Nearing Midnight

Commentary on world events that relate to Bible prophecy and on Rapture Ready issues world events.

Jan 12
Green Bible vs. the End Times
A new Bible has recently been published that highlights verses it claims are related to environmentalism. The Green Bible calls for believers to protect God's creation, and it seeks to encourage more Christians, particularly evangelicals, to embrace "green" politics.
"In every book of the Bible, there are references to the world and how we should take care of it," said Rusty Pritchard, editor of Creation Care Magazine, an eco-friendly publication for evangelicals. "When you look at it through that lens, it really jumps out at you ... that God is calling us to care for the world around us."
The Green Bible is simple and streamlined in its design. Printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink, the book features a cotton and linen cover and more than 1,000 verses printed in green ink.
One would think that environmentalism would be exclusively embraced by more liberal Christian organizations. In recent years, organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals have taken up the green banner. In 2006, 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, joined with Pastor Rick Warren to form the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
The Christian environmental movement has already created rather odd bedfellows. Warren has been invited to speak at national and international forums including the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the African Union, the Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Time’s Global Health Summit, and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.
Rev. Richard Cizik, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, has said that Christians have a biblical mandate to take care of the earth and that climate change is a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately. When asked how the concept of the rapture influences his planning, Cizik replied, "There are some who believe that environmental degradation is simply one sign of the coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore there is no need to take action. And again and again, evangelical scholars, pastors, seminary presidents, have said that this is wrong. It is heresy and is not what the Bible teaches."
The first problem I have with Christian environmentalism is the lack of an urgent crisis. The whole debate is centered around global warming, and recent data seems to indicate we are not in a rapid warming trend.
Last week it was announced that levels of sea ice are now at the same levels seen 29 years ago. Thanks to a quick rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those in 1979, the year satellite record keeping began.
The year 2008 also helped put the brakes on global warming by being the coldest year in just over a decade. You would have to go back to 1997 find a year with a lower average temperature.
There is no sign of a let-up in the cold snap. So far this winter, several western states have set records for snowfall. Alaska is in the midst of bitterly cold weather. Frigid temperatures have grounded planes, disabled cars, frozen water pipes, and even canceled several championship cross-country ski races.
I generally agree that global warming is a long-term problem. If we put more CO2 into the atmosphere, it would increase the temperature. As with any problems, time needs to be factored into the equation. In the light of Bible prophecy, I don't think there is need for immediate concern.
The Yucca Mountain Repository is the proposed main facility for most of America’s spent nuclear reactor fuel and other high-level radioactive waste. It is located in a desert on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, about 80 miles north of the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The government has been pouring huge amounts of money into this project. The latest total cost presented to Congress is running at $90 billion.
What keeps driving up the cost of this hole in the ground is the desire for this repository to last from 10,000 to 1 million years without any radiation leaks. Unfortunately, the world they are trying to protect from this spent nuclear fuel is not going to be here in 10,000 years. I would be hard-pressed to give them 30 years.
Jesus said when He returns to earth at the end of the tribulation, the vast majority of mankind will be dead and the earth will be in a state of total devastation. Everything environmentalists hope to achieve will be undone by man’s evil nature.
I think it is pure insanity for a minister of the gospel to become involved in any type of environmental issue. Because our souls are the only things that will survive this world, preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ should be every believer’s top priority.
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mat 16:26).
-Todd
EU Globalist Gurus Gather
Vibrations stemming from Planet Earth getting its bell rung by the economic earthquakes that struck late in 2008 continue to cause currencies and trade issues to jostle against each other. America’s loss of balance is at the center of the quaking with, for example, the U.S. having so much Treasury paper in foreign hands that the People’s Republic of China has issued notice that it might well not take such paper in the future. It conjures the image of the heavily addicted gambler who wants to sign an I.O.U. so he can keep on gambling, but the others in the game aren’t sure he is good for the paper.
Maybe that’s a primary reason that leaders other than American are at the center of the meetings to try to assuage anxiety that the dumbfounding economic upheaval is inflicting upon the world’s monetary masters--masters who have appointed themselves to the task of making all things fiscal conform to the new order they want to create.
Perhaps we are witnessing the key signal that the world is wagging toward Jesus’ forewarning that just before His return there will be “upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity” (Luke 21:25b). The globalist powers elite seem to believe they are the only authorities sufficiently ascendant to straighten out the most volatile economic mess in history. As usual, asking God’s help in the matter never--observably, at least-- crosses the minds of the globalist gurus of governance.
It is interesting from the perspective of Bible prophecy, I think, that key movers and shakers in this unprecedented crisis are from among the most powerful within the European Union. And, it is even more interesting that these are directing U.S. economic repositioning, rather than the other way around.
"PARIS – The leaders of France and Germany appeared to put disagreements over economic policy behind them Thursday, calling on the U.S. to join global efforts to address the financial crisis. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, leading a two-day conference with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the future of capitalism, said the crisis has shown that no country can go it alone on economic policy. ‘In the 21st century, there is no longer a single nation who can say what we should do or what we should think,’ he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the system ‘cannot continue as it is’ and called for better-regulated financial markets. European leaders will meet in Berlin before the G-20 summit in London to decide a common approach as global leaders gear up for a second meeting on the global financial crisis, Sarkozy said” (Emma Vandore and Greg Keller, AP Business writers, "French President Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech at the symposium 'New World, New Capitalism' in Paris," AP, 1/8/09).
America continues to be the world’s leading industrialized nation. All other economies still look to this republic as being the stabilizing economic pillar in an increasingly uncertain international monetary system. This is true despite the fact that the U.S. has achieved its super-power status–in human terms—through free enterprise that unleashed unprecedented production of wealth, while other nations--particularly in Europe--jealously held to socialist doctrine that has seen them regress economically, rather than progress.
And now America, the lone stand-out in individualism and the entrepreneurial ability to produce in ways that have benefited the world, is suddenly and without let-up being forced into a new world economic order mold. America’s swift movement away from the free market methodologies that have made the nation prosper might be dumbfounding from purely humanistic examination. However, when considered in the context of Bible prophecy in these strange times that are almost certainly the end of the age, the question about America’s ultimate destiny begins to come into focus.
The EU being in a highly focal position at this juncture shouldn’t surprise the prophecy student who views Bible prophecy yet future as literal, any more than should the fact that no matter which way the news cameras and microphones turn, covering whatever crisis, the focus always returns to God’s chosen nation, as is the case at present.
Rome is reviving, just as Israel is stage-center. The final act is about to begin.
--Terry