Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does it make sense to recognize that our planet is growing old, or as the King James Version translates Isaiah 51:6, "shall wax old like a garment," like an old threadbare suit? The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 immediately preceded the beginning of the Great Industrial Revolution, which reached a climax in the enormous amounts of fossil fuels that have been burned.
Predictions are that the oceans may rise several inches, inundating large areas of seaport cities and forcing the evacuation of islands. At the same time wild weather patterns are predicted as the consequence of worldwide man-made pollution of the atmosphere, a phenomenon never before known in the history of the planet.
According to the Bible, God did create a perfect world in the beginning, with all the functions of nature exquisitely balanced for the good of mankind. All went well until humanity invited Satan in with his new invention of sin. The result: the earth was "defiled under its inhabitants" (Isa. 24:5). Sin made necessary the great worldwide Flood that Genesis chapters 6-9 describe, when "the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water" (2 Peter 3:6). At that time the vast forests and wildlife were buried, producing the coal and oil that are still being burned as fossil fuel.
The results of the Flood are with us today! And sin is increasing, for Jesus said, "As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matt. 24:37). We desperately need a new earth! If your clothes wore out, you'd need new ones! God wants to recreate a new earth, but He can't do it until the problem of sin is solved. It follows that there is a worldwide need for the proclamation of the pure true gospel that is "the power of God to salvation" (Rom. 1:16; that is, salvation from sin, not in sin). Could anything be more important?
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 4, 2001-2.
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