Despoiling Earth Displeases God

Human perception functions best at the small, individual and personal level. Vast perspectives, whether they involve societal trends or climate change, are far more difficult for us to discern and grasp.

It is, for example, virtually impossible for most of us to grasp the effect that 6.3 billion people have on the earth when they are all using her resources at once.

But earth's resources are finite. And we are having an effect.

Our atmosphere and seas have warmed due to our activities. We are beginning to notice because our weather has begun to change dramatically.

Our scientists have been measuring these changes for decades and warning us that if we did not alter our course, we were headed toward disaster.

Now this change has begun occurring all over the world. Icecaps the size of Rhode Island are melting, forests weakened by drought are being attacked by bark beetles, hurricanes are forming earlier, desertification is on the increase and climates are changing.

There has been a heat wave throughout North America including Canada.

In fact, Ontario has seen record breaking heat and humidity this summer.

Locals say that over the last fifty years winters have warmed so that Canadian boys in Ontario are lucky to get two months of hockey practice in winter on outdoor ponds. It is predicted that in 30-50 years ponds in Ontario will not freeze at all.

Floridians have seen four major hurricanes form in 2005 and it is just the beginning of the hurricane season. Last year Florida was hit by a record 4 hurricanes.

In Phoenix, Arizona a record heat wave has hit, killing 18 people so far.

During a visit two weeks ago to Tennessee, I noted the temperature at one point was 105.

A friend writes of a heat wave in California.

On Tuesday it was 117 in Las Vegas, breaking a record set in 1942.

And, currently, there are 35 major forest fires burning in ten states due to dry conditions. 4.6 million acres burned last year. 3.9 million acres have burned so far this year.

Beloved, changes are occurring. And we on earth are responsible for them, for we have changed the earth's climate with our lifestyles.

In Ezekiel 36: 4-5 we are told that God is not pleased when the land is despoiled.

Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, the valleys, the desolate wastes, and the cities that have been forsaken, which became plunder and mockery to the rest of the nations all around - therefore thus says the Lord God: Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations...who gave My land to themselves as a possession, with wholehearted joy and spiteful minds, in order to plunder its open country.

We cannot expect continued blessings if we continue to plunder and despoil the world God gave us.

We cannot rely on government to lead us, but we can rely on God to show us the way.

It is, therefore, the job of every Christian to ask God to help us make the changes necessary to become careful stewards of the earth's resources and stop the dramatic climate change that is unfolding.

It is time for every Christian to begin doing what we should have done long ago: downsize our cars, turn lights and appliances off when they are not being used and begin to look for ways in which we can live in greater harmony with the earth.

One simple thing you can do is put your television on a timer.

Our television sets are made so that they use electricity even when they are turned off. Putting them on timers stops that energy drain.

If we saw to it that our television sets were completely shut off or unplugged when we are not using them, we would, collectively, save electricity, decrease the coal burned to produce it and reduce the heat and pollutants released into the atmosphere.

God can only do for us what he can do through us.

Let us ask God to work through us for the good of our planet - and our children - today to preserve our resources and halt climate change.