Global warming is a hot topic these days. The evidence clearly indicates that our globe is experiencing a warming trend. But what is the cause of this trend? Are we experiencing a normal long-term warming/cooling cycle, or is something new taking place: warming caused by human activity?
On the increase are those who predict catastrophe if the people and nations of the world do not take immediate drastic steps. Such dire predictions are nothing new on planet earth. Remember the grave warnings preceding the year 2,000? All the hype about Y2K, “the millennium bug,” was just another in a long series of scares that never materialized. In my younger years, Communism was the cause for world alarm. Today, militant Islamic terrorism is the threat. There always seem to be prophets predicting a dire future.
According to current computer predictive models, how warm will the earth become by 2050, by 2100? Will so much ice melt on Greenland and Antarctica that the oceans inundate vast costal areas with millions of inhabitants? Will the increasing heat cause drought and famine, wiping out huge populations? Could global warming threaten the end of life as we know it?
What does the Bible have to say about it all? Does it predict global warming? Definitely! Tremendous heat? More than civilization can tolerate! Destroying the earth? Absolutely! “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10).
Of course, that is not the global warming people are concerned about. But why not? Which of the following three scenarios is more pertinent to our daily lives and our futures?
1) Mankind may end civilization with nuclear bombs; –or–
2) Mankind may destroy life on earth by disregarding the global warming trend; — or —
3) The God who created the earth will one day burn it up.
Which of the three should sensible people be more concerned about?
Do you realize that scenarios one and two are materialistic concerns, while issue three is a spiritual concern? No matter what humans do to “save planet earth,” God has scheduled the planet for destruction, and God has scheduled us for judgment. In verse 9, Peter says that the Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And verse 11 says: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy living and godliness.”
God calls us to make more drastic changes than recycling plastics and burning less fossil fuels. God is calling us to quit cheating, lying, stealing, fighting, drinking, gambling, complaining, aborting babies, having affairs, living luxuriously, and the like. God is calling us to live holy lives, spiritual lives, lives that put Christ first, others second, and material things last. Are you ready for God’s day of global warming?