Ecocatastrophes, part 2

Greenhouse emissions, formerly known as exhaust and before that as smoke, will rip a hole in the ozone layer and the earth will burn up.  Or freeze.  Or burn up and then freeze.  Don't you know that the cooler summer experienced across the northern hemisphere is a result of global warming?

You've got scientists on both sides of this issue as annoying as a James Carville-Ann Coulter debate.  For a little sobriety, I'd like to invite you to hear what the Bible says.  Accurate in its histories and archaeologies.  Spooky on-target with its fulfilled prophecies.  Might be worth a hearing.  Away we go.

The first big point is...

THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S

Let's pretend I owned a really nice car, say a vintage 1977 AMC Gremlin with Levi bucket seats.  Let's say that one of my sons just turned sixteen.  Am I going to just pitch him the keys?  Bah!  I'm going to make sure he's got driver's ed under his belt.  I'm going to tell him about the idiosyncrasies in the automatic transmission and the fact that a key's already been broken off in the groovy hatchback.  And I'm going to tell him where he can and cannot go and what he can and cannot do with it.  If my son ends up wrecking the car, its not his insurance that covers the car, it's mine.

In a similar vein, the Bible makes plain, "The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1).  This is not an isolated idea within God's word to us.  God cites his ownership of the world in choosing Israel as a special nation to himself (Exodus 19:3-6).  As he encourages Israel to follow his commands, he cites the earth and its blessings are his to give (Deuteronomy 10:12-15).  In the Psalms, he emphasizes that all the beasts of the field are his so don't try to impress him through sacrifices (50:10).

So if the earth is God's and not just his possession but his creation, isn't he going to take care of it with a bit more fervency and ability than I would with my Gremlin?

Consider, it's his to do with as he pleases.  He destroyed the whole thing once before and made provision to get it started up again (Genesis 6-9).  He has said that he will destroy it all again (2 Peter 3:10-13) only to recreate it sparkling new once again.  He withholds the rain and he calms the storms.  And he suggests that there will come a day when the earth will suffer cataclysms that will make the disaster films of this decade seem like kiddie stories (Revelation 6 thru 16).

Consider, too, that God made a promised to his creation, a promise I mentioned in an earlier post.  That promise is that he would not destroy the earth again by flood, and that

"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease"  (Genesis 8:22)

He seems pretty clear that the seasons will continue.  It's not going to become like "The Day After Tomorrow" where the northern hemisphere becomes an enormous ice rink.

Consider, finally, that as he infused man's anatomy with a truly miraculous ability to heal itself, so he knit that characteristic into the fabric of the earth.  Consider the devastation of wild fires.  Permanent?  Not so much.  Think of the megatons of pollution belched into the atmosphere from a single volcanic eruption.  If the planet did not have the capability to scour its own skies, we would perennially look like Denver during one of its winter inversion days.  BLECCH!  Oil spills.  Damage?  Extreme.  Forever?  Certainly not.  It takes time, but the earth does tend to itself.

With that in mind and scouring the pages of the Bible, nowhere do we get any inkling that man will directly bring about the earth's demise.  It won't be hairspray.  It won't be two Suburbans in the driveway (I do have a motorcycle in the garage...do I get any green stamps?).  It won't be harvesting the rain forest.  No, man will not directly cause it, but he will indirectly bring about some amazing geological, astronomical, and meteorological events.  It will be his rebellion against God that brings that to pass and not his utilization of natural resources.

So if this is God's planet, what ought our response to that be?  Two come to mind

First, I don't have to worry.  Jesus Christ clarified that point in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19-34).  If God takes care of the birds of the field, will he not take care of your needs, too?

Second, in not worrying, I trust God.  He is the provider.  Really, he should be man's focus anyway.  The creature should be seeking with the glee of a puppy what the Master would have me do. 

But did the Owner of this big, blue Gremlin give us any marching orders? That will take us to the third installment of Ecocatastrophes tomorrow.