“Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven” (Luke 21:10-11).
“lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding,” (Psa 148:8).
One winter’s morn
I immigrated to Rhode Island, and the first few winters did not live up in any way to the pictures of a New England winter I had expected. In fact, many said to me “they don’t have winters like we used to”. Then, one morning, my wife and I woke up, after enduring a difficult, snowy commute home, to a true winter wonderland. All outside was totally white and howling: the storm-blown snow had drifted up to totally block all the doors into the house, so we could not have gone out, even as the near hurricane force winds continued the pile the snow up as the blizzard continued. So, quite naturally, we went back to bed. Before it finished, the storm had dumped well over three feet of level snow, although the snow was far from level. And it was almost a week before we went back to work.
So I experienced the first of my “hundred year” snow storms, but not the last. A few years later we were told we were experiencing the “blizzard of the Century” (not in my mind, I must admit), and we continue to experience extreme weather events, from “Polar Vortexes” to extreme droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
It is not surprising that we are experiencing frequent reports of catastrophic “natural” disasters, or that these dominate the news. They make good television, and it is natural for many of us to gobble up such news: after all, another’s problems let us feel happier in our circumstances. In addition:
- The news of such events can flash around the world at the speed of the internet.
- People are increasingly moving into areas subject to the effects of nature, whether to the coasts where hurricanes and storms occur, to the flood plains of rivers, or to fire-prone forests.
- There seems little doubt that humans by their exploitation of fossil fuels are contributing to an increase in global temperature, which have at least some influence in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts.
Our preaching
We need to take careful stock of what we preach, and the basis of our appeal. As many of our Bible talks reveal, we believe there are many signs in the world around us indicating that we are living in the Last Days. We point to all the factors of increasing population, environmental mismanagement, volatility in the commercial world, and the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, in order to show our friends they cannot assume that “all things (will) continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet 3:4). We also speak about the approaching day of Armageddon, and of the kingdom conditions only being introduced after the Lord Jesus has destroyed those who rise up against his leadership.
We also, on occasion, talk about the weather induced catastrophes around us as evidence of the soon coming return of Christ, and refer to the latest earthquake, or the latest famine in Africa, and say they are only a small portent of what lies ahead. We sometimes quote the economists who prophecy an economic collapse as imminent, and again play on our fears of such a collapse, as occurred in the 1930’s and to a lesser extent a few years ago.
But these arguments are in fact quite hard to make. I heard comments about Hurricane Sandy being a sign of the impending catastrophes we can expect, when in 2012 it devastated the New York area. Although it was extremely costly (the second most costly hurricane in the USA), its strength was only a class 1. Its impact was due almost entirely to the place where it struck. In fact, for at least the last 100 years hurricane impacts on the USA have been decreasing.
The example of the Bible
Following the apostle’s lead in Heb 4:9, where he shows that “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God”, we have always seen the account of God resting on the seventh day of His creation as involving a prophecy of a millennial rest for His people. Six thousand years of man’s dominion on earth are to be followed by a thousand years during which the earth will be subdued and God’s dominion will spread “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (Psa 72:8; Zech 9:10).
But if this was all our message, we would not be preaching a full gospel. There must have been many occasions in the lifetime of the Apostle Paul, when it would have been easier or safer for him to refrain from preaching certain aspects of the Lord’s teaching. Yet he was able to say to the elders of the Ephesian ecclesia, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
We must be no different, whatever difficulties may be caused as a consequence. Doubtless it would have been much easier for Noah not to warn of the impending destruction coming on the world, but it was his response to the message he had received from God, and he undertook the work faithfully despite scorn, rebuke and apathy.
I sometimes wonder whether we are following the example of some of the cults around us, who rely on fear to encourage converts to their cause: fear of what lies ahead. We should not be surprised by these things, for the Lord Jesus prophesied about the time of his return to the earth as an age when “Men’s hearts fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:26).
We often cite “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matt 24:6). We might indeed hear of wars every day, but in fact the world is now more peaceful than any time in at least the last 50 years, since the end of WW2.
However, the truth of the Scriptures is not based on, and nor does it rely upon fear for its appeal. As we proclaim in our Statement of Faith, during the thousand years:
“sin and death will continue among the earth’s inhabitants, though in a much milder degree than now … The mission of the kingdom will be to subdue all enemies, and finally death itself, by opening up the way of life to the nations, which they will enter by faith, during the thousand years, and (in reality) at their close” (Clauses 26, 28).
There is no talk here of the complete destruction of the rest of the world’s inhabitants in an Armageddon battle at the end of the age, but of a process whereby the long suffering of God will be revealed again as it was in the days of Noah (1 Pet 3:20). Noah preached for about 100 years while building the ark, but this was after God had made the decision to destroy man and all other earth-born creatures.
If we wish to preach the whole counsel of God, then we have to preach about His patience, and His desire that all should come to repentance — as well as making it clear that He will not allow those who knowingly oppose His will to continue their wicked ways for ever. Our preaching should not be based on fear, whether it be of wars and rumors of wars, or great signs from heavens. God has used weather and earthquakes to fulfill his purpose in the past: but it seems certain that the coming of the Lord will be unexpected even to those watching for his return, as we should be always. The setting of dates, however carefully circumscribed they may be, only tends to make us relax until the date arrives, then disappointed when it passes.
“Even so, come Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One