You'll find this article incredible — almost unbelievable. These stark facts will chill you; they'll stagger your imagination — but they're TRUE! Read here the TRUTH about the haunting specter of famine and starvation now spreading around the world and what your Bible says about OUR peoples facing terrible drought and famine!
HUNGER is the world's number one problem. Even as you read this, thousands are starving. Before another five years from now, unless some totally unexpected reversal in present trends occurs, MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of humans will die of starvation and disease! Dr. Raymond Ewell, professor at State University of New York in Buffalo recently stated, "It is hard for us sitting in rich, comfortable, overfed America to realize that the GREATEST DISASTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD is just around the corner!" (Emphasis mine throughout article) "We are fast approaching the greatest catastrophe in world history," he said, "Great areas of the earth are on the threshold of famine." And before a Senate subcommittee, Thomas M. Ware, head of the Freedom from Hunger Foundation recently testified, "Very few grasp the magnitude of the danger that confronts us... The catastrophe is not something that may happen; on the contrary, it is a mathematical certainty that it WILL happen!"
Overshadows All World Problems
Senator George McGovern, who was U.S. Food for Peace director before his election to the Senate in 1962 said, "Mass starvation will be the most painful fact of life on this planet within 10 years." Every other problem of the world, no matter how immediate, how critical, how desperate, is overshadowed by famine now beginning to envelop the earth. If there were no wars, no racial tensions, no political differences — the daily march of the specter of famine would continue to haunt world leaders. Most world leaders are beginning to recognize the stark dangers of world famine. A group of Nobel Prize winners said, in a joint declaration, "Unless a favorable balance of population and resources is achieved with a minimum of delay, there is in prospect a dark age of human misery, famine, under-education and unrest which would generate a growing panic, exploding in wars fought to appropriate the dwindling means of survival." Dr. Ewell showed how problems of increased crime, juvenile delinquency, water pollution, air pollution, urban deterioration, noise, dirt, waste disposal, racial friction and others fade into "relative insignificance" compared with the food problem in many countries! He mentioned specifically Asian countries, Africa, and Latin America, where the threat of mass starvation hangs over the heads of two and one-half BILLION people! Said Dr. Ewell, "This is the biggest, most fundamental, and most nearly insoluble problem that has ever faced the human race!"
Where Famine Is Striking NOW!
At this moment, thousands starve! The Food and Agricultural Organization estimates a "low" figure of ten thousand deaths occur daily due to starvation! Dr. Georg Borgstrom said, "Half of the one billion children alive right now throughout the world will never reach adulthood!" Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that one person in every two in the world is badly nourished, and that one in three is chronically hungry. Nearly two-thirds of the human beings on earth know some form of hunger — barely subsist from day to day. William L. Ryan, Associated Press Special Correspondent who wrote a series of articles on the population explosion, said, "Frightening specters haunt... the world today. These are the specters of widespread famine, pestilence, violence and ultimately war, less than a generation from now!" Said one expert, "It is five minutes to midnight in the battle against hunger. When the clock strikes twelve, we may find ourselves uttering the saddest of all refrains: 'too little and too late.' " Among the problems that cannot wait for leaders to talk over is India. The worst famine in half a century is coming upon India Now! A report published by the Central Food Technological Research Institute in Mysore, India, said India loses 9.66 BILLION dollars' worth of food each year, twice as much as the Indian government's annual budget! Insects, rats and bad storage destroy HALF of all the food produced in India! Think of it! At least twenty-five percent of all food grown for human consumption is destroyed each year by rodents alone! If India could prevent such losses from pests, and losses due to inefficient processing and storage, she could not only become completely self-supporting in food, but would have an annual surplus! The stark facts of the enormous crisis in India are appalling! Presidential aides have worked out a paper to present to President Johnson warning that India will need the ENTIRE U.S. WHEAT CROP to make up for its food shortages within another five years. Pests alone consume MORE than the 6 million tons of grain we send annually to India — and this year EVERY THIRD BUSHEL OF WHEAT goes to India! Yet such extensive aid from the United States will not solve the problem. Rather, it further depletes surpluses within the United States, while not even making up for the amount of foodstuffs lost in India through rodents and poor storage. How would you like to live in a city of three million people — and know only 650,000 ration cards were being issued for the purchases of staples? The people of New Delhi find themselves in this exact condition. One pound of wheat sells on the Black Market for approximately $21! At least two families offered their children for sale in exchange for food. Government officials, trying to apprehend those guilty of hoarding, found one cache of wheat weighing one ton! That's about 42 thousand dollars' worth on the New Delhi Black Market! India is in serious trouble! But India is not the only nation being afflicted by famine. In little Haiti, in the Caribbean, conditions are so appalling so as to be virtually indescribable! A newspaper reporter, returning from another visit to Haiti after an absence of some years, tried to explain about the tragedy there. He said, "Here are a few stark facts I learned on my latest visit: one of every five children dies before it is 90 days old; only one of every two Haitian children lives until its first birthday; life expectancy here is 35 years." He went on to describe the terrible illiteracy and superstition (90 percent cannot read or write), and said doctors report more than 95 percent of Haitian children are afflicted with intestinal parasites. In Haiti, both hunger and hookworm contribute to the national inertia. Starving adults and children alike are seen actually eating dirt — scooping raw soil and dirt into their mouths — in an attempt to stave off pangs of starvation! The dirt is loaded with larvae of parasites, which infest the bodies of Haitians. Naturally, their resistance to any disease is low. Unbelievable as it sounds, more than FIFTY PERCENT Of the population suffers from active tuberculosis! Women give birth to babies in fields, or roadside ditches. Only five to ten percent of Haitian people take in anywhere near a normal amount of food. The condition of the other 90 and more percent is pitiable — wretched!
Where DROUGHT Promises Even MORE Famine
South Africans of all religions, in a completely unprecedented move, gathered in their churches to pray for rain recently. The reason: prolonged drought that was threatening their very national security! As if miraculously, scattered rains came — but caused flooding in some areas, including cave-ins and eroding of highway and railway embankments. For years, South African ranchers and farmers have been desperately afflicted by drought. Massive truck lifts of cattle were begun. Ten thousand cattle were to be moved by road and rail away from parched Transvaal, in an effort which was described as the "salvation of the cattle... and ultimately the country's meat supplies for many years to come." The drought was described by THE STAR, Johannesburg, as "The WORST FOR A CENTURY!" The levels of South African dams have never been lower — some reduced to mere inches. Even hardy game is dying. Mile after mile of stricken country lies under a huge dust cloud which "blots out the sun." Only the largest farmers are having their overdrafts extended by the banks, and many smaller farmers are sinking into bankruptcy. Australia is suffering, too! A vast pall of red dust covered ONE-SIXTH OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT recently, finally sweeping out to sea, leaving thousands of suffocated sheep in its wake. Birds hovered on the ground, unable to fly. Aircraft were grounded, and entire townships slowed to a standstill as the huge clouds of dust covered more than a half-million square miles of Queensland and northern New South Wales. The dust storm resulted from a five-state drought which has held its parched grip on Australia for the past year — and which resulted in an "alarming drop in farm production" according to Charles Adermann, Australian Minister for Primary Production. Australia can't be called upon for helping the rest of the hungry world, when more than ONE HUNDRED MILLION BUSHELS LESS WHEAT will be produced this year! And in Rhodesia, already under economic siege from Great Britain and the United States, DROUGHT was described as a greater threat than the trade sanctions! Crops there were withering in the summer sun. Grazing lands were so bare that the government attempted to move 200,000 head of cattle from Matabeleland northward. Said Lawrence Fellows, in a special article to the New York Times, "unless the drought is broken this month many thousands of Rhodesian families may face starvation!" So SERIOUS is the situation that it is taking more of the time and energy of the Rhodesian government than their defensive measures against the economic warfare being waged against them by much of the world. And in Canada, it was announced India would get an additional 15 million dollars' worth of foods, increasing to nearly 70 million dollars the total value of outright gifts and credits extended India since 1965 began. In the midst of it all — with famine stalking Asia, Central and South America, parts of Africa — much of the world looks to the "great surpluses" of the United States to keep the food coming! But how long can America feed the world? Here are the stark facts!
Surpluses Disappearing
Today, large shipments of wheat to India, Japan and South America are gobbling up American wheat reserves at a frightening rate. Said warehouse owners in Topeka, Kansas, "The awesome farm surplus is NEARLY GONE!" Grain warehouses in the sprawling American Midwest, once filled to bursting with ripe grain, are being drained, and drained FAST, for export! Officials report the huge storage facilities in Kansas, heart of the nation's wheat country, are only about 40 percent filled. As you read this article, they were predicted to be down to about 20 percent. If conditions continue at the present rate — they will soon be EMPTY! The growing problems in Kansas echo those of every other wheat-belt state. Warehouse owners worry that unless a change in government policy comes, prospects forever filling their huge storage bins again are very dim. Accenting the problem is the fact that, from July to November, more than ONE QUARTER of the national reserves were drained from the bins, and about ninety percent of that was for export — mainly under the "Food for Peace" program. The attempt to feed the hungry world is defeating. One staff economist of the Department of Agriculture says, "Food shipments from developed countries can help" (alleviate the conditions in India, Latin America, etc) "but they cannot account for more than a very small fraction of the projected increases in (world) food needs over the next several years." The cold facts are, that if the United States were to donate its entire surplus for one year to feed the world's hungry people — it would mean only two handfuls of food once each 17 days for every person. You may not realize the U.S. has shipped food to FIFTY food-short nations over the past 11 years, amounting to a gross investment of FOURTEEN AND ONE-HALF BILLION DOLLARS! In an article asking, "How Long Can America Feed World's Hungry?" The Los Angeles Times said, "... even as they [send food abroad] that means daily bread to millions on three continents, officials know that something more than U.S. surpluses is needed if the specter of famine is to be stilled." Pointing out the really GRIM and FRIGHTENING part of the problem, the Times said, "Even if money and pressure and cooperation from local governments succeed in producing real advances in the underdeveloped world's food production, the prospect will still be grim if populations keep exploding." The POPULATION explosion is the overawing danger now looming in the near future! And remember one vital fact! The attempt of the U.S., Canada, and some other countries to feed the world's hungry millions is based on the assumption WE WILL NOT BE STRICKEN BY DROUGHT — that we will be able to produce at least as much food this year as last, and even MORE and MORE foodstuffs in the future! That is a mighty dangerous assumption!
PEOPLE — PEOPLE — PEOPLE
Believe it or not — if all the food of the world, including all available surplus stores, were equally distributed among each man, woman and child — every human being on earth would be undernourished! We don't grow NEAR enough food to feed the population of the world Now! But today's population is only a fraction of what it will ultimately become — unless the trend is stopped, and reversed. Said the editor of Harper's Magazine, "In the future the chief danger of war seems likely to come, not from an arms race or even from the classic causes, but from an element new in history: the pressure of population." He showed how major wars appear to be "inevitable" if the earth's population continues to rise! Harry Ferguson, UPI National Reporter, said, "The relentless rise of population in the under-developed nations seems to make (all) efforts (to feed the world's hungry) as futile as sprinkling water on the hot desert sands. An unequal race is being run between food and the numbers who need to be fed." Maybe it's difficult for you — if your grocery stores and supermarkets still fill their shelves with food — to grasp the chilling meaning behind these overwhelming conditions! YOU'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH HEADLINES BEFORE! YOU have NEVER lived in times like these before! You live in a day of CRISIS! It's a time of impending DOOM — unless the day-by-day march of events is halted! These conditions are REAL — frighteningly so — and you can't afford NOT to face them squarely! The MONTHLY increase in population in India IS ONE MILLION PEOPLE! That means the malnourished and starving Indian population will have increased by more than the present total population of the United States — and within 15 short years! For you Australians — that means India's YEARLY INCREASE matches your TOTAL POPULATION! Think about it. China adds to her population yearly the same number as Canada's total population! Take a look at the staggering figures of total world populations — the relentless pressure of people that will mean awesome food wars unless the course is reversed. The world didn't reach its first billion people until comparatively modern times — 1850. But then it took only 80 years to reach the second billion. Then came another BILLION people; this time in only 30 years. This brings us to 1960. But now look at the figures skyrocket! HALVE the 30 years for the next BILLION people, bringing us to 1975! Then additional billions keep coming in ever-decreasing spans of time until several BILLIONS could be added EACH MONTH! Could be — that is — unless MILLIONS OR EVEN BILLIONS DIE FIRST! The rising curve of population seems to streak skyward, nearly toppling over backward, when studied on a chart! In another 24 years (21 have disappeared since World War II!), the present population of the U.S. would be 362 MILLION — DOUBLE what it is today! But foodstuffs are being lost; destroyed by weather; sent abroad to feed starving millions — or not produced at all! WHY? WHY are all these horrifying troubles descending upon us at the same time?
Christ Foretold Our Times!
Jesus Christ was asked for the signals in world conditions that would prove His intervention in human affairs was near! He answered, "... You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars... nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." And your newspapers are literally FILLED with THOSE SPECIFIC CONDITIONS! Further, your Bible prophesied OUR peoples would be stricken with drought, famine, and disease epidemics! We are the "lost ten tribes" of ISRAEL of your Bible — and you can PROVE that to yourself by reading our free booklet, The United States and the British Commonwealth in Prophecy. Listen to what God said would come upon our peoples — and notice how exact conditions are becoming today! But if you will not listen to me; if you will not do all I order you... I will subject you to terrible woes, to consumption and fever that waste the eyes and wear life away: you shall sow seed in vain, for YOUR ENEMIES will eat YOUR crops!" (Lev. 26:14-16, Moffat). God said, "For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but eight gallons, and the harvest shall only be a tenth of what is sown!" (Isa. 5:10) Can you imagine carrying a hundred sacks of wheat into the field to plant, and harvesting only ONE sack? But THIS HAS HAPPENED — and MORE IS COMING! DROUGHT was prophesied to strike our peoples! Listen to the startling accuracy of these prophecies! "I will make the sky hard as iron for you and the earth hard as bronze, till you spend your strength in vain; for your land shall bear no crops, and your trees shall bear no fruit" (Lev. 26:19-20). "... The Eternal will strike you with... drought, blasting, and mildew, that shall pursue you till you perish; the sky overhead shall be brass and the earth underfoot shall be iron; the Eternal will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust dropping from the sky upon you..." (Deut. 28:22-24). The EXACT conditions you've just read about! Further, God warned, "... a strange nation will eat up your crops and all the fruit of your labor, and you shall be utterly crushed and broken continually, till you are driven mad by the sight of it all... Much seed shall you carry to the field, but little shall you reap!" (Deut. 28:33-38)
We Ask, "But WHY?" Here's God's Answer!
WHY? "... Because you would not listen to the voice of the Eternal your God, KEEPING HIS COMMANDMENTS and orders for you:... because you have not served the Eternal your God with joy and with a glad heart for all your abundance; therefore, with hunger and thirst and nakedness and utter poverty, shall you serve the foes the Eternal sends against you!" (Deut. 28:45-47) What about You? What about the people you know? What about our institutions, our governments, our businesses and our lodges, our entertainment and our industry, our scientists and our military men? HAVE WE SERVED GOD? HAVE we? No! We have served our own selfish interests — we've served our vanities and our lusts! We call FILTH "new morality"! We try to make pornography, swill, unfaithfulness, infidelity, fornication, adultery and even homosexuality into "TRUE LOVE"! We try to rescue OURSELVES from our terrible farm problems, our weather problems, our race problems, our marital and personal problems! We want God to get out of our consciousness and our lives when the going is EASY — and then BLAME Him when the going gets TOUGH! Farmers in South Africa recently hung out signs on their fences above a bucket which said, in effect, "Throw your pennies in here, so we can buy spectacles for God that He might see the sufferings of both man and beast!" Days later they went to their churches to pray for rain! ARE we rebellious and disobedient? Do we ignore God's Word, His LAWS which He gave for our GOOD, His Christ He sent to show US HOW TO LIVE? Yes! God said, "And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, 'Wherefore hath the Eternal pronounced all this great evil against us?' or 'What is our iniquity?' or 'What is our sin that we have committed against the Eternal our God?' Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Eternal, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law" (Jer. 16:10-11). The judgments of God are SURE! They're COMING! And no amount of "reasoning" or human arguments and deceit will stave them off! Even now OUR peoples are beginning to feel the bite of the blade of famine and drought — of disease and wars — just as Christ said!
But There Is a Way Out!
Your Creator pulls no punches! He doesn't leave his people without a witness; nor leave them in the dark concerning His REASONS for these impending national punishments! Notice these striking prophecies of Jeremiah! "Thus saith the Eternal of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these! [or; We're GOD'S people — This is GOD'S COUNTRY — surely GOD would not be against us?] For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, If ye oppress NOT the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed NOT innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt, Then will I cause you to dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever!" (Jer. 7:3-7) But we HAVE NOT changed our ways to GOD'S WAYS (Isa. 55:7-8). He continues, "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are DELIVERED to do all these abominations'?" (Jer. 7:8-10) Our peoples LEAD THE WORLD in crime, adultery, divorce, our lust for VIOLENCE, and our myriad forms of our own humanly devised religions! God warns, "Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Eternal: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Eternal God, Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched!" (Jer. 7:19-20) Again — WHY? Because of our personal and national WAYS OF LIVING! We BREAK God's Holy laws with impunity — we SCORN His very existence — we DENY His prophecies — we FIGHT AND SQUABBLE over His own Holy Word, the Bible! All this, and still we "claim" to be "God's people!" Ezekiel was inspired to predict the conditions striking our peoples today! Remember, his prophecies were directed to ISRAEL — and were written more than 120 years after Israel had DISAPPEARED from history; supposedly never to be heard from again! But Ezekiel meant MODERN Israel — he meant OUR peoples! (Read our free article, "WHY PROPHECY?") "Wherefore as I live, saith the Lord Eternal, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore will I also diminish you; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity"! "A THIRD PART of you shall die with the pestilence [huge continent-wide disease epidemics!] and with FAMINE shall they be consumed in the midst of you! And a third part shall fall by the sword [always a symbol of WAR in the Bible!] round about you, and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them"! (Ezek. 5:11-12) God says His own peoples, who forgot their identity, and who refuse to acknowledge Him in their personal lives, will become a byword and a curse in the mouths of those very peoples we have tried so hard to feed and keep alive! "Moreover I will make you waste, and a reproach and a taunt, an instruction [a LESSON!] and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about you, when I shall execute judgments in you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes!" (Ezek. 5:14-15) When would God begin to really PUNISH our peoples as never before? How can you PROVE IT MEANS us? Listen! "When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of FAMINE, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the FAMINE upon you, and will BREAK YOUR STAFF OF BREAD"! (Ezek. 5:16) This means us! It is COMING! It IS SURE! Famine is developing NOW! But there is a way of escape from these plagues in our "modern" age for YOU — if you're willing to heed — if you're willing to SEEK YOUR GOD! Read the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel. Read how God says any who will really HEED the voice of HIS WATCHMEN will be PROTECTED from these perilous times ahead! Read our free articles, "What is REAL Repentance?," "What is a REAL Christian?" and "Just What do you Mean — SALVATION?" Remember, God promises, "You shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday. "A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you!... "Because you have made the ETERNAL... even the MOST HIGH, your habitation; There shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near YOUR dwelling." (Ps. 91:5-10) Christ said, of those who are faithfully performing His Work, proclaiming His last WARNING MESSAGE to this world (Matt. 24:14), "Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of trial (TRIBULATION!) which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth"! (Rev. 3:10) The choice is entirely yours. May the Creator who gives you your every breath help you to have the spiritual courage to make the RIGHT choice!
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