Even before America put a man on the moon in 1969, the world has been fascinated with outer space. UFO sightings officially started in the 1950s.
Pop culture celebrated the possibilities of space travel and interaction with aliens with television shows like Star Trek and movies like Star Wars in the 1970s.
The entertainment industry has made a pretty penny on outer space theme since then and now some of what we saw on the movie screens isn’t as far fetched as it once was.
In 2014, Virgin Galactic signed a deal with the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority to allow it to chater space flights from its base in New Mexico. Most recently Jeff Bezos blasted into space with his own rocket. And billionaire innovator Elon Musk is developing a vehicle called Starship that could reportedly be a game changer for space travel.
Meanwhile, the National Aeuronautics Space Administration (NASA), is planning a simulated Mars mission even while it attempts to scoop soil from Mars itself.
These are groundbreaking moves, but danger looms.
Space Disasters
While waiting on the Lord, I heard Him speak about outer space tragedies. We’ve seen outer space tragedies in the past, with the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Space Shuttle Colombia disaster in 2003.
But there’s another type of outer space tragedy about which we must pray–asteroids hitting the earth. This doesn’t seem imminent, according to NASA, though it is pointing to a potentially dangerous asteroid called Bennu that has a 1 in 1,750 chance of hitting the earth between now and 2300.
History shows asteroids have hit the earth time and again over the past millions of years. The last major one was 35 million year ago in what is now Virginia.
End-Times Catastrophes
But as I researched the history and modern space explorations, the Holy Spirit reminded me of His Word. God created the earth–and the entire universe. The sun, moon and stars are the work of His hands (see Psalms 8:3-4). God determined the number of stars and gave them all names (see Psalms 19:1).
Eventually, we will see the most awe-striking outer space tragedy of all: and we can’t stop it. We read about this in prophetic visions and words from the Book of Revelation, starting with the Third Trumpet.
“Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter” (Revelation 8:10).
The outer space tragedy cntinues with the fourth trumpet:
“Then the fourth angel sounded: And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did not shine, and likewise the night. And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, ‘Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!’”
The fifth trumpet continues the calamity from the heavens to the earth:
“Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit” (Revelation 9:1-2).
By this point, life on earth becomes unbearable for unbelievers: “In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them” (Revelation 9:6).
Whether or not wee see Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or astronauts die in outer space tragedies or see an astroid make a catastrophes hit on the heart, the trumpets will blow and they may blow sooner than we think. We can’t pray away end-times prophecy, but we can pray through end-times prophecy.
