Well it's sorta like this.
I haven’t had a day without a headache in a long time either. My neck is plagued by constant pain stemming from a car accident. My hair in gray and there is a constant haze of tiredness around the frayed edges of my brain. It feels like it has been awhile since I have seen the blue sky of my youth. What is going on?
I am aging. I am only going to be fifty this fall but I tell ya—it came fast.
Meteorologists are saying that we may not see a lot of blue sky over the next few summers. Why? Everything is on fire. Ukraine, Britain, California, Washington state just below us and British Columbia just to name a few. These coupled with the volcanoes that are all freaking out right now have put a lot of gunk into the air.
My daughter and I just finished watching LOST IN SPACE where the Robinson family decided to leave the earth after its skies were clogged by the dust created by the impact of a mighty asteroid on the earth’s surface. In one scene you see the mom and daughter Christmas shopping with filtering masks on so they can breathe easier. Mrs.Robinson says to her kids "we need to go somewhere new so that we can see a blue sky again because we never will see one here again."
What do these smoky skies say to us? What does it all mean? It means that the earth is wearing out. It needs to be fixed. And right now I don’t know any human with a sky-sized vacuum cleaner.
Meteorologists are saying that we may not see a lot of blue sky over the next few summers. Why? Everything is on fire. Ukraine, Britain, California, Washington state just below us and British Columbia just to name a few. These coupled with the volcanoes that are all freaking out right now have put a lot of gunk into the air.
My daughter and I just finished watching LOST IN SPACE where the Robinson family decided to leave the earth after its skies were clogged by the dust created by the impact of a mighty asteroid on the earth’s surface. In one scene you see the mom and daughter Christmas shopping with filtering masks on so they can breathe easier. Mrs.Robinson says to her kids "we need to go somewhere new so that we can see a blue sky again because we never will see one here again."
What do these smoky skies say to us? What does it all mean? It means that the earth is wearing out. It needs to be fixed. And right now I don’t know any human with a sky-sized vacuum cleaner.
Now throw in the fact that even a manufactured evangelical messiah like Trump isn’t actually making anything better and neither is Trudeau. No one can make the earth any better. The earth’s quality of life is going to get worse and worse. We have wrecked the place. We didn’t take care of it and it is going down like a ship in the middle of a black ocean.
What are we going to do?
What are we going to do?
Well, the only option I see is to look up past the smoke to the only One who can do anything about it. In Revelation 21 there are words of hope about a renewed earth with no more storms or volcanoes or hurricanes and for humans no more cancer or grieving or shipwrecked relationships. In Revelation 21 Jesus says, “Behold I am making all things new.”
The Bible says that there will be a,“renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne...”. Not only will people who have died be raised from the dead and made new but so will the earth.
Right now we are chasing the wind as we try and get environmentally conscious. We need to do our best to recycle and keep plastic out of the oceans we have already wrecked. But we need to realize that what these messed up skies are saying is, “Come back to God.” We need His help. We are trying to keep straws out of the ocean—and this is right—but we aren’t trying to keep sin out our lives. We humans always treat the symptom without focusing on the true cause of our pain. The problem is that our sin has brought death to us and to the earth. We told God to take a hike and He said, “Okay, thy will be done.” And like a smartphone that has been unplugged—here, at the possible end of day, we are dying. Our planet is dying. We need to go back to God and plug in. We need His help.
We need Jesus to do what he did for people when he was walking the earth. We need Him to say, “Lazarus, come forth” to us and the earth so we can be raised to new life.
Read these words of life from Revelation 21–“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
We need Jesus to resurrect our humanity and our planet. The Bible says that the current systems of government all over the globe will fail until Jesus, the True and Good King rules from His throne in Jerusalem. The Bible tells us that the Earth and the heavens will perish. They will wear out like old clothing. Jesus will fold them up like a cloak and discard them like old clothing. But Jesus is always the same. The storms are coming. The people who build their lives on the Rock will remain. They will see the salvation of Jesus.
Long, long ago the prophet Micah foretold the coming of Christ to the Earth and the renewal of all things that He would bring with Him. Look at these words:
“In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”
He will end all wars: “They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has made this promise! (Micah 4:1-4)
The Bible says that there will be a,“renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne...”. Not only will people who have died be raised from the dead and made new but so will the earth.
Right now we are chasing the wind as we try and get environmentally conscious. We need to do our best to recycle and keep plastic out of the oceans we have already wrecked. But we need to realize that what these messed up skies are saying is, “Come back to God.” We need His help. We are trying to keep straws out of the ocean—and this is right—but we aren’t trying to keep sin out our lives. We humans always treat the symptom without focusing on the true cause of our pain. The problem is that our sin has brought death to us and to the earth. We told God to take a hike and He said, “Okay, thy will be done.” And like a smartphone that has been unplugged—here, at the possible end of day, we are dying. Our planet is dying. We need to go back to God and plug in. We need His help.
We need Jesus to do what he did for people when he was walking the earth. We need Him to say, “Lazarus, come forth” to us and the earth so we can be raised to new life.
Read these words of life from Revelation 21–“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
We need Jesus to resurrect our humanity and our planet. The Bible says that the current systems of government all over the globe will fail until Jesus, the True and Good King rules from His throne in Jerusalem. The Bible tells us that the Earth and the heavens will perish. They will wear out like old clothing. Jesus will fold them up like a cloak and discard them like old clothing. But Jesus is always the same. The storms are coming. The people who build their lives on the Rock will remain. They will see the salvation of Jesus.
Long, long ago the prophet Micah foretold the coming of Christ to the Earth and the renewal of all things that He would bring with Him. Look at these words:
“In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”
He will end all wars: “They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has made this promise! (Micah 4:1-4)
The earth needs to be renewed. There is only one person who can end wars and heal the earth and ultimately heal us and give us our youth and our perfect health back.
His Name is Jesus.
We need to call out to Him while we still can.
We need to remember the words of CS Lewis: “God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”
Call out to Jesus—choose to be on His side now while you still can. These smoky skies portend the current earth’s demise and the fall of all men who think they are king. Truth is there is only one King—Jesus Christ. He is the hero we need. He is the One who can fix us and fix this earth. And He will. I am so glad that I can rest in His power and His plans. So can you if you choose Him as your King. Moses asked the question a long time ago. “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
Good Question.
We need to call out to Him while we still can.
We need to remember the words of CS Lewis: “God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”
Call out to Jesus—choose to be on His side now while you still can. These smoky skies portend the current earth’s demise and the fall of all men who think they are king. Truth is there is only one King—Jesus Christ. He is the hero we need. He is the One who can fix us and fix this earth. And He will. I am so glad that I can rest in His power and His plans. So can you if you choose Him as your King. Moses asked the question a long time ago. “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
Good Question.
