I notice that some people are expecting the planet Mercury to cause an earthquake soon. We have had many planetary alignments in the past with no effect on Earth other than to panic some people. I plugged a few numbers into Newton's equation for gravitational force to compare the force exerted by Mercury with that exerted by our moon.  It turns out that the force exerted by Mercury, even at its closest to Earth is 8000 times less than that of our moon. The moon moves the oceans and tugs on the land masses every day. It moves ground water around too. If any celestial body will cause an earthquake, it will be the moon, not a very distant and insignificant planet. The Lord may be using alignments as a sign, but it is not a cause.