by Teri Ong
A
“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44
I had a sad conversation with a young woman at church recently. She is in her early twenties and is studying business at the University of Northern Colorado. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and lived there until her family was resettled legally in the U.S. She is still struggling with “Americanization,” so I always seek her out to encourage her. Today she seemed especially despondent. She is working two jobs and going to school. I asked her how she was doing.
She told me that she was struggling to choose her major, even though she is a junior and should have settled it by now. She said that she didn’t think it would matter because of global warming. Our first frost was quite late in terms of averages this season, and my friend said she was really worried about it. She said, “What difference will it make if I choose a major? I probably won’t even live to use it. We will probably all be dead by 2040.”
This was no joke. She was deadly earnest. She is a professing Christian, but she is under the influence of Satan’s lies perpetrated in college classrooms, social media and in the culture of “pop” politics. I tried to engage her in thinking about the subject from a Biblical viewpoint. I told her that I believed that the climate does change, but that it is all up to God and for God’s purposes.
Her response was, “So you do believe in climate change, then?” She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t one of those wicked climate change deniers that the Progressive Left demonizes.
I told her that mankind isn’t big enough or powerful enough to effect climate change. The influence of humans on the climate is restricted to God’s judgment for human sin, and it isn’t for the “sin” of using plastic straws and grocery bags! Let’s look at what God says about how humans affect the climate.
Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. 2 And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. 3 The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. 4 The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. 5 The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. Isa 24:1-7
This passage is very clear. It is not man’s carbon emissions that are devastating the earth; it is man’s disobedience to the laws of God. The devastation is a well-deserved judgment from God. Instead of adhering to some goofy Green New Deal, or signing on to the rantings of an emotionally disturbed teenager, we need to humble ourselves before the Creator God and ask for His mercy.
You may ask, “Repent of what?” Here are a few particulars found in God’s Word.
1. Murders (Gen 4:10-12, Num 35:33-34)
2. Adultery (Lev. 18:20)
3. Killing babies (Lev. 18:21)
4. Homosexuality (Lev. 18:22)
5. Bestiality (Lev. 18:23)
6. Idol worship/ forsaking Jehovah (Jer 2:7-9, 13-16)
Creation will be freed from the curse and restored to its original perfection at the resurrection and the establishment of the New Heavens and New Earth. Meanwhile, the Apostle Paul described the state of the earth:
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Rom 8:19-22
God Himself is very clear about the cause and effect relationships between human sin and the defilement of the earth.
‘Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. 25 ‘For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. Lev. 18:24-25
Jer 2:7, 14-15
7 “I brought you into the fruitful land
To eat its fruit and its good things.
But you came and defiled My land,
And My inheritance you made an abomination…
14 “Is Israel a slave? Or is he a homeborn servant?
Why has he become a prey?
15 “The young lions have roared at him,
They have roared loudly.
And they have made his land a waste;
His cities have been destroyed, without inhabitant.
Psalm 107:33-34
33 He changes rivers into a wilderness
And springs of water into a thirsty ground;
34 A fruitful land into a salt waste,
Because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
Where did all of my friend’s fear come from? It came as a result of believing the lies of Satan. From the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, Satan has perpetrated the lie that man is in charge of his own ultimate destiny. Why would Satan do such a thing? Because he hates God and God’s creation, and because he wants all power for himself, especially power to deceive and enslave. The climate change/global warming scam is all about power, but the human beings involved are just the pawns in a colossal spiritual battle. Satan will do anything to get human beings to deny there is a Creator God, that sins offend Him, and that He has the right to judge His creation.
By getting Christians to have unwholesome fears about the material world which is passing away, Satan distracts them from the necessary spiritual responses and preparations that they should be making. The Apostle Peter warned against being distracted from what really counts for eternity:
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:10-13
The question we should be asking is not “What should I be doing about global warming?” Peter says the question should be “What sort of person should I be in holy conduct and godliness?” Remember, when God warms the earth with intense heat and melts it, only God’s redeemed people will get to enjoy the perfections of the new heavens and new earth, where there will be no more corruption and groaning because of human sin.
