Until the last fifty years most scientists were quite optimistic about the future of the earth and of mankind. I’ve read predictions of the sun wearing out in maybe 100,000 years or so. If you had asked such questions as, “Is the earth slowing down?” or “Are climates changing on the earth?” the answer would have been a rather haughty, “Well, of course not!”

But things are different now. Scientists are beginning to admit that things are happening to this earth, and at an alarming rate. Occasionally, the official clocks at Greenwich, England, and other official places over the earth must be changed, usually adding a second of time. Why? For some unknown reason the earth seems to be slowing down. Only God Himself knows whether this will continue and at what rate.

Even more alarming are the changes in climate all over the earth. Unprecedented droughts scorch some areas while devastating floods plague other localities.

Interestingly, I recently read an article about climate change written in the mid-1970s. At that time, scientists were noting that the earth’s temperatures were averaging lower than they did 20 or 30 years earlier. Winters in many places in North America did not seem to be as cold as they used to be—most older people spoke of colder winters when they were young. However, the summers were becoming cooler. More and more areas experienced frosts later in the spring and earlier in the fall.

Weathermen in England report the growing season ten days shorter in the 1970s than in 1945. The cooling was becoming so great that people feared that crops were in danger.

According to the record keepers, the earth passed through an unusually warm spell from about 1900 to 1945. After that, things noticeably changed. The worldwide temperature average was about 1° less in the 1970s than 30 years ago.

Now, over 30 years later, dramatic changes seem to be taking place again. Now, more and more people are becoming convinced that we are facing a period of dramatic global warming. Many people who once doubted that this is taking place are becoming convinced. But they still debate the exact cause of the warming. Is it a natural cycle or is it aggravated by polution of the atmosphere? Instead of fearing an ice age, as many did earlier in the twentieth century, they now fear that the ice caps will melt and flood coastal areas. If the warming continues, dramatic climate changes will take place.

This rapid change in climate, the measurable slowdown in the time the earth takes to go around the sun, earthquakes, and volcanic activity are all beginning to shake people’s faith in the theory that “all things continue as they were from the beginning.” Read 2 Peter 3:3, 4.

What’s in the future? Drastic changes aren’t mpossible. They appear to have happened before and will happen again. You see, sometime in the future, the Bible predicts not an ice age but a “fireage.” The Bible calls this “the day of God.” The destruction will be total.

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).

If we are followers of Jesus Christ, we need not, with the masses, fear whatever great climatic change or other catastrophe might come next. “Nevertheless we, according to his [Christ’s]promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).

The Bible challenges us to live for God until that day. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for [not dreading] and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (2 Peter 3:11, 12).

God’s hand is mighty to deliver!

—by Roger L. Berry