DISASTER MOVIE - Part Two -- Devotional for March 28, from "Good Seeds"

I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Genesis 8:21-22)

As much as science fiction writers love the Bible as a resource for their plots and scenarios, they totally miss its true message, encrypted in Scripture to feed men’s hearts and save men’s souls – not to pump up their adrenaline or fill up their pocketbooks! They miss the point in at least three ways: FIRST, the Bible is not reckless fantasy, but recorded facts. It is history of the past – and of the future – written clearly for our learning. SECOND, the God of the Bible is not an impersonal power to be reckoned with, or a fickle and arbitrary warlord to bargain with. Nor is He just another name for Fate or Destiny, putting a face on the Force that sees the universe through to its ultimate and inevitable demise. No, God is the Creator of a perfect world – albeit a perfect world gone wrong – but He will yet have things His way: a perfect world peopled with perfect creatures, all in His perfect time. But His Word makes it clear that achieving this will require the winning of men back to Himself. This He accomplished through His Son, Jesus Christ. He has done His part. Now He waits for men to reciprocate. But there will be those who will not hear His voice or heed His call, and for them there will be only one alternative: soul destruction in the place of torment and outer darkness. Talk about a horror film! Talk about a disaster movie! Such a destiny for the self-proclaimed enemies of God will be the greatest disaster – and tragedy – of all! But God does not look upon the Christ-rejecter with hatred in His eyes, ready and anxious to strike! No, His gaze is that of unrequited love, looking longingly after them with a torn heart, with the tear-filled eyes of Jesus as He watched the Rich Young Ruler turn away, rejecting the riches of God’s grace in favor of his own receding, deceiving wealth. THIRD, the final reckoning will finally come, to be sure, and the world as we know it will come to an end forever, but until that time, as the post-flood promise affirms, heavenly bodies will hold to their courses, and the earth will continue to sustain life in its beautifully delicate balance. It is the ultimate in arrogance to imagine we feeble humans could amass the power to destroy our planet, either with bombs or ecological mismanagement! This is the worst written disaster movie of all – more like a comedy (of errors!) The only global warming that will destroy the world is the one God will rain down on that final Day of the Lord. O ye modern prophets of doom, let THAT be the sermon you preach!