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BIRTH PANG NUMBER 10

April 27, 2010

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CHAPTER 12 – LIGHT AT NIGHT FOLLOWS THE EXCERPT FROM THE STAR VIA CHINA DAILY/ANN VIA WORLD NEWS

Mankind will learn a great deal more about volcanic eruptions in the Tribulation Period.

Begin Excerpt from The Star via China Daily/ANN via World News

What have we learnt from volcano ash crisis?

By WU LIMING

BEIJING: Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted last Wednesday, spewing steam and billows of ash into the sky. The volcanic eruption is not, by any means, a large-scale one and has not caused casualties up to now.

However, the eruption has pulled Europe out of track. Because of the ash spreading to the European continent, cancelled flights to, from, and within Europe have affected millions of travellers worldwide and reportedly cost airliners some US$200mil a day.

Since the eruption of a small-scale volcano like the Eyjafjallajokull could trigger massive chaos, it is of course worthwhile to explore the lessons from the volcano ash crisis.

First and foremost, an early warning and forecasting system is vital to tackling the fallout resulting from the volcanic eruption.

It is commonly accepted that volcanic eruptions are unpredictable. But it is possible to monitor and forecast the movement and scale of volcano ash.

Scientists in Europe have performed their duty well in sending early warning of the volcano ash, thus avoiding potential aviation disasters.

German news magazine Spiegel reported that Icelandic meteorologists informed their British colleagues at midday on Wednesday. The British meteorologists immediately put their super computer on the job, and 15 minutes later, they had their first forecast of how the dust cloud would probably spread.

“A warning was sent out to airlines at 2pm, long before the cloud reached the European continent,” said the news magazine.

However, Europeans reacted slowly to rationally arrange train and road transportation systems to divert the people trapped at airports. Statistics showed that by late Sunday, more than 63,000 flights had been cancelled in 23 European countries, stifling the lifeblood of the continent’s economy.

Because few planes are available for service, travellers can’t continue their travel, machinery parts can’t get to factories, food sellers can’t transport their goods, and businesses find it increasingly difficult to maintain regular business activities.

As an old Chinese saying goes: “It is never too late to mend the sheepfold.”

The Icelandic volcano ash crisis has helped expand people’s knowledge about volcanic eruptions, and various debates and assessments are conducted or to be conducted across the globe, Europe in particular.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has decided to set up an ad hoc group to assess the impact of the volcanic ash cloud on the air travel industry and the economy.

“The volcanic ash cloud has created an unprecedented situation,” Barroso said in a statement, adding that it was important that all measures to be considered were coordinated at the European level.

The transport ministers from all 27 European Union states are planning a video conference to discuss counter measures, aiming to bar more negative impact on the Euro­pean economy, which is still struggling out of the financial crisis.

However, the railway companies and road transporters are benefiting from the crisis. Major railway stations across West Europe are crowded with passengers and Eurostar tickets are fully booked even two days ahead of departure.

As the volcano ash spreads across borders, people are calling for more international and regional coordination and cooperation.

As a matter of fact, meteorologists, airline companies and governments across Europe have held timely and smooth exchanges of their information since the volcanic eruption.

In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami drove the international community to enhance the global early warning system for tsunami.

Later on, in the Haiti earthquake and the Chile earthquake earlier this year, such an early warning system played a vital role in preventing more deaths and casualties in the aftermath of the earthquakes.

Similarly, the Icelandic volcano ash crisis could press Europeans to realise the importance of more international and regional coordination and cooperation, and volcano ash monitoring and warning could become a regular practice in Europe in the future. ­— China Daily/ANN

BEGIN CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12–LIGHT AT NIGHT

Zechariah 14:4-7
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. [5] And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. [6] And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: [7] But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.

A most unusual phenomenon: light at night from the sun! When will it occur? The answer is found in verses 4 and 5, which describe the cleavage of the Mount of Olives, a definite occurrence of the latter portion of the Tribulation Period. In the latter part of the Tribulation Period the great cloud shroud of figure 14 will have established itself around the entire earth above the tropopause. It is this great cloud shroud that will fulfill the prophecies of verses 6 and 7. Verse 6 states that the light will not be clear nor dark. To a Hebrew clear light was unobstructed light, a light that came from its source to fall on an object with no obstructions between. A Hebrew viewed darkness as the absence of light. So we are advised that there will be some light (it will not be pitch dark), but the light will not be clear light (it will be partially obstructed). This is a perfect description of what we call a cloudy day. On days when the skies are overcast we do have light, but it is not clear light, for the clouds obstruct our view of the sun. The light on a cloudy day reaches us by a process that involves reflection, refraction, and scattering of the light from the sun. During the latter portion of the Tribulation Period man will not see the sun. But limited light, of varying degrees, will penetrate the great cloud shield in the stratosphere. It will be a dull, gray, depressing light in which the inhabitants of the earth are struggling for survival. But how can it come to pass “that at evening time it shall be light?” How is it possible that, at every location on the face of the earth, tere will be some light during the evening hours when normally it is pitch dark?

About 20 years ago, after presenting a lecture series in California for Dr. Reed, I departed the Los Angeles area by jet to Dallas, flying at an altitude just below 40 thousand feet. It was a beautiful day from the surface to the top of the atmosphere along the entire flight path, with clear skies above and below the aircraft. As we crossed Arizona and New Mexico the light from the sun beamed upon the ground below us, and through the air above us. When we crossed into Texas there were no clouds below or above us, and the sun was beaming on the aircraft with its full brilliance, but as I looked toward the earth’s surface I begin to notice tiny pinpoints of light on the ground. People had turned on the lights below us because it was dark at ground level. The curvature of the earth had already blocked off the surface rays of the sun at ground level across Texas, but at our flight level and above it was broad daylight. If there had been a way for me to take the light at high levels and direct it downward, it would have produced dim light on the surface below, where darkness had enshrouded Texas. It is not by accident that the God of light, who is Light, has very conveniently established a law in nature where this is predictably possible – The law of refraction.

Laws are not theories. They are like God because they are made by God. They are consistent and can always be counted to act in a predictable, unchanging manner. It is not my purpose to teach physics, so I will refrain from a technical discussion of the law itself, and will rather refer those interested in such a dissertation to any general physics textbook. Refraction occurs because light waves travel at different speeds through different substances. Refraction involves the bending of light waves as they move from one medium to another. In figure 15 you can see the bending effect on light as it passes from a less dense medium (air) into a more dense medium (water). If you want to see this bending of light in action, drop a pencil and a coin into a glass about three-fourths full of water. The pencil will appear to be broken at the water surface, and the coin will appear to be on the side of the glass. This is a phenomenon produced by refraction.

Why is it that we still have light long after the sun has disappeared over the horizon? And why do we have light in the morning before the sun comes into view? You guessed it! It is the law of refraction at work. As the sun’s rays travel through space, they move very rapidly, as if in a vacuum, but when contact is made with the more dense atmospheric medium of the earth, the light decelerates, and is bend around the curvature of the earth by the law of refraction. This law causes the light to reach the surface before the sun appears in the morning, and to trail behind on the surface long after the early evening sun disappears.

The great cloud of volcanic smoke will be firmly established as shown in figure 14 by the time the battle of Armageddon occurs. This great encompassing shroud will vertically be thousands of feet thick and, as such, a very dense medium through which the sun’s rays must filter on their way to the earth’s surface. As the rays filter through by refraction and scattering, they will be severely bent around the curvature of the earth’s surface. As you may observe in figure 16, the small island, on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, would normally be experiencing an evening of complete darkness. However, because of the refraction and scattering of sunshine through the great volcanic cloud, light would be bent around the earth to strike the island, and “it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.” Such would be the case at every location on the surface of the earth. The intensity of the light at any given point would be affected by the distance it had to be refracted, and by the thickness of cloud through which it had to pass. No spot on the earth would receive clear light (unobstructed), and no spot on the earth would ever be dark (lightless).