped in the sediments off the Virginia coast. Could huge deposits of gas beneath the sea somehow be released?

Some of the craters left by the gas releases are said to be large enough ''to contain an area as large as New York's Central Park,'' said Jeffrey Weissel of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth. Weissle goes on to say that these historical gas releases ''must have been very vigorous to have created craters of this size. "These are the biggest we've seen. We were a little taken aback by the amount of gas,'' said team leader Neal Driscoll of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Craters like this blue hole could be associated with gas releases that may have created large waves.

The discovery raises the possibility that a tsunami could strike the US East Coast. Even though the data from the fact finding cruise will not be analyzed for a while, one thing is already clear, the researchers say: Any tidal wave that might be triggered by these continental-shelf fissures is nothing to get excited about nor enough to pack up and move inland. The waves would be no more severe or widespread than those produced by hurricanes, which happen far more frequently. But the waves caused by one of those minor gas releases could have been recorded as a rogue wave by previous mariners trading along the coast.

Signs of The Times

...SIGNS IN THE STARS, MOON & THE SEA...

In Luke chapter 21, the disciples have asked Yahshua about the signs of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Yahshua's reply is long and gives many signs. The Romans relate some of the signs to the siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The answer to their question included signs of the end of this age and of Yahshua's second coming. Luke 21:25 is an obscure and difficult text, made more obscure by amazingly poor translation. It tells about one of the signs of the end of the age, the sea and the waves roaring.

This has puzzled many students of the Bible. Did Yahshua really say that a storm at sea was to be one of the signs for them to watch for? Many storms at sea, some of them of fearful intensity, have occurred every year since Yahshua spoke those words. How could a storm, even a very great storm, be a recognizable sign? This doesn't seem to make sense; it is time to look into this a bit deeper.

Is this a matter of mistranslation? Most of this verse is badly garbled in the King James Bible. However this one part, the sea and the waves roaring, is confirmed as correct by good translations. If the wording is correct, and does not mean much when taken literally, we know it must be symbolic. We may be sure that Yahshua never bothered to speak trifles, so there is some symbolism, which is worth our further study.

Unfortunately, many preachers try to spiritualize the Bible into utter nonsense. They try to make almost every word symbolic, getting the most fantastic meanings for their symbolic values. Sometimes they reach silly conclusions out of their own weird notions. Sometimes they make conclusions based on Hindu, Tibetan, Egyptian or other pagan sources, in this they are always wrong. Whenever the Bible uses symbolism, it makes it clear that the words are not meant literally, as we have seen in the case we are now discussing. The Bible always supplies the key to its own symbolism, and no other source will ever give you the right answer.

There are many places in the Bible where the sea or waters, and occasionally a river is used symbolically. If this use proves to have a consistent meaning in these many places, then we can be sure that the sea and the waves roaring will have the same meaning. In Psalms we find the simplest use of such terms. Psalm 18:16-17 says, "He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me." Psalm 69:14 continues, "Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters." King David, living and writing in a desert land, was not worried about drowning in deep waters. He makes it very plain that he likens being overwhelmed by his enemies, people, to sinking into deep waters.

This is also used on a greater scale, where the power of a great army overrunning a land, is symbolized by a river in flood. In Isaiah 8:7 we read, "Now, therefore, behold: Yahweh bringeth up upon them (Israel) the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks." Again we find waters used symbolically, to represent people, but this time it means people in large numbers, as a nation or an army. We find another example of this in Isaiah 43:2. "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle thee." Isaiah was speaking here, to the people of the ten tribed northern kingdom of Israel. They had just been taken into captivity by the great Assyrian empire. They were being deported across the entire width of the Assyrian empire, to be resettled in a large area around the southern end of the Caspian Sea.

In Isaiah 8:7, the prophet had spoken of the king of Assyria and his army as a river which would overflow its banks and flood the land, which it did when the kingdom of Israel was overrun and conquered. Now Isaiah assures Israel that Yahweh will be with them when they pass through the waters, and will not let the river completely overflow them in their deportation and resettlement in their new home in Scythia. Assyria will not be allowed to destroy Israel.

Isaiah had even more in view here, to occur centuries later. By then the people of Israel were known by new names, Scythians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Angli and Saxons. As they started on their long march toward their predestined new European homes, a vast flood of people came out of Asia the Huns lead by Attila. The Huns tried to move swiftly enough to cross Israel's path to cut them off. Yahweh would not allow this invasion to come until the tribes of Israel had safely crossed into northern Europe. The Huns could only bark at the heels of Israel's rear guard. This river, the vast army of the Huns, was not allowed to overflow Israel exactly as Yahweh had promised.

In Revelation chapter 12 John saw a woman, obviously symbolic of Israel, who gave birth to a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. He was caught up to Yahweh and to His throne. Of course this was Yahshua the Christ. Then the serpent Satan persecuted the woman, the Israel nation, and Yahweh gave her two wings of a great eagle with which to flee into the wilderness. Most of the areas of Europe, which the people of Israel migrated into, were a wilderness at that time.

AThe serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after her, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth." So it was, the mighty hordes of the Huns rolled across most of Europe. They came south of the lands, which Israel had migrated into. On the death of Attila, in the year 453 A.D., his vast army broke up in disorder and melted away back to Asia in retreat.

Much was to happen in the meantime. Two huge and mighty empires were in great power then, yet they must crumble into ruin as Yahweh willed. One was Assyria and the other was Egypt. Zechariah 10:11 tells about this and prophesies, "And He shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea; and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart away."

There is no record of any disturbances of the real sea and rivers. The symbolic sea of Assyria's vast armies was smitten and its proud empire was brought down, totally destroyed. Likewise Egypt, so often symbolized by its great Nile River, suffered the prophesied fate. "The scepter of Egypt shall depart away." It was only a little later that Egypt lost its independence and became the vassal of one great power after another.

In Jeremiah 51:42 the prophet foretold the coming fall of Babylon. He said, "The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof." We know Babylon was hundreds of miles inland, and not in the slightest danger from a sea of water. This definitely prophesies the invasion and conquest by the great armies of Media and Persia, which occurred about 60 years after Jeremiah wrote this.

The prophet Isaiah was looking ahead 26 centuries, to our own times, when he wrote in Isaiah 17:12-13, "Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations will rush like the rushing waters: but Yahweh shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the winds, and like a tumbleweed before the whirlwind."

Today we see the evil gathering of all the dark people of the earth, joined together in the hope of crushing and plundering the white race, who are the only really productive people on the earth. In truth, they are gathering only for their own destruction, for Yahweh will thwart their evil plans! We find this evil mentioned in Revelation 13:1. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the names of blasphemy."

The last bestial empire rises out of the sea of the great hordes of Asia and Africa. In Revelation 17:1, 15 we read, "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. And he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues."

Therefore when Yahshua used the symbol of the sea and the waves roaring, He was speaking of an uproar of nations and races. Psalms tell us about this same thing. Psalm 2:1-3 reads, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh and His anointed saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."

This is exactly what we have seen since the end of World War II. The uncivilized races of Asia and Africa have demanded independence. By the wicked connivance of sinister politicians, they have been given it. We see the results of this in the senseless massacres of not only the white people, but even of their fellow savages in the Congo, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Kenya, Rwanda and Urundi, where the negroes are behaving like negroes!

The only trace of civilization they ever had was what the white man brought them, and that is vanishing as the white man is being driven out. These untamed cannibals have been artificially grouped into nations, which they never were. Their newly made national boundaries include many separate tribes, bitterly hostile to each other. This really had only one purpose, to make these artificial nations out of these cannibals, so their vote in the United Nations would out vote the entire civilized world. This would pull the entire world down into that destruction out of which only bold thieves and murderers can profit.

This is not news to Yahweh, Psalm 83:1-4 tells about it. "Keep not thy silence O Yahweh: hold not Thy peace, and be not still, O Yahweh. For lo, Thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate Thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people, and consulted against Thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance."

Indeed, this is what they have done. Traitors within our own nation, hoping to profit by getting greater power in the tyranny which will be set up upon the ruins of our once free republic, are indeed trying to cut us off from being a nation. They are trying to put us completely under the rule of a United Nations world government, in which we would only have one vote. The entire civilized world would have only some 12 to 15 votes, against nearly 100 votes of our enemies, who wait in greedy impatience for the moment when they can enslave and plunder us.

Yahweh will upset their plots as Psalm 46:1-3 tells us. "Yahweh is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will I not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." We know the word mountain is often used as the symbol of a kingdom, an organized nation. How many times in this generation have we seen a mountain or organized government shaken. Then finally, carried into the midst of the sea, or dissolved in revolution by a sea of turbulent people!

This is the sign of which Yahshua spoke, the sea and the waves roaring. It is certainly a sign of the end of the age we have known. If it is allowed to increase, all civilization will be blotted out in a new dark age. Yahweh has promised that we can trust Him to save us, we certainly can't trust our politicians. The great alliance of the entire dark world will march against us, not to our destruction, but to their own.

Psalm 46:6-8 completes the picture. "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttereth His voice, and the earth melted. Yahweh the Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come; behold the works of Yahweh, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh war to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder, He burneth the chariot in the fire."

The evil tumult of the uncivilized nations against us is a bad thing. Our leaders never would have allowed this to happen if they had been true to their trust. The tumult is here and its presence is a sign, not only of the trouble we have gotten ourselves into, but also of the rapid approach of the end of this age.

Psalm 65:5-7 reassures us, "By terrible things righteousness wilt thou answer us, O Yahweh of our salvation: Who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea: which by His strength setteth the noise of the seas, the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people."

Rejoice then, that you have seen this sign of the sea and the waves roaring. While it is evil and threatens death and destruction in itself, yet it is the sign that the return of our Redeemer, Yahshua the Christ, is near. We are at the end of this poor age, but the beginning of the kingdom of Yahweh in full power upon the earth. Yahshua the Christ will be upon His throne as King of Kings forever.