Modern life has made us pathetically soft. The Greek government trims bloated social benefits, and self-indulgent Greeks violently protest. In Britain, stupid young people “oppressed” by supposed unfairness and inequality lash out by looting and burning.

Meanwhile, in one particular pocket of our planet there is actual suffering taking place on a massive scale. The “disadvantaged” thieves stealing electronics for sport should sit up and take note.

In the Horn of Africa, a reported 12,400,000 people are going hungry. Imagine it. There are 81,000 people in my town; this is every last person in this town and 152 more just like it, all without enough food.

In the last three months, 29,000 children younger than 5 have died of starvation in that region.

Last month, the United Nations officially declared it a famine, the first in 30 years. The nightmare is expected to last into next year, and the number of afflicted to rise quickly to 15 million.

These are the chilling effects of two years of drought—the worst in six decades—coupled with some absolutely shameful human behavior.

It is worth thinking seriously about, because these conditions are about to hit a lot closer to home than any of us would like.

In Matthew 24, Jesus Christ told His disciples what would precede His Second Coming and the end of this present world. Among the signs Jesus told us to watch for, He warned: “and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in [various] places” (verse 7).

Famines—plural. And not just in far-off places. Poor harvests, breakdowns in food production and distribution, dwindling supplies, economic collapse that shuts down commerce and the free flow of necessary commodities—all these conditions, and the headaches that follow, are prophesied to besiege our world!

Do you believe Christ?

In his May 22Key of David program, Gerald Flurry explained how the “pestilences” Christ spoke of here could in fact be speaking of destructive human behavior (for example, the same Greek word in Acts 24:5 is translated “a pestilent fellow”). “That adds a dimension to this prophecy,” he said. “When you have all of these famines or a famine in the land, it’s also going to cause a social breakdown if it gets worse—and it’s prophesied to get a lot worse before it gets better.”

In the Horn of Africa, famine conditions are bringing out the worst in a whole lot of pestilent fellows. It’s a sobering picture of how quickly difficult circumstances can turn ugly.

The Horn happens to abut one of the world’s most strategic commercial sea gateways. It is very near the rich oil fields of the Persian Gulf and right at the mouth of the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal. Thus the area is of intense interest to several outside powers, including the most aggressive one in the neighborhood, Iran.

As part of its plan for regional dominance, and to gain potent leverage against the Western world, Iran has for years aimed to get control of oil flow through the Red Sea. (The Trumpet’s editor in chief exposed this in his article “Libya and Ethiopia Reveal Iran’s Military Strategy” earlier this year.) It seeks to lock up the Suez Canal through an alliance with Egypt—a prospect made far likelier since Hosni Mubarak was deposed in February. And it is looking to control the southern entrance to the Red Sea by establishing itself in Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia.

In Somalia, for some years Iran and the Iran-friendly regime in Eritrea have supported an Islamist group called al-Shabaab. This al Qaeda-aligned gang has made life horrible for Somalis. It has financed its campaign to topple the government by rank thievery. It has seized crops and livestock. It has brutally beaten, even maimed, those who refuse to pay. The UN estimates Al-Shabaab steals $70 to 100 million a year from impoverished Somalis.

As drought has set in, these thugs have made a bad situation far worse. While farms wither and food supplies shrink, al-Shabaab has responded by squeezing the people all the more. It calls the UN’s declaration of famine a “baseless claim” and has blocked international aid from reaching people in the areas it controls. Humanitarian agencies, fearing attacks, tend to steer clear. What aid does get through is subject to stiff “fees”—that is, bribes, sometimes as much as 80 cents on the dollar. Thus generous Westerners unwittingly exacerbate the problem.

Two million hungry Somalis live in al-Shabaab-controlled territory. When they try to flee, al-Shabaab gunmen try to stop them with force. “They don’t want people leaving their areas because of the tax they take from residents,” the University of Notre Dame’s Rahul Oka told Bloomberg News.

Still, desperate, famished people with nothing awaiting them but death are heading west by the tens of thousands. While on the move for days or weeks, the refugees are vulnerable to sickness and even death because of undernourishment. Perhaps even worse, they are also, particularly the women and girls, at great risk of rape or abduction. According to the ngocare International, sexual assault among refugees has quadrupled this past year.

How depraved must someone be to take advantage of another human being in such circumstances? The mind struggles to comprehend.

And what awaits these escapees if they make it through this gauntlet?

Do you know what the top three population centers in Kenya are? The first is the capital city of Nairobi. The second is the port city of Mombasa. The third is Dadaab—a refugee camp.

Built 20 years ago to hold 90,000 people, it is now crammed with 440,000 refugees, a number that grows by 1,000 to 1,500 every single day.

Last month alone, 40,434 Somalis made Dadaab their new home. Tens of thousands more are fleeing to Eritrea.

The crowded conditions in Dadaab are ripe for the spread of disease, which plagues the camp. One report said 3,000 children have died there. Thousands of people are having to live on its outskirts with little or no shelter.

These conditions—hungry, emaciated people living in squalor, living off handouts or scrounging for food, struggling to survive—are extant on this Earth this very moment as you read this. But in biblical prophecy after prophecy, chief among which is that from Jesus Christ Himself, we are warned that they won’t remain mere images on our television screens from distant lands for much longer. They will be afflicting our formerly affluent towns and cities.

“Our peoples will continue only a few more years in comparative economic prosperity,” Herbert W. Armstrong warned 50 years ago. “This very prosperity is our fatal curse! Because our people are setting their hearts on it, seeking ease and leisure, becoming soft and decadent and weak!” Today that prosperity is just beginning to fade—and some are already proving themselves lacking in the character to conduct themselves morally! “Then, suddenly, before we realize it, we’ll find ourselves in the throes of famine, and uncontrollable epidemics of disease. … And all this state of affairs because man is in defiance of his Maker!”

God gives these warnings out of love. He wants to help us avoid such a fate—and repentance is the means to do just that. Those who would dismiss His warnings, God condemns in Jeremiah 14:12-18. “[T]hey say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land,” He says—but, God warns: “By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters” (verses 15-16).

This is just one of many grave prophecies about the most affluent, blessed nations on Earth today suffering a dramatic, precipitous fall into horrific conditions too hard for our minds to even imagine—conditions that are about to overtake so many of us.

Will you believe God? And turn to Him?