It’s Tuesday afternoon, May 24. I was just outside during the lunch hour, and it was warm, peaceful, a little blustery.

But as I write from my office in Edmond, Oklahoma, meteorologists are warning that we’re just a couple hours away from possibly getting hammered by another cluster of killer tornadoes on the scale of what happened in Alabama last month.

By the time you read this, you’ll know whether they were right.

Looking out my window right now, it looks benign. A little overcast. But the weathermen have detected a textbook combination of tornado-producing ingredients: rich low-level moisture; atmospheric instability produced by cold, dry air colliding with warm, muggy air; strong wind shear and a few others. Looking at projection maps, it looks like all these factors line up pretty much right on top of our offices in Edmond.

The first warnings came yesterday evening. I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 14 years, and I don’t recall ever receiving this much advance notice regarding tornadoes. Apparently they have upgraded their detection methods in recent months.

Their warnings are particularly ominous for two reasons.

First is the shocking devastation that tornadoes have unleashed this year already. Last month, over 600 twisters touched down in America—nearly quadruple what is typical for April, and two and a half times more than the previous record.

It had already been the deadliest tornado season in the U.S. since the mid-1970s, with 365 deaths. Then, this past Sunday, came Joplin.

I’ve been there many times; it’s only three hours’ drive from here. Sunday, a monster twister ripped through, leveling swaths of suburbia a half-mile wide along a six-mile stretch, leaving the town unrecognizable.

This YouTube clip, recorded by someone taking refuge in a Fastrip gas station, is utterly gut wrenching. This is what true terror sounds like: people absolutely helpless in the face of incomprehensibly violent forces annihilating their town and threatening their lives.

Turns out that twister killed 117 people and injured over 1,150—numbers that will probably go higher. That’s more victims than any tornado has claimed since records started being kept six decades ago.

The principal of Joplin High School compared it to World War ii devastation. cnn iReporter Zach Tusinger, who lost his uncle and aunt in the tornado, said, “You could have probably dropped a nuclear bomb on the town and I don’t think it would have done near as much damage as it did.”

That same day, another 67 twisters touched down across the Midwest.

Outside my window, forces are gathering that threaten to leave more Joplins, more Tuscaloosas, in their wake this evening.

This morning, as my family had breakfast and we looked out the window, we talked about how the people in Joplin did the same thing two days before, completely unaware that by that night their town, their lives, would be forever changed. Apparently they weren’t given a day’s notice. Only 20 minutes or so.

The other reason the warnings about this evening have hit me so strongly is that we at the Trumpet have spent the last week assembling a booklet called Why ‘Natural’ Disasters? This is what our minds have been on: recalling some of the more devastating events in recent years, reflecting on the lessons from these tragedies—and then comparing them to the Bible’s explanation as to their causes, and its prophecies of such things increasing in frequency in our day.

This past weekend, our editor in chief’s Key of David program was on this very subject. There may well have been people in Joplin who saw that program Sunday morning as they had breakfast with their families.

I sincerely appreciate the advance notice of what’s coming this evening. We’ve been praying for safety and protection for everyone. If a tornado touches down close by, I know exactly where to evacuate to; my family and my co-workers will all be there, safe from any danger. The warning has given us an opportunity to brace ourselves.

On a larger scale, that’s exactly what biblical prophecy does for us. And when Scripture warns that something is going to happen, it’s 100 percent certain.

A lot of people have been stunned by the dramatic increase in weather disasters lately. But if you’re familiar with biblical prophecy, you’re not. Its forecasts of nature-related disasters intensifying in frequency and force are many.

In fact, as you will see if you study this subject, what we’ve seen to this point is nothing. As Gerald Flurry brought out in his television program, Jesus Christ called it only “the beginning of sorrows.”

It would be a terrible mistake to dismiss those forecasts. One might as well shut off the weather warnings and drive heedlessly into the path of a twister.

More important than simply giving a forecast of those disasters, Scripture also explains the reasons for them. This is crucial to understand—because so many people see them as being entirely random. Scientists search for explanations within the natural world itself, particularly as disasters increase in their regularity and lethality. But the true explanation provided by revealed Scripture is that these disasters are curses being inflicted on us for our rebellion against our Maker.

To take one example, in the book of Nahum—a book of end-time prophecy—the prophet begins by drawing attention to the command God has over disastrous weather. “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked:the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3). In today’s language, this is speaking of God sending hurricanes and tornadoes—in order to punish “the wicked.”

That’s not to say—as Christ Himself clarified and as we write in this new booklet—that those specifically hit by these storms are any more sinful than those who were spared. We should recognize these as being curses on and warnings to the nation, not particular individuals. Christ’s message was, “[E]xcept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5).

The Bible also explains how to be protected from these disasters. Order a copy of Why ‘Natural’ Disasters? to study those explanations—we’ll get it to you as soon as it comes off the presses; we should have it posted online next week.

Outside my window, the sky is starting to rumble; lightning is flashing. News has come through of tornadoes starting to touch down in western Oklahoma.

Just received word to evacuate. I’m out.