Tag: Book of Revelation

Featured image: NASA.

In today’s news, we celebrate a birth of sorts. Some say maps will have to be redrawn because of it.

Reported as a “massive iceberg” weighing 1 trillion tons and approximately the size of Delaware (or a quarter the size of Wales, depending on where the report is written), the brand-spanking newly-calved iceberg is likely to be named “A68.”

Is global warming to blame for this? Scientists admit they can’t directly point the finger at global warming/climate change for iceberg A68 because this kind of calving, the term for an iceberg breaking away from a glacier or land mass, is a common occurrence. Still, most in the media are trained to ask that question at every opportunity, so every report does.

The Self-Managing Planet . . .

And that brought to mind something I heard a wildly popular conservative radio talk show host say several years ago. I’ve also read it variously across the internet on conservative chat boards and other social media. It goes something like this: There is no way the kind of global warming that could cause problems with the earth is man made because God made this world to withstand anything man can do.

That’s similar to what U. S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan, said recently:

“I believe there’s climate change. I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time. I believe there are cycles. Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.”

He continued, “Why do I believe that? Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he (sic) can take care of it.”

. . . That Is No More

It is true that God “is much bigger than us.” It is also true that “He can take care of it” because God can do anything. If He wants to put things in motion to preserve the earth by clearing out any pollution man might cause, or by changing the nature of things so that whatever natural processes warming up the earth no longer do, He certainly can do it.

But let’s look to the Holy Bible for insight about the notion that God created this earth to withstand whatever man might do to it.

Most Christian apologists for the anti-global warming stance rightly point out that man is made in the image of God and was given dominion over the world by God. That is absolutely true.

Is it also true that God made the earth so that it cleans up whatever mess we make in it? Well, no. And here’s what I mean by that.

When God created the world, He saw that it was good. It was all good, even the man and woman were good as He created them.

And then, the woman met the serpent, and it all fell apart. Sin entered the world with its decaying effects. The man and woman began to decay — their flesh, minds, and spirits. A garden that produced all they would need without toil on their part spat them out into a world that would severely test them. This harsh world had rocks in the soil with weeds and thorns popping up all around. Food that once waited on the vine until Adam picked it would now rot and die if he didn’t get there in time.

Each subsequent generation would decay further and further, both the people and the land they inhabit. It was no longer good. To the contrary, it was bad and getting worse. It got so bad that at one point, God wanted to tear it all apart and start all over again, and that would have included blasting all mankind off the planet. And He probably would have, but for Noah.

Until the End

While God remade the world to rid it of the horrific evil that had sprung up by Genesis 6, the curse of sin still has its hold on the earth and at least initially upon its people, and it is due to the continuing effects of sin on the world that we cannot rely upon the once-perfect creation to save us from ourselves. Paul tells us that the whole creation groans for the release that only comes with the restoration at the end of the age. That groaning will only increase — as birth pangs upon the earth — until that day.

And man can do nothing about it. Whatever men hope to accomplish with climate agreements and the acts or taxes agreed to therein will prove fruitless. If we are in a global warming cycle as some scientists believe, a world of floods, droughts, resulting famines, wild weather, disease, and the redrawing of maps several times over due to rising oceans is ahead of us in the next 50 or so years. Describing the impact of the oncoming earth changes, Al Gore likes to say, “It’s like a nature hike through the Book of Revelations (sic).”

Gore may be wrong about the cause of earth changes and that man can do anything to stop it, but he is right on that one count — it is what the world will go through as every single word of the Book of Revelation is fulfilled.

After the End

And then, we win. The present earth is done away with entirely. There is a new heaven and a new earth and you know what? There is no sea! God used water to remake the world in Noah’s day and then promised to never use water to judge the earth again (that’s what the sign of the rainbow really represents). It is water levels rising that will cause many of the earth changes leading to the end of days, but there will be no oceans to rise in the new heavens and the new earth so nothing like that will ever happen again. On top of all that, there will be no more sickness, sadness, pain or death.

Even knowing all this, we really have no idea how wonderful it will be. We cannot conceive of it, as Paul writes (1 Cor. 2:9 NLT):

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love Him.”

August 21, 2017, will bring the first of two total solar eclipses that criss-cross the USA mainland in less than seven years. You can find background on similar total solar eclipses in the following articles on this site:

Blood moons were just the beginning

Sun turns dark over America

2017-2024 Total solar eclipses: What we know

Blood moon and sackcloth sun: Ancient writings

Those articles were first written in 2015. At that time and in the 2017 update, I shied away from sharing any impressions of what these eclipses — the four total lunar eclipses or so-called “blood moons” of 2014 and 2015 together with the upcoming total solar eclipses of 2017 and 2024 — might be sent to tell us. Today, I am going directly there:

I believe that the two upcoming total solar eclipses that will darken a path over the USA, along with the four total lunar eclipses mostly visible from locations within the USA, foreshadow the quickening decline of the country’s economic, political, and good-will interests in the world.

To me, that’s a sad thing, especially the last one, but it’s destined to come in preparation for the way the world must be in the last days. Besides, we let things get so out of hand the last 40 or so years, there’s really no other way it can go.

Why would God send a sign?

It is often reasoned that if God is going to send a sign to His people, it is going to be to the nation called Israel. That is very well the case but let’s consider that not only is the people group called Israel in the Old Testament rightly defined as God’s people, but so is Christ’s church. The USA community was largely founded and fashioned by the Puritans, men and women of God seeking to worship Him according to His Word, coming to these shores to escape the persecution of the harlot established state church in Europe.

To this day, the USA sends more missionaries to foreign lands than any other. Her people in large measure think of her as a Christian nation, and until as recently as the past few decades it was easy to see God’s love for people reflected in her good works both home and abroad. Her monuments speak of God’s providence as did her days of remembrance and celebration.

God offered this land as a haven for His people, the remnant church. He provided for their livelihood as they shaped early communities to honor Him and His Word. The earliest schools taught directly from the Holy Bible with text books using the Scriptures to teach basic language skills. The people grew up under His care, steeped in His teachings, and the country flourished. Tares have been sown in with the wheat in recent generations, but the wheat still grows. God is giving this sign to those who will see it and understand it so that they may prepare for what is coming. That preparation may need to be material, physical, emotional, or mental, but it definitely needs to be in relationship to God. Spiritual preparation is the most important to make and will be the most valuable in the days to come. Draw near to God. Today is the day of salvation. All who call on the Name of the LORD shall be saved.

The start of USA decline

It is nearly as often misattributed as it is said, but nonetheless it is true:

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

As America began her moral decline in the last half of the 20th century, there was no way she could escape decline in all other facets of her existence. For if we do not honor the only One who is good, how can any good thing be in or flow from us?

An earlier article only began to touch on all of the sin and outright evil the USA has allowed to prosper in her midst. Many of us who live in cocoons within our nice homes in nice neighborhoods going to nice churches and working in nice environments cannot see how far this country has fallen morally unless we go looking for it. When we find it, our hearts break, and we may not be able to take much of it.

Today, people living in the USA are addicts. A lot of people are what we think of when the word addict is used — prescription drugs, street drugs, and alcohol — but many more addictions cripple us, like pornography, sugar, the Internet, video games, entertainment, social media, pleasure, ease, consumerism, and the list goes on and on and on, much of it coming from advances in technology only available in this generation.

Far worse, we have allowed our courts to be filled with men and women who see prayer, Bible reading, and teaching on the creation as evils that must be removed from our schools, while twisting our Constitution to protect murder of the unborn and promote the perversion of God’s most sacred institution.

A nation that once valued sacrifice, equality, and foregoing pleasure now hosts a population set on personal ease while heaping everything that can be purchased upon itself and then holding great disdain for the less fortunate.

That last one is going to be the one that gets us, for we have followed the exact same pattern God gave for Sodom in Ezekiel 16:49-50:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.

How far we have fallen, and no, I don’t think we can get up again.

Why now?

America has been in moral decline for more than half a century. Why would the quickening of the slide start now?

We know that one reason it has not happened sooner is that God is patient. He wants to give everyone a chance to come to repentance, even nations.

The delay may also be related to the fullness of iniquity not being quite there yet for the USA and then the world. We are talking here not only about the downturn of the USA but also the elimination of the USA as a world leader before the end times play out.

Another reason our decline might soon hasten is because it is what a lot of the American people want. They made this loud and clear in the 2016 presidential election, voting in a man who promised to put America first in all things and caring much less about the rest of the world. A recent example of the new president doing exactly that is his performance at the 2017 G-20 meeting in Hamburg.

In Why Trump got an 11 out of 10 at the G20, Conservative columnist Jeffrey Lord praises the president for his America-first performance there. Here are Lord’s opening and closing remarks for the piece:

“As a fan, I would give Trump an 11 out of 10. He did exactly what the people who voted for him wanted him to do. He never wavered from putting America first — or, in campaign vernacular, making America great again — whether the subject was climate change, trade or North Korea.”

and,

“If history is a guide, it will be years before the consequences of the Trump-Putin meeting at the G20 summit will be fully known. But for now, count on the President’s supporters seeing this as a great win — a win in which Trump stayed true to his campaign promises to put American interests above all else.”

Choosing to step down from the center of the world stage is a far better way to decline as a nation than oppression or disaster. We are a powerful nation with many resources to exploit for the good of our people as well as for profit. To say we want to keep what is ours, put America first in all things, is an easy way to go. It sounds painless and even comfortable.

And it may go just that way. God might overlook our sins as individuals and as a nation, allowing us to simply bow out of world affairs in time to not be a major player in the last days. Or, we could be hit with a huge asteroid in the middle of the country that sets off earthquakes along all of our fault lines, major and minor.

But we’ll go with the easier way and say that the current POTUS is sent from God to take our country off the world stage in time to not be a major player in the last days. Which brings us to reason 3 for the timing of the six American eclipses.

The USA in Bible prophecy

Well, she’s not there. That doesn’t mean there will be no Americans in the world or no government in the land, only that she is not a major player in end times events. Knowing how we love to poke our nose into every crisis in the world, it’s all but impossible that the United States of America as she is today could resist taking the lead as the world falls apart. Unless she went first.

Finding the USA in end times prophecy has become almost as popular a game as pin the tail on the Antichrist has been over the years but the traditional view is that she is not there. Greg Laurie, David Reagan, Hal Lindsey and other well-know prophecy teachers agree, and most list the same reason among the possibilities for it — America is no longer a world leader at that time in history.

When must American decline take place for us to be out of the picture by then? Some believe the last days are upon us already, others say within 20 years and others yet see a 30 to 50 year timeline. All of those require some changes to begin soon.

Conclusion

The total lunar and solar eclipses going across the USA in a span of 10 years likely foreshadow the quickening decline of the country in the world because:

It is due for our unfaithfulness over the last 40+ years;
We want to shrink as a world power and so we will; and,
It is certain to happen before the last days begin.

It could be good for us, really. Less responsibility with other countries no longer asking from us or looking to us. We can hope that’s all it is, not total economic destruction, wide-spread natural disasters, or being overtaken by a hostile power. We can hope.