Receding Rhine—a Warning

As heat waves roll across Europe, the Rhine, Germany’s largest river, has fallen to its lowest level in its 145-year recorded history. This should serve as a warning to Germany that if it continues on its warpath, it will experience worse curses in the future.

The Rhine is the lifeblood of German industry.

• 300 million tons a year transit it to Germany’s most important industrial cities, such as Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Cologne.
• 80 percent of Germany’s domestic water traffic traverses it, ing economist Rico Luman noted.

In some areas, the river is just four feet deep now. Transport ships are forced to carry lighter loads, necessitating more trips, more fuel consumption, more unused capacity and reduced productivity at a time when the German economy sorely needs it.

• Historically, the Rhine reaches its lowest levels in September and October, so experts say that in the coming months, river traffic in some places may halt altogether.

In May, the German economy’s growth prospects were already slashed in half to 0.5 percent for this year due primarily to the shocks of the Iran war.

The Rhine is not the only European river drying up. The Continent’s second-largest river, the Danube, has dried so much that World War ii-era shipwrecks are resurfacing. Italy’s Po and France’s Loire are also receding to levels that reduce waterway traffic.

Gerald Flurry, the Trumpet’s editor in chief, wrote in Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany, “God wants this world to learn that He controls nature. Many natural disasters are anything but natural.”

• Natural disasters such as this are a curse. The Creator of rainfall, watersheds, tributaries and rivers uses them to communicate a warning to a nation.

In Nahum 1:4, God makes it clear that he dries up the rivers and controls the weather. The book of Nahum contains prophecies specifically for modern Germany.

Germany’s march toward militarism, along with the rest of Europe, is prophesied to lead to World War iii and the worst suffering ever on Earth. If Germany doesn’t repent, it will be punished with far worse curses than low water levels. In fact, it will be punished with a flood of armies (Nahum 2).

As Mr. Flurry warns in Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany, “God will shake the pillars of the Earth in Germany.”