Many people think about bad weather and crop-killing diseases (like Ug99) as factors that will be responsible for causing widespread famine in the future. Some people also cite potential energy shortages, water shortages, and war as other factors that could lead to widespread famine. I believe all of these events are factors that could contribute to widespread future famine, which is inevitable since the Bible tells us that we will see famines in the birth pangs period.
- Mat 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
- Mat 24:8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
In addition, I would not rule out the possibility for some food shortages to be purposely exasperated or engineered by man-made decisions.
- It might seem difficult or crazy to envision that someone would be cruel enough to purposely create a famine or exasperate an existing one. However, such a scenario is not impossible because it has actually happened before. Today I’ll discuss an instance where a man was cruel enough to purposely starved millions of people to advance his agenda.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a man who most likely was demon-possessed, deliberately engineered a famine in the Ukraine and in other areas of the Soviet Union that led to several million deaths in the early 1930s. There are several explanations on what the causes of the famine were, but a commonality in these explanations is that Stalin had a big role in making the situation in the Soviet Union really bad.
Stalin engineered the widespread famine to punish the peasantry throughout the Soviet Union for their perceived lack of cooperation in following his plans. Stalin believed that the collectivization of agriculture was the key to maximizing the Soviet Union’s grain production. Many peasants were against Stalin’s idea because they owned land and did not share Stalin’s Communistic vision. The peasants resisted collectivization by destroying crops and by slaughtering hundreds of millions of farm animals, especially in the Ukraine.[1] Stalin was enraged with the peasants’ defiance and sought to starve the peasants as an act of revenge and as method to eliminate the resistance to his plans.
Stalin eventually was able to force the peasants to surrender their land to the state and to work on collective farms. However, Stalin wasn’t done making the lives of the now enslaved peasantry miserable… The secret police seized peasants’ food and continued to routinely raid homes and villages to seize any new food that the peasants hid. In addition, Stalin ordered the deportation or execution of those who resisted his brutal policies. Unsurprisingly, the grain output declined as the inefficiencies of collectivization and the inefficiencies of forcing starving people to work against their will set in. Much of the grain that was produced was not given to the starving farmers… it was exported to other countries. A person couldn’t even eat a tiny portion of the grain they picked from the fields without risk getting executed. Consequently, food was extremely difficult to find in many areas throughout the Soviet Union.
People did plead to Stalin to stop starving millions of people, but Stalin showed hardly any remorse. Stalin once said to a group of Ukrainian officials that “The Ukraine has been given more than it should” after they begged Stalin for food.[2] Stalin actually made it even harder for starving people to survive as calls for help became louder. For instance, Stalin introduced internal passport polices that made escape from famine-stricken regions in the Soviet Union nearly impossible.
The man-made famine, known as Holodomor in the Ukraine, was so bad that many people turned to cannibalism.[3] Death from starvation was a high probability if a person did not resort to extreme methods to obtain or find subsistence.
The following video contains eyewitness accounts of what happened in Ukraine during this time of famine: Link
To learn more about the brutal famine that Stalin engineered you can find information at the following links:
I wanted to share this tragic historical example so that people do not dispel the notion that leaders can be cruel enough to purposely engineer a famine to advance their own purposes. They can and at least one leader will do so in the future…
The Antichrist is going to be cruel enough to purposely starve people in order to advance his own agenda. Revelation 6:5-6 suggests that there is likely going to be some sort of rationing system in place to control the world’s food supply. I suspect the Antichrist is going to be the one who imposes the rationing system…
- Rev 6:5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
- Rev 6:6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
Revelation 13:17 provides further evidence that Antichrist is likely going to limit how food is distributed during his reign. People will be prohibited from buying or selling items like food if they do not have the Mark of the Beast, the name of the beast, or the number of the beast’s name.
- Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
- Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
People who refuse to have the Mark of the Beast, the beast’s name, or the number of the beast’s name will experience their own personal famine. Without the ability to legally buy or sell food, these people are likely going to struggle to find or obtain food unless they’ve prepared in advance.
- The Antichrist likely hopes that the painful effects of starvation will be so severe that rebels will capitulate to his demands and accept the Mark of the beast, the name of the beast, or the number of the beast’s name. It’s a Stalinesque policy that will test many people’s willingness to die for their beliefs.
It would be wise to keep some extra food in reserve to protect yourself against the threat of natural or man-made famine in the future. You never know how long food may be unavailable for during an emergency-natural or man-made…
References
[1] Montefiore, Simon Sebag. “Holocaust by Hunger”. 26 Jul 2008. Last Accessed Jan 10. 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1038774/Holocaust-hunger-The-truth-Stalins-Great-Famine.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Lukov, Yaroslav. “Ukraine Marks Great Famine Anniversary”. 22 Nov. 2003. Last Accessed Jan 10. 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3229000.stm
