by Michael G. Mickey
(5-4-08)

Revelation 16:3: And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

While it brings me no joy to report that a topic I have commented on numerous times in the past is in the news once again, reminding us that dark days lie ahead for unrepentant and rebellious mankind as prophesied in the Word of God, I'm proud to say that RaptureAlert.com has been on top of today's subject matter for years: dead zones.

Dead zones are zero to low-oxygen regions in our world's seas and waters where life either cannot survive or is severely threatened.

Fox News is reporting that low-oxygen dead zones are growing in size in our seas and this process has been going on for about fifty years.

The following are excerpts from the Fox News story (emphasis added mine):

Oxygen-depleted zones in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans appear to have expanded over the last 50 years, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

Low-oxygen zones in the Gulf of Mexico and other areas also have been studied in recent years, raising concerns about the threat to sea life.

Continued expansion of these zones could have dramatic consequences for both sea life and coastal economies, said the team led by Lothar Stramma of the University of Kiel in Germany.

The finding was not surprising, Stramma said, because computer climate models had predicted a decline in dissolved oxygen in the oceans under warmer conditions.

Warmer water simply cannot absorb as much oxygen as colder water, explained co-author Gregory C. Johnson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

And....

"So, why should we care?" Bograd said [Steven J. Bograd, a research oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Environmental Research Division]. "Most marine species have minimum oxygen thresholds that they need for survival. As oxygen decreases, these animals will suffer and/or be compelled to move to other areas. Over time, the optimal area for various species will be compressed," he explained.

From the first time I heard of these dead zones in the news, my thought process immediately ran to Revelation 16:3.

Being a lot more familiar with the blood of a dead man than I care to be as a result of my former career as a police officer, one thing I can tell you of it is this: The blood of a dead man is oxygen-depleted.

While I don't pretend to know what is going on in relation to global warming or if global warming, as being presented to us by the scientific community, even exists for that matter, I wholeheartedly believe that something is sucking the oxygen out of our seas and in larger and larger quantities.

A Fox News story from 2006 shows us how widespread the problem was then (note the various locations I set in bold type). Drawing from that article, how much worse must things be now?

Dead zones in other places around the country, such as Hood Canal in Washington and the Mississippi River Delta off Louisiana are caused by agricultural runoff fueling blooms of algae that rot and deplete the oxygen, said Lubchenco. But dead zones like the one off Oregon also occur off Namibia and South Africa in the Atlantic and off Peru in the Pacific.

"We're not really sure what is down the road. If it's just for a short period of time, it will not be as devastating as if it starts lasting a significant fraction of summer," she said.

Crab fishermen in Oregon and Washington are finding dead crabs in their pots, and deeper water fish, such as ling cod, wolf eels and rockfish, are showing up in Oregon tide pools, apparently chased to shore by the dead zone advancing across the Continental Shelf, said Lubchenco.

In Washington, dead fish and crabs are also being spotted on the beach along the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and the Quinault Indian Reservation, Liam Antrim, resource protection specialist for the marine reserve, said from Port Angeles, Wash.

"Last year we did some routine monitoring along six transects every other week. We never documented low oxygen conditions low enough to kill things," Antrim said. "This year we have."

Those who pride themselves in being atheists, God haters, rebellious spirits and the like had best start perking their ears up concerning what is going on around them!

Even a cursory comparison of the news of our world today to what the Holy Bible predicts the last days will look like is dramatic. The deeper one digs into the Bible and its prophecies, the more obvious it becomes that it is far more than a book written by men. It is truly the Word of God! And its predictions? They can be counted on to come to pass precisely as stated.

Someday, potentially even today, Jesus Christ is going to return for His Church. After that, the world is going to swiftly descend into utter chaos! One of the disasters to come? As demonstrated scripturally earlier, the world's seas are going to become one gigantic dead zone.

You NEED Jesus Christ!

If you're reading this today and you're an atheist, an agnostic or simply someone who has never made a commitment in your life to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, it's time to stop playing games with your eternal destiny. The evidence appearing in the news of our world today indicates that you need to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ - and soon!

If you ignore these words and subsequently find yourself left behind, things are going to be bad. Worse than bad! Imagine your worst nightmare and then? Imagine something worse. It's going to be that kind of bad!

Revelation 9:6: And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

While a person may enter into the Tribulation Period and go on to become a Christian and even make it to heaven in the end, why would anyone want to experience a time like we see described in Revelation 9:6? WHY?

Mike, you're trying to scare me!

A lot of people accuse me of using scare tactics to try and lead people to Christ. While that isn't my intention at all, if someone gets scared and they cry out to Jesus as a result? Praise the Lord! I'd rather scare people into heaven than watch them complacently travel down the superhighway to hell without so much as hitting a pot hole along the way!

Everyone wants to travel down the path of least resistance these days. I know that but I am compelled by my convictions to tell the cold, hard truth to a lost and dying world that doesn't hear a lot of truth anyplace else, truth being such a politically incorrect and controversial thing these days and all.

In my childhood I had a pastor who often said, "There is a heaven to gain and there is a hell to shun." He told us that as a congregation because he loved us. I tell my readers the same and for the same reason.

Please, if you're reading this and you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, consider coming to faith in Christ before it's too late.

Jesus loves you, forgiveness of your sins is available, and the free gift of salvation is yours for the asking!

If today you are a lost soul and tomorrow finds you a lost soul as well, you will have no one to blame for your predicament but yourself if things go nightmarishly wrong as a result. Why? Because this day, through this very commentary, you were warned that sin has consequences. You were even told that Jesus Christ could and would save your soul if only you would ask Him to and simply place your trust in Him, believing in His sinless life, death of atonement on the cross of Calvary on your behalf and His resurrection from the dead.

Jesus Christ is coming soon! BE READY!