Disasters: 'The end is near'

2005-10-09 22:49

Washington - Prominent US preacher Pat Robertson said on Sunday that recent natural disasters around the world point to the end of the world and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

"These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity," Robertson told CNN, remarking on the coincidence of a major earthquake that killed thousands in Asia on Saturday and recent killer hurricanes slamming the United States.

Those disasters come less than a year after a massive tsunami levels huge portions of South Asia, killing more than 31 000 people and leaving about a million homeless.

Devout Christians believe that the "last days" will be marked by political and geological upheaval, and Roberts said recent events show that those days might have arrived.

Citing scripture from the Bible, the conservative Christian broadcaster said the latter days would be marked by "the birth pangs of a new order, and for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going in labour, you know how these labour pains begin to hit".

"What was called the Blessed Hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium," Robertson said.

"And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labour just before she brings forth a child."

Asked if the world was reaching this moment, Robertson said: "It's possible.

"I don't have any special revelation to say it is, but the Bible does indicate such a time will happen in the end of time. And could this be it? It might be."

- AFP