Global Warning
by Pastor Matthew E. Walker, 28 February 2007
“And the Oscar goes to….” Because
of our entertainment-soaked culture, just about every American
and many around the world are familiar with that phrase. The beautiful
and glamorous of Hollywood come dressed-to-the-nines (and in some
cases dressed very strangely!) to see who will win the coveted
motion picture honors at the annual Academy Awards. Last week’s
awards show was no different though the main attraction was not
an actor but a politician. Former Vice President Albert Gore won
an Oscar for his documentary on global warming called Inconvenient
Truth. It is a video version of a PowerPoint presentation that
has now become the most profitable release for Paramount Pictures
of all time!
That is a stunning fact since the subject of
the documentary is a fairly boring science lesson on the mechanics
of global warming: that our use of fossil fuels is causing greenhouse
gasses which trap heat on the earth and radically alter weather
patterns; that animals and plants are threatened from these changes
in the weather; and that ultimately, our total way of life is
in danger of changing. The conclusions of most climate change
scientists are that our earth is warming up and that something
needs to be done now or irrevocable damage will be inflicted on
the environment. News reports stream in daily of unusual weather
phenomena, species endangered by a changing habitat, and media
elitists proclaiming “something must be done…now.”
The public has become increasingly uneasy about the future and
some are beginning to question the long-term viability of the
human race. Infomercials like Inconvenient Truth only serve to
heighten the fears of the direction our world is headed.
Consider some of Vice President Gore’s
dire assertions: heat waves more frequent and intense; deaths
related to global warming will double in twenty-five years to
three hundred thousand people a year; more than one million species
may be driven to extinction within fifty years; sea levels might
rise as much as twenty feet; and the Arctic Ocean may be ice free
threatening the habitat of animals like the polar bear.
As a Christian, our hope is not in scientists
or politicians but in God. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 15:4
that God’s Word engenders hope within the heart of every
believer. With scientific warnings about climate change, what
hope do the Scriptures give us?
Beginning in Genesis, we find the “inconvenient
truth” that if an impending global disaster did take place,
it would not be the first. Nearly two thousand years after Creation,
God chose to destroy the world through a global flood. It was
a flood so deep that the highest mountain peaks were covered by
more than twenty-three feet of water. Yet in that great disaster
God graciously preserved Noah and his family in a ship that He
had commanded Noah to build. The forty days of rain and the breaking
up of the “fountains of the deep”
must have had an incredible and permanent effect on the earth’s
ecosystems. Some creation scientists believe that the dinosaurs—all
of them—died out in the flood. Not any of Vice President
Gore’s prediction go that far.
There are two amazing ironies entwined within
the climate change debate. The first is that sinful, God-rejecting
man did not believe Noah in his day whereas Vice President Gore,
our modern, secular Noah, is trusted by virtually everyone. The
major difference between the two seems only to be that Noah’s
message was from God whereas Gore’s message is not. As a
former theology student, Vice President Gore knows his Bible well
yet he chooses not to believe it. His faith-based conclusions
are founded on another source—scientism. His climate change
position begins with the presupposition that there is no God,
hence the complete acceptance of Darwin’s evolutionary theories
of human origin. His political action on the issue reveals his
idolatrous worship of the creation and not the Creator. Romans
1 provides a comprehensive examination of the godlessness of modern
day scientism.
The second irony is that Vice President Gore’s
disaster theories are way off; not because they are over the top,
but because they are too conservative. The Apostle John speaks
of certain climate change in Revelation 6-16, specifically in
16:8—“and the fourth angel
poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him
to scorch men with fire.” This particular judgment
is in the last seven of twenty one judgments in the second half
of the Great Tribulation. The global warming is so intense that
men were scorched by it. By this point in the Tribulation billions
of people will have died; one third of the trees and fish will
die; one third of earth’s water will become polluted; the
night will be extended eight hours longer; and major rivers will
either have their water turned to blood or dry up completely.
Add to this the earthquakes, lightning, and thunder prophesied
and this is much worse than anything Hollywood or environmentalists
left have ever dreamed up.
Until that time, man is incapable of destroying
the world. It is impossible for mankind to destroy what he does
not control. God’s promise to Noah in the book of Genesis
is that “while earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and
cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall
not cease.” Those terms do not leave room for a major man-made
climate change disaster. Nearly every book in the Bible teaches
that God sustains the universe, not scientists or the politically
elite. Hebrews 1:3 says that God is “upholding
all things by the word of His power.” What can
man do aid or destroy something held in the hand of Almighty God?
The lesson of climate change for Christians today
is that we have a commission, like Noah, to warn people of the
coming judgment. 2 Peter 2:5 commends Noah as “a preacher
of righteousness….” How similar is his work to our
own Commission: “Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you…”
Matthew 28:19-20. Moreover, there is another Academy Awards that
is coming, a celestial one. 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every
one may receive the things done in his body, according to that
he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Someday
we hope to hear Him say: “and the crown goes to….”
Nothing is more important than that.
|
|
"Corner" Articles:
•
All The Right Ingredients
•
And The Winner Is . . .
•
Driving in the HOV Lane
•
Global Warning
•
God's Bailout Plan
•
God's Expectation
•
How To Find A Good Church
•
Mice in the Church
•
Sectarianism or Separatism
•
The Issue With Blogs
•
Would America Elect Moses?
|
