If the earth isn’t solid, where is true security?

By Elizabeth Prata

I used to follow news of sinkholes and earth cracks. I am fascinated by them. I think my fascination stems from the fact that the earth sees so solid, so permanent, but when the earth cracks or shifts or liquefaction occurs, it shows us that it isn’t.

The earth seems so eternal, even more so to an unsaved person as I was for most of my adult life. The ground is always there to uphold us, put our homes on, traverse its roads and byways. When a geo-physical incident occurs like a sinkhole opening or a crack appearing, it scared me. This earth is all I’ve got, if it isn’t permanent, if it isn’t safe, what is? I don’t think I was the only one to feel that way. We all seek a sense of permanence and safety. The biggest, most obvious safety to an unsaved person is this world that we live on and the ground we walk on.

We see the earth cracking and splitting and opening in the Bible.

Korah’s rebellion comes to mind. “As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, ‘The earth is going to swallow us too!‘” (Numbers 16:32).

Jude 1:5-13 reminds us that the specific example of Korah is an example of what WILL happen to the ungodly. Revelation 12:16 may show us a picture of a similar event: “But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth”. Gill’s Exposition says “and the earth opened her mouth; as it did when it swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Numbers 16:30; to which history this may have some respect.”

Isaiah 24:19 says that “The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.” In the end, the earth cracks up. Isaiah 24 shows the same judgments in Revelation 6. The earth opens its mouth…and swallows what is above. The sinkhole and earth cracking incidents that are happening in the world lately are good examples of reminding us that the LORD is in control of the earth.

By the end of the Tribulation, the earth is devastated. Almost three-quarters of the entire population are dead. The geo-physical form of the surface of the earth is unrecognizable. The Tribulation is the orderly uncreation, a reversal of the creation as the Lord systematically takes down mountains, sinks islands, burns the things upon the earth like homes, trees, and grass. And so on.

Now as a saved person, I don’t rely on a false solidity of the earth, nor do I panic when that seeming solidity is cracked or liquified. The earth is not my home. I know from whence my solidity comes. The eternal word of God, the Man-God Jesus, the everlasting Savior. My salvation is eternal, His life is eternal, His heaven is eternal. Nothing is more solid than being in Christ.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. John 10:28.