EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT
What the Bible says to Christians about our Environment
PART THREE: O.T. AND N.T. PROPHECIES
©  Orest Solyma  
The Church of God in Williamstown
WEB SITE: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~sanhub/index_.htm

In Part Two of the messages about Christian understanding of and responsibility towards the environments we saw that man's responsibilities are overwhelming because they encompass all environments. The modern "greed and lust are good" non-ethic dominates world politics, economics, and too much of the culture (e.g., in the media, in advertising, in films and television, in pop music and in popular magazines (e.g., Playboy, Cosmopolitan) that all feed anti-culture). This includes the paroxsymic jangling of John Cage (1912-92); said to be the most influential composer of the 20th century; Cage said to Schoenberg that he had "no feeling for harmony". These trends, inherent to Western anti-civilisation, will increasingly dominate, until this neo-Babylonianism, this chaos and disorder of values we see developing all around us, will bring self-destruction (Rev 17:16-18). When will man learn that the lesson of history is that man will not learn from the lessons of history (cf. Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly, George Santayana's quotable quotes, Jacques Ellul's The Subversion of Christianity, et al).

Scriptures indicate that with the global breakdown of real values (Dan 8:23a) the final attempt at international order (Dan 8:23-5; 7:23-5) will be an incongruous mix of iron and clay (Dan 2:31-3,40-5) philosophically based on tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gn 2:9,17), a mix of goods and evils that will last but very briefly (Dn 12:4,8-11).

In this discourse I will comment further on OT prophecies showing that NT prophecies are consistent with predictions by OT prophets, who also spoke according to the Holy Spirit (2Pet 1:19-21), which is the power of God (Lk 1:35; 1Cor 2:10-4; 1Pet 1:2-5).

Zephaniah was contemporaneous with the prophets Nahum, Jeremiah, probably Habbakuk, and Josiah, king of Judah (c.640-609 BC). His commission was to a people who had rich exposure to God's prophets, but behaved like or worse than those with little or no exposure to God's rebuke.

There is a powerful noteworthiness that links not knowing the true God, ignoring or denying His guidelines, religious error, and economic, cultural, environmental disasters! Though this speaks of loss and perversion of godly culture, which is the development of values that reflect the will of God in all areas of human endeavour, there is additional instruction here. Peoples lose their identity and adopt customs that subvert their own cultural identity; e.g., young men in Bangkok wearing T-shirts with a picture of Iron Maiden or Coca-Cola [Lev 18:3; Jer 10:2-3].
The preservation of healthy ethnic culture is far removed from tribalism. Process theologians,(who speak as having more knowledgeable 'revelation' than the Biblical prophets and apostles; Whitehead, Cobb, et al); liberation theology exponents, (who speak from their own resources as having answers more practical than those of the prophets and apostles; Boff, Hurtado, et al); Trinitarian thinkers, (who speak from figments of their varied imaginings proposing that in ecstatic union with the hypostatic triad one's visionary love will give one more than what the prophets and apostles had; LaCugna [God For Us], J.D.G. Dunn, [Christology in the Making], et al) - they all speak of a non-existent neo-Platonic/Philonic God who is but a fragmentation of imagination. This God can do nothing. Therefore, they see themselves as greater than the prophets and apostles of Scripture and offer their own non-biblical solutions to man's predicaments (Hos 4:6-10; Ezk 14:2-5; Is 28:14-19). Zephaniah goes on to say that the co-operative efforts between latter-day prophets and world leaders will come to disaster. God mercifully persists reiterating these messages throughout the Scriptures. But who believes (Will I find faith on the earth? Lk 18:8)? The 'theological problem' with this 'prophecy' is that it is in the genre of apocalyptic. Grant R. Osborne tells us (similar authors similarly agree), in his Hermeneutical Spiral [a most fitting book-title], that: "The visions [that prophets are given by God in apocalyptic literature, viz., Mt 24, Mk 13, Lk 21, 1Cor 15, 2Thess 2, 2Pet 3, Jude, Rev, Dan, Is 24-27, Ezk 37-39, Zec, & c] reverse normal experience by making heavenly mysteries the real world [like a tour through parts of Disneyworld] and depicting the present crisis as a temporary, illusory situation" [which actually will go away if you close your eyes tightly enough] (ibid. p 222). Or put another way, apocalyptic genre is religious propaganda from these pseudepigraphic prophets of Scripture (meaning they didn't actually write what they said they wrote; e.g., Daniel didn't write the prophecies in the book of Daniel while he was or maybe wasn't in Babylon in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar), which we must not fail to believe. Bultmann, Eichrodt, Danielou, Charlesworth, Jewett, and others so coherently direct us to realise that the prophets and apostles of Scripture were not as wise, nor as informed as these thinkers. The prophets were products of their time. Ours is more advanced!

Isaiah prophesied within the years c.790-690 BC. He, of all the OT prophets, has the most beautiful things to say about the future of man. But he gives some qualifications.

(We are being told of gross exploitation, crowding, and leaving little space for green belts as Ezekiel says there should be [Ezk 45:1-8]). One good seed of wheat, in very favourable conditions, will produce a full-grown stalk of 90-100 seeds in the seedhead (Mt 13:8,23 speaks of 30, 60, 100-fold yields). In poor conditions, with the effects of untimely frosts and lacks of rain, a farmer may be fortunate to get seedhead with 10-20 seed per stalk, i.e., fit to use as cattle feed. It is apparent that Is 5:10 is speaking of threatening conditions.

This present rapidly-growing world culture operating under guiding 'principles' that are unethical, irrational, and necessarily exploitative, continues to cyclically feed the techno-monster that defecates on and tramples across the earth (Dn 7:7). It is a monstrous anti-God culture; the eve of the politico-economic-military system rising out of the murky depths of the nations (Rev 13:1; 17:15). The propaganda precedes the storm.

Who is being looted of what? Ezekiel 34:1-23 and Jeremiah 23:30-40 tell us that religious leaders and ministry rob the sheep of spiritual nourishment. The solution is not forthcoming until the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, comes (Jn 10:11-6; Jer 23:1-6; Zec 11:16,17; 14:1-5). Too often it seems that the assumption is made that God is a cruel and nasty God determined to punish, from His loftiness and detachment, those who do not do His whims. The true perspective is that we are being told what God predicts are the natural outcomes, the inevitabilities of what man is bringing upon himself. The controversial causes for the greenhouse effects and global warming are examples of what man is bringing up himself. Many innocent and powerless people will also suffer! God's nature is to graciously respond in His love and compassion. The simplicity He offers is scorned, derided, subverted, hidden (Rom 1:18; Mt 23:13). Man wants his own answers with respect to the earth, and this is in contradiction to the One who created the earth and all that is in it (Ps 148; Is 40:26; 42:5; 45:18; Col 1:16; Rev 4:11).
The prophet Jeremiah (c.625-585 BC) records the most dire of the longer prophecies. He speaks with poetic licence to create the psychological environment in the predicted events. There is an overwhelming amount of such prediction. The NT is consistent with it! It is the same God and His Messiah we are dealing with (Rev 1:6; Col 1:3; Eph 1:3; Jn 20:7; Ps 45:4-7; Heb 1:8-13).

NT CONSISTENCY WITH THE OT
Let's look at what is regarded as end-time prophecy in the NT. We'll go back into the OT again to verify the consistency of both OT and NT. One of the most perplexing books of the Bible, derided as "apocalyptic" by many scholars, has things to say all of us can understand.

There are worldwide organisations such as the UNO, the IMF, the WWF, nations such as the USA with huge material and intellectual resources, and others making efforts in various ways to co-ordinate the diminishing of pollutive practices, and increasing restorative measures. Huge contradictory forces resist major attempts to clean-up, restore, and regenerate. All-consuming self-interest and lust, with its advance forces of lying propaganda, will continue to overrule and diminish good efforts. This indicates that there will come fearsome pressures on all to sell themselves, as Faust did with Mephistopheles, in at least outward ideology and in actions supportive of the global regime built by forces more powerful than those that sustained Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung [Eph 6:12; Rev 12:9; Dan 4:17b].

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN POWER
As one reads, with as little preconceived prejudice and bias as possible, one is surely stunned at the horror that the word of God predicts. Is this a merciful God speaking? Yet how implacable can man be? 'Let me deny and blaspheme God! Let me act with freedom to pursue all my lusts! Let me be indolent in cherished unrighteousness? Do not let me suffer the consequences. And perhaps You, God, should protect the poor, needy, innocent, ignorant, naive, debased, devalued! I don't want responsibility for them!' But we are our brother's keeper (Gn 4:9; 1Jn 3:11-2). People who ask the question, "Why does God allow so much suffering?" should reconsider this paragraph and the material that has led to it.

Man will reap what he has sown (Gal 6:7; Prov 24:12).

The inevitability of a worldwide power is certain - a power that will abuse on a greater scale than ever. The ever-increasing degeneracy of the culture driving the intellect of this world will produce the bestiality the Bible foretells. For example, the dignity, psychological well-being, social coherency, intellectual and cultural health boys and girls had, is raped and sodomised so that their inner environment is utterly blackened.

Thousands of eminent people are paedophiles (as Plato was; see Hans Licht's Sexual Life in Ancient Greece). The justice systems and morality are too paralysed to deal with most culprits. What would happen if the kind of military might were brought to bear on global drug traffickers as is upon the people of Iraq? What would happen if real power were used against Bangkok's whorehouses filled with boys and girls? Are there too many eminent people involved? What are the limits of the anger and vengeance of the God of mercy? Can He allow atrocities to continue so that the growing global 'civilization' destroys all in the lunacy of a latter-day Dr Strangelove? We must pretend that it will not happen!

Now to additional prophecy by Jeremiah.

THE RESPONSE OF THE NATIONS
Jer 25:15-16 This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from My hand this cup filled with the wine of My wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. 16 When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them."

This describes the reactions of the world's system and 'cultural' environment against the realities of the denied looming disasters. The system turns upon itself in its latter stages of self-destruction when the ten supporting 'kings' rebel (Rev 17:12-17).

The theme is focused in the NT in Rev 11:18:

Surely we note that prophecy links the horrendous decline in morality, ethics, the virulent viral explosion in decadence and violence of every kind which goes hand in hand with the onslaught of the physical environment. Cultural decay, the kind of decay that denies the purity of Biblical values, brings decay in all human behaviour. The arts reflect the rampant perversities and the discordance, disorder, disharmony, disorientation, destructions visible and felt by the grieving spirits of some.

How strange that to the end godly people are lured by evil (cp. Lot; Gn 19; 2Pet 2:7-9). However, like Joseph, Daniel, Esther, a Christian can hold even high office in the world but must not be of the world, i.e., living according to the principles of the Ruler of this world: pride, lust, idolatry, lying, violence, anarchy, ungodly compromise, self-deceit, .... [Rev 12:9; 2Cor 4:4; Ezk 28:12-9]. Prophetic descriptions of empires and kingdoms ruling over many peoples are generally animalistic, or male, or represented by a tree (e.g., Dan 2:31-43; 4:4-27; 7:1-8). However, the symbolism of the Whore suggests promiscuity, sensuality and lust, power, instinct, unrestrained thought, preoccupation with female beauty and enchantment, mothering, origins, and an irrational viciousness like that of Jezebel (1Ki 18:4; 2Ki 9:7,22,36,37). Perhaps there are also overtones to Mother Goddess, das Ewig-Weibliche, Earth Mother concepts and myths. On the other hand the Woman of Scripture is far removed from the obscurities of anthropological myths, and the current exploitation of woman, which is inherent to the system. Ezekiel 16, Revelation 12, Isaiah 54, 66:7-11, the book of Esther, the stunning Song of Songs are all wonderfully powerful and beautiful even if only partly understood.

RESPONSE OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD
There is so much more that perhaps should be included here. When my younger daughter rang me in May, 1996, asking me for Scriptures pertinent to the environment, I was delighted to help. Since then, in reviewing so much material, I've experienced things difficult to express and relevant to this topic. It is vital that you, the hearer, the reader, carefully expand on what is offered here. Review the responsibilities you believe you should carry out - more of them and better.

The subject gets larger and larger. Your honest questions are welcome, even though I believe the big questions in Part One have been answered. Perhaps too parabolically in some instances.

Let's look at what the people of God should be feeling and doing in such dire circumstances as these develop into an all-consuming finale. It seems it will be in our lifetime. Yet, whether in our lifetime or not, the responsibilities must be met.

Jesus Christ tells us to pray to His God and Father (Jn 17:1; 20:17; Eph 1:3; Col 1:3; Rev 1:6), who is the One who knows the end from the beginning (Is 46:10), foresaw what we experience and what we desperately need (1Pet 1:18-21). It would appear to me that the degree to which we want to do, and actually do the Will of God in our personal lives, is directly proportional to our desire that His Will be done on earth! But religion is mostly self-delusion, isn't it? Look at the zeal and godly fruits in all who seek the Truth with all their might, with all their being, with all their hearts! How much do we seek the Truth? What price do we put on it?

Now to last words in the Bible:

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