Sign of the Times

When a woman is about to give birth, the birth pangs start shallow and get more intense the closer the time to giving birth.

The Bible talks about the birth pangs of when you'll know when a world economy will be established. Consider the following;

For the past 5 years, oil consumption has eclipsed production
10 years ago China wasn't even in the top 50 oil consumers; now number 2 behind the US
While the world has always had wars, there are more wars and rumor of war than anytime in history.
The world economies are collapsing; by 2020, 90% of the US GDP will go just for paying debt.
Most everyone already is identified by a number; social security, passport, drivers license, bank accts etc. The logical next step is a globalized number scanable permanently on a visible part of your either hand or forehead? The book of Revelation talks about that.
More and more diseases, famines, wild weather, earthquakes in places never before encountered, Global cooling in the 70's; Global warming in the 00's. Near miss by an asteroid last year.
CFR says economically, things will only continue to be on a downward spiral. http://www.cfr.org/publication/22130/eurozone_problem_for_the_united_states.html?breadcrumb=%2Fissue%2F492%2Ffinancial_crises

The world's appetite for oil will only increase if something doesn't change. China generally doesn't like to abide by the rules so to speak, and will continue to hunger for more oil. I find it interesting that the Middle East has much of the worlds oil resources, yet amazingly, Israel, has none? What if, for just a moment, we find out they are sitting on huge reserves..wouldn't be the first time they've kept secrets. More amazing is the fact that the Bible said that Israel's final generation will happen after being dispersed for 2000 years....They became a nation again after a 2000 year absence in 1948, and Jerusalem in 1967.

Ezekiel 38 talks about a 200,000,000- man army along with Persia (Iran) and other Mid-East Countries attacking Israel in a great battle, but 4/5th of that attacking army is destroyed. The only army today with those kinds of numbers is China. While it's no secret the Arab community would like nothing more than to drive Israel into the sea, The surprising kink may be the aligning of China to help for oil considerations? Just speculation.

Matt 24

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%2024&version=NLT