Category: God

I mentioned before that any time there is a large earthquake, this blog sees an increase in views. People are somehow more unsettled after an earthquake than most other natural disasters, though any disaster sees people flocking to sites in search of the meaning of it all.

Personally I think quakes unsettle people because this is the very ground we walk on that is moving, splitting, and otherwise kicking up.  If solidity isn’t solid, than maybe invisible God is real…The subconscious thought or fear is likely, “If the earth isn’t solid, then what is?”

God of course.

But any natural disaster sends people searching for what, where, why. God is creator. He made the earth and the stars and the heavens and the stars and everything in between. He made it…and He can UNmake it.

Wikipedia photo, Linnaean taxonomy

Man assigns lists and categories to everything in the natural world, trying to organize it, in order to understand it. I remember being very interested in the biological taxonomy of mollusks in my 30s. Wikipedia explains taxonomy–

The establishment of universally accepted conventions for the naming of organisms was Linnaeus’ main contribution to taxonomy—his work marks the starting point of consistent use of binomial nomenclature.[129] During the 18th century expansion of natural history knowledge, Linnaeus also developed what became known as the Linnaean taxonomy; the system of scientific classification now widely used in the biological sciences.

The Linnaean system classified nature within a nested hierarchy, starting with three kingdoms. Kingdoms were divided into classes and they, in turn, into orders, and thence into genera (singular: genus), which were divided into Species (singular: species).[130] Below the rank of species he sometimes recognized taxa of a lower (unnamed) rank; these have since acquired standardised names such as variety in botany and subspecies in zoology. Modern taxonomy includes a rank of family between order and genus and a rank of phylum between kingdom and class that were not present in Linnaeus’ original system

I bought plastic divided tackle boxes at Wal-Mart and collected shells from all the oceans I sailed on and

Initiamenta conchologica, or, Elements of conchology Printed and published by Reeve, Brothers,1846-1849. biodiversitylibrary.org/item/54210

all the beaches I walked on, and labeled them and placed them within a taxonomy … and it felt so good to organize the world. I felt that if I could organize it, and then I could understand it, and then I could control it.

Of course that is a mistake, no matter how fun it is to study natural history. But I wasn’t saved then and I didn’t know God.

And in the end, man doesn’t really understand the world or the universe much at all. See the following articles:

The Sun That Did Not Roar
“This is the height of the 11-year solar cycle, the so-called solar maximum. The face of the Sun should be pockmarked with sunspots, and cataclysmic explosions of X-rays and particles should be whizzing off every which way. Instead, the Sun has been tranquil, almost spotless. As W. Dean Pesnell, the project scientist for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, dryly noted, “We’re not having much of a solar maximum.” A week ago, a solitary sunspot blemished an otherwise blank yellow disk. In the ensuing days, a few more specks appeared, but even a small explosion, or coronal mass ejection, last Thursday seemed like the halfhearted effort of a slacker star. “The truth of it is there isn’t a lot going on,” said Joseph M. Kunches, a space scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center. “It’s been a bit of a dud. You look at the Sun today and you say, ‘What?’ … For scientists trying to understand the dynamics in the interior of the Sun, it has been a humbling experience enlightening them about how much they do not know.“

They do not know as much about the order of the universe as they thought they knew.

Wikimedia commons, TS Franklin, 2005

Despire dire forecasts, it’s a dud year for hurricanes
“The preseason predictions were all dire, using words like “extremely active” and “above-normal” to describe the forecast for the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that seven to 11 hurricanes would form, while AccuWeather predicted eight.  However, the season so far has been a welcome if unexpected dud, with not a single hurricane yet through the first week of September. (A typical full June-November hurricane season, based on weather records that go back to 1950, has seven hurricanes.)’

Really? Scientists know so much about how the wind blows that they can predict how many hurricanes there will be? I don’t think so. They do not know as much about hurricanes as they think they know.

Climate change AKA global warming? Nah.

Climate change is on ice: UN scientists reveal the world’s barely got any hotter in the last 15 years
“In a report Report compiled by over 800 scientists and used 9,000 scientific studies UN scientists said today they are ’95 per cent’ certain that climate change is man made, but still could not explain why the world has barely got any hotter in the last 15 years.”

The earth is not as solid as we think and the wind is not as constant as we think and the sun is not as active (or inactive) as we think. The Tribulation will be a time when all the cycles and taxonomies and orderliness of what has been a seeming normal will morph into a new normal: the horror of uncreation. Man wasn’t around when God created the stars and the earth but he will be around when He uncreates it.

For example, the wind won’t blow.

“After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of

Hans Holbein the Younger 1497/98-1543, The angels holding back the four winds Series/Book Title: Apocalypse

the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree” (Revelation 7:1).

The sun is cooling now but later it will turn hot, so hot it will burn men in an instant–

“The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory” (Revelation 16:8-9)

Hail will be supersized, 100 lbs, and crush mens’ heads.

“And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.” (Revelation 16:21)

The Tribulation  will be a time when God will uncreate the earth, unspooling it from the seeming normalcy humanity has enjoyed, to now when things are starting to go haywire, to future then when nothing will be normal.

Spurgeon wrote that in the creation, “The light which broke in upon the primeval darkness was of a very mysterious kind, and came not according to ordinary laws, for as yet neither sun nor moon had been set as lights in the firmament.“

MacArthur wrote of the uncreation of Revelation: “The present laws of thermodynamics, which state that matter can not be created nor destroyed,  will no longer be in effect. As a result, “he universe “will be burned up,” it will be totally consumed. (2 Peter 3:10-13). The absolute reverse of creation will occur. It didn’t take eons of evolution to create the universe, nor will it take eons to uncreate it. The uncreation of the universe, like its creation, will take place by the word of God.” (source “Revelation 12-22 MacArthur New Testament Commentary  By John F MacArthur”)

All praise our holy God who creates, makes things orderly in their time, makes things disorderly in their time, and will dissolve the universe when it is time!