 |
| Now on Amazon Kindle US$3.99 apps available for PC & Windows |
If we have to shoulder responsibility for the environmental trauma we see today through our disobedience to God, does that mean we have yet another reason to beat ourselves up?
No. This is not a guilt trip. This is, in fact, good news in the same way that an EKG result is good news for someone with chest pains: we have identified sin.
Hooray! We’ve sinned! How is that “good news”, you ask?
Because in Christ, we hold a significant trump card called Calvary.
If our failure to nurture and protect Creation is a sin of disobedience, does it not stand to reason that this is just as redeemable in Christ as sexual sin, lying, cheating, murdering or any of the other acts of disobedience for which we have to repent?
Repentance means we humble ourselves and allow God back into the picture, giving Him room to increase as we decrease. The Grace God extends to us means that we can repent for dropping the ball on The First Great Assignment and then pick up that ball and run with it as we were supposed to. For His part, God promises to blot out altogether the things we’ve done to damage the environment (Col. 2:13-14) .
But if we simply throw up our hands and say, “What is truth?”, and walk away as if that's something we can never know, then Satan has just been allowed to come in and hold confusion over the situation, essentially leaving Jesus out there to be crucified again. For Evangelicals, it’s also a missed opportunity to bring more souls into the Kingdom of God by showing how the Word of God is true in all aspects of day-to-day life.
Jesus told us there’d be days like these …
Another reason why Satan is taking such an interest in climate change is because he knows what time it is. Again, we go back to Matthew 24:5-7, where Jesus foretells the signs of His return. Famines and pestilences can both be seen as climate change symptoms. Jesus spoke in language people could understand, and while “global warming”, “melting polar ice cap” or “ozone depletion” would have gone over their heads, they would definitely have known about “famine and pestilence”.
We also have plenty of false christs today – self-help gurus who claim to show people how to feel good about themselves without repenting; others who presume to “simplify” things by reducing Christ to Just Another World View and looking for ways other belief systems “agree” (“many paths to the top of the mountain,” as some say), when God has already simplified things by reducing the number of paths to one; men called “holiness” with beatific smiles, pronouncing that we are each our own universe.
We have the wars and rumors of war -- terrorism. Incurable diseases are cropping up, the moral rule book has been thrown out the window, “tolerance” has replaced “love” and “rights” have replaced “what’s right”; governments try to legislate things that can remedied if we were all walking in agape love for one another – truly, “the love of many (is waxing) cold” (Matt. 24:12).
With those signs becoming more numerous and intense, Satan knows that the best way to keep people from turning their eyes towards God is to have them chasing straw men – like arguing over climate change. Like a magician using a “mis-direct” so we don’t see him slip the coin up his sleeve, Satan is using the debate as a sleight of hand.
The premise of A Very Convenient Truth is that Biblically, we're not to obsess on climate change/global warming, nor to deny it, but to see it as an incentive to get our own walk right with God. That may mean that our personal approach runs counter to conventional wisdom or the prescriptions demanded by certain advocates or interest groups; it also means we don't judge others for choices that may seem "environmentally-unfriendly": but if our actions are God-friendly, He promises to "heal the land".
No comments:
Post a Comment