Mass Deaths of Rare Antelope

One thing we are watching for is pestilence...because Jesus said it would increase as the nearness of His return draws close.  Disease in humans, mass fish die-offs, animal extinctions...all are additional signs that the earth is groaning in birth pangs....as pestilence increases.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: The sudden deaths of tens of thousands of endangered antelopes in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan over the past two weeks have left scientists scrambling for answers and conservationists worried about the animal's future. 

Over 120,000 rare saiga antelopes — more than a third of the total global population — have been wiped out in a devastating blow that the United Nations Environment Programme has called "catastrophic". 

UN experts have said the mass deaths are down to "a combination of biological and environmental factors." 

Scientists have struggled to put their finger on the exact nature of the disease that has felled entire herds, but say findings point towards an infectious disease caused by various bacteria. 

Any infections have likely been exacerbated by recent rains that have made the antelopes — 90 per cent of which live on the steppes of central Asian Kazakhstan — less able to cope with diseases. 

"Unseasonal wetness may have been something that lowered their immunity to infection but until we do more analysis we will not know anything for sure," Steffen Zuther of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative told AFP. 

The rate of the deaths has staggered those who have studied the species — whose ancestors have inhabited the region since the ice age. 

"A one hundred per cent mortality for the herds affected is extraordinary," said Richard Kock, a professor at the Royal Veterinary College in London who recently returned from Kazakhstan. 

"We are dealing with creatures that have fairly low resilience." 

The sudden spate of deaths comes as a nasty shock as up until recently the saiga antelopes — which live for between six and 10 years and are known for their protruding noses — had been hailed as something of a conservation success. 

Here;  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Mass-deaths-of-rare-antelopes-in-Kazakhstan-stir-conservation-fears/articleshow/47478291.cms

If you turn on your TV's and open your newspaper you will find that lots of strange, "never before seen", "Most EVER!" headlines are splattered all over them almost every day...kind of like contractions on a pregnant lady giving birth.

Romans 8:22 

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

One day, maybe soon, Jesus will return in the clouds and a loud trumpet call will sound calling all Christ followers into the sky to join Jesus there in our newly-given glorified bodies.  This 'taking away with force' will give way to the Antichrist coming to power who will quickly seize upon the chaos and opportunity provided by God's snatching away the Bride of Christ.  He will sign a peace agreement with Israel and will give them the authority to build a Temple and begin sacrificing animals for the atonement of sin.  The peace agreement will be for 7 years but half way into it, the Antichrist will turn on the Jews and attempt to kill them all.  Jesus will return to rescue the remnant of Jews who call out for Him as savior.  He will also put an end to Armageddon which would have destroyed all flesh on earth had Jesus not intervened and cut those days short.  Jesus will then set up his 1000 year Kingdom here on earth and we will return with Him in our glorified-eternal bodies to rule and reign with him over the humans who accepted Christ and survived the previous 7 years.

Awesome!!  Are we all ready and eager for Christ to call us into the clouds?  Are we all ready and eager to give an accounting of our lives to our Creator of WHAT we did for the Master's kingdom AFTER he saved us by plucking us off the wide road headed to eternal damnation in hell?

If we aren't then let's get busy doing things that will please The Master.