As humans, Christians tend to be a poor replacement for God. Consider the following:
According to one religious fundamentalist, the Rapture was supposed to occur last week. When it didn't, he adjusted his forecast and is now claiming it'll happen in October.
When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March of this year, another prominent religious leader said it was God's judgement on the Japanese people.
Two years ago, a third popular Christian leader said God told him He would destroy the Northwest with a massive Tsunami that summer.
Christians tend to muddy the water. So can God, through Scripture, explain the following?
Last week a volcano erupted in Iceland, just one year after another volcano eruption closed European airspace for five days.
Iran seems intent on the annihilation of Israel, whenever they aren't preoccupied with the aftermath of their own earthquakes.
There are wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia. Violence is escalating in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and much of the Middle East.
And according to some analysts China is less than 5 years away from overtaking the American economic system, becoming the largest economy in the world.
With an onslaught of Tornadoes, this has been the most active Tornado season in the U.S. in over 50 years.
It certainly is an interesting time to be alive. Christians have had a difficult time answering questions such as 'What in the world is going on?' We tend to isolate and judge people. But can God, through Scripture, provide any clarity? This is my own opinion, derived through many hours of thoughtful contemplation. But this is the answer I believe God presents through Scripture and observation of natural events.
When you combine all of the above with Biblical prophecy, large amount of Christians believe that Christ's return will come sooner than later, perhaps even in their lifetime. While I'm not privy to when Christ will return (in fact, none of us are), there is a lot of confusion in both the religious and secular world as to what in the world actually is going on. Some religious leaders proclaim that events like what transpired in Japan are Judgements from God, while other religious leaders suggest God is less involved in natural events than we have been led to believe. Of course, the secular community removes involvement of the divine all together.
What answer does God supply? What is happening to our world and why would God allow such things? The answer lies with both the divine and the natural. In order to understand what's happening today, let me take us on a quick tour of the past.
In the beginning(pun intended), when God created our universe and solar system, He created on Earth an environment that was designed as a perfect host to life. The system he created didn't know Death, and had Adam and Eve never sinned their way out of the Garden they'd still be alive today. We know this because the introduction to Death was a consequence of Adam and Eve's sin against God.
However even when kicked outside the Garden men & women experienced what we today would consider to be an insane life expectancy. Adam died when he was 930 years old. Methuselah lived even longer, dying at the ripe old age of 969 years. As we can't even dream of living so long today, some have been led to believe these Biblical records must be myth. Or exaggeration. Or maybe we've just translated them wrong. However if we take the Bible at its word and accept these long life spans as fact, then let's contemplate the type of environment necessary to sustain them.
We don't need to detail the type of environment necessary right now. That's for another time, another place. We'll just accept that the environment existed, and ask the follow up question: Because we know that no one lives even close to 969 years these days, why do people die so 'young' today, when before we lived for hundreds of years? What changed?
The answer lies in two words: The. Flood.
Imagine you have a box of popsicles in the freezer. As long as you leave the popsicles in the freezer, inside the box and inside their individual plastic wrapping those popsicles will last a very long time. The freezer is the perfect environment for them. But say you alter their environment a little. Remove the plastic wrapping and they'll get freezer burned. Turn up the heat in the freezer and they will melt. Place the popsicle on the counter beside the fridge and they'll melt even faster. What happens if you leave the popsicle unattended on the counter for a week? When you attempt to come back to eat it, will there be much of anything left for you?
Residing in an idyllic environment is important. Someone created those popsicles and they know how you need to store them in order to have them keep the longest and the freshest. Human life span is like that of the popsicle and planet Earth works the same way as the freezer. Try and imagine what a world-wide flood would do to the planet (yes, the Flood was world wide. I'll offer one quick proof: after the Flood, God promised to never flood the planet again. And yet many placed on Earth experience local floods every year. God couldn't have promised to not send something that happens to us every year). The consequences would be drastic.
Take a step back, if you can, and visualize two planet Earths in your hands. In your left hand you hold one that sustained human life so well we could live to almost 1,000 years. In your right hand the human life is generally extinguished well before 100 years. Human life on this planet is 1/10th what it is on the Earth in your left hand and is ripe with disease and death. Biblically speaking, our lifespan began decreasing right after the Flood.
In Genesis 7:11, the Flood waters are described this way: "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." Think of 'the springs of the great deep' as water contained underneath the Earth's crust. The crust fractures, and the water bursts up with amazing force, akin to an inter tube bursting when it is filled with too much air. The fractured crust can now move back and forth. What was once stable is now an amazing force of destruction.
It is the advent of tectonic plates. Fault lines form. The hot magma previously contained beneath finds paths to the surface. Earthquakes on the magnitude of the 9.7 quake that hit Japan weren't part of the perfect environment God created. They didn't exist pre-Flood. What about volcanoes? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? How about the radiation from the sun? The pre-Flood world contained none of the natural disasters we experience every day. What was once the perfect environment is now a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the next time two pieces of the Earth's crust collide or a suitable path to be found for the magma to burst to the surface.
Fast forward 6,000 years (or so...I don't mean to date the Flood). Would this type of environment become more stable over time or less? The obvious answer is less. Like that popsicle sitting on the counter for a week, the longer the Earth is left in it's broken state, the more broken it becomes. As Christ warns in Matthew 24:8, "all these are the beginnings of birth pains." Not only will conditions worsen, there comes a point when it all comes to a head.
You can also imagine how this system, previously stable but now adjusting to a radically different and entirely new condition, would experience changes in temperature and environment. Changes akin to the mini Ice Age during the Middle Ages. Or perhaps even what we currently call Global Warming. Or the cooling we experienced in the 1980's. Our planet is trying to stabilize the environment, but is not able to because of the new reality. In a very real way, the Flood wrecked the world 6,000 (or so) years ago and will directly cause the end of our world as well.
The Flood was God's judgement on mankind for its wickedness. Christ says that in the last days it will be "as in the days of Noah". This is not a coincidence. Due to the Flood, the Earth has an expiration date. God sent the Flood when humanity was at its worst during Noah's lifetime, and then Christ will come back at the end when it again is like ''the days of Noah". The Flood wasn't just a Judgement for Noah's generation; it is a Judgement of the generation in the last days as well. Only God could write a story with such eloquent irony. It is almost unfathomable to contemplate understanding the mind of One who could plan two events, thousands of years apart, involving radically different societies and have one Judgement fall on both of them just as they degrade to the same point of unrighteousness. God is a wondrous and fearsome Being.
But the Earth expiring can help us understand things we see today. Global Warming, or at least what I'd call Global Temperature Vacillations, is very much real. Are our carbon emissions contributing to it? Perhaps. But, the Earth will fall apart with or without our help. Floods will come, earthquakes will continue and increase, as will many other natural events. It is certainly possible that we will contribute to our own demise as a result of being willfully unwise (another Judgement of God; to remove wisdom from those who do not love Him). In our rebellious state, we could create a society we are very proud of, but is actually very dangerous and destructive. Think Titanic. Or take, for instance, our infatuation with cell phones, even though the World Health Organization recently said they probably cause cancer in the long run. We love plastics and yet the manufacturing of plastics is a direct source of carcinogens that cause cancer. The list goes on and on and probably contains many things that hurt us we aren't even aware of.
One of life's mysteries is how stubborn mankind is prophesied to be in the Last Days. For example, the Left Behind books represent the judgements in Revelations as miracle after miracle, presented to mankind from God, and yet none turned their hearts to God. I have always wondered at that. If presented with the moon turning red, an event the Bible predicts and the Left Behind books interpret literally, would you not turn your heart towards God? You would think so. Unless perhaps someone opposed to God offers a 'natural' explanation.
It is my opinion that there will be natural explanations for much of Biblical End Times prophecy. If the environment is actually breaking down, that is a quite convincing explanation for natural phenomena. I believe the mean temperature goes up and down as a result of the Flood, a judgement of God. But have people turned their hearts towards God as a result? No, they prefer to believe in Global Warming (or Global Cooling, if you lived in the 80's). While you cannot remove God from these temperature changes, there is nothing overtly miraculous about it. Not in the sense that healing a paraplegic is obviously miraculous. Have you ever seen a harvest moon? What if Yellowstone erupts, casting smoke into the sky so thick it turns the moon red? Would the Bible have predicted that? Yes. But is there a natural explanation? Yes again. However, if you know that Yellowstone itself is a Judgement brought about by the Flood (unstable crust), then you can see the miraculous in the not-so-obvious. You can see God's judgement even though most will brush it off as a natural occurrence.
Think of the earthquake outside of Japan. Was that a Judgement from God? Yes, because the natural circumstances for earthquakes were created as a result of the Flood. But read closely: this is a Judgement on mankind as a whole, not the Japanese as a race. Just as the hurricanes in the South or the tornadoes in Bible Belt aren't specific to those people either. Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans is another great example. Was it a Judgement on New Orleans deplorable moral conditions? Do you really think they are more evil then anywhere else in the United States? Probably not. But there were people in that area who were prideful in the great and amazing levees they had built that would contain the water from the sea. What caused the flooding of the city: Mardi Gras or the levees breaking? Obviously I can't speak for God, but New Orleans more reminds me of the Titanic than it does of Sodom. Our pride caused our downfall, whereas if we were humble, we'd build our levees better.
If we don't view the history of our planet this way, then current events don't hold any meaning. No one can tell you whether the planet has 1 year left or 1,000. But we do know it'll get worse because God told us so. It all fits into his divine plan of coming a second time to create a new Earth. Normally Christians believe He creates a new Earth because, well, He just does. But it might be more likely that this one is too trashed to live on any longer. He is going to restore the Earth to pre-Flood, Adam-&-Eve-in-the-Garden conditions. From the moment He broke things with the Flood, this was all only a matter of time. It all fits together perfectly as only God could plan things, but nonetheless it was going to happen one way or the other.
God has presented this to us through Scripture, so we could ponder it and be humbled. To me, God's answer is a much more satisfying answer to events such as the earthquake in Japan than "the Japanese are evil." God has a plan, and the plan is unfolding in front of us with magnificent complexity. If we understand the past and contemplate the future through that lens, I think God has given us all we need to witness Him working in our world.
