“The first [angel] sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died.” (Rev. 8.7-9a)
Whatever might be one’s personal beliefs about the passages in Scripture seeming to address the end of time, we all recognize God has a plan for the ages. We then can reason, if God has a plan, just as that plan had a starting point, so it has an ending. We can further infer the plan has both temporal and eternal implications. In terms of the temporal, God’s plan is a process. From the beginning, the Lord has been working towards a conclusion.
The great problem of the ages has been and is man’s propensity for evil. The Bible gives us the history of man’s sin. Whatever else happened along the way, Scripture tells us man sinned in the beginning, and continues to sin to this day. Further, man’s sin collectively and individually has prevented him from being able to participate fully, or at all, in God’s economy. Our sin excludes us from the full benefits of God’s favor.
Man’s sin has had tragic consequences. As James pointed out, when sin has run its course, death results. Sin and death are inextricably woven together. So, how was the problem of sin to be resolved? The Lord gave Israel instructions for sacrifice through which the penalty of sin could be forestalled, but those sacrifices did not finally solve the problem of sin. The solution was beyond man. Only God could effect a cure for the eternally fatal disease of sin.
In the fullness of time, or at the right time, God provided the solution to the problem of man’s sin. “For while we were still helpless,” Paul wrote to the Romans, “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” God did what he did so he might demonstrate “His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The death of Jesus on the Cross is the climax of history. The great conflict, man’s sinfulness, was resolved in the death and resurrection of Christ. After the Cross, sin was no longer the turning point for God’s relationship with humanity; grace became the new filter through which God looked at men.
Now, the Lord was able to do what he did, solve the unsolvable, because he is, among other things, sovereign. Whether we are reformed or Arminian in our theological stance, we all must admit to God’s sovereignty. He is indeed all powerful; he is Lord. We do not make him Lord; the best we can do is admit to and acknowledge his lordship.
Now, if man’s sin is greater than grace, the Cross could not have happened. The Cross was a consequence, or the cost of sin. The Cross also was the cure for sin. Grace is greater than our sin. Man’s sin, collectively and individually, does have great consequence, though. Just how far those consequences extend is a matter of debate. One of the burning issues for our time is global climate change, or as some put it, human-induced global warming. Some say global climate change is a result of man’s sin against the natural environment.
Just how great is the cost of our environmental sinfulness? We, as a race, in both the developed and undeveloped world, have polluted, trashed and corrupted the natural world. We have wasted resources, defiled the atmosphere, oceans and the ground with harmful chemicals and other pollutants.
Yet, how dangerous to our future and our fate has our sinfulness been? Has what we have done hastened the end of life as we know it? Is the future of our planet somehow less sure because we have been poor stewards? Have we frustrated the plan of God by our selfishness and immaturity? Must God adapt his plan to the consequences of our sin?
If God is, as Scripture presents him, the sovereign Lord of the universe, then he need not change anything. His plan stands as it always has been, and does not need to be adapted at any point. God’s plan, a process developing over and through time, retains its integrity. God declared though Isaiah, “thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, ‘I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone, causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness, confirming the word of His servant and performing the purpose of His messengers.” (Isa. 44.24-26a)
Understanding the predictions of fatal, global climate change are unproven, we still must admit our environmental and ecological sinfulness does have consequences. Yet, God is still in control. In the day in which Isaiah addressed his message, many saw the future as in doubt as many do today. Yet, the Lord said man could not imagine all consequences. The best and the worst of the predictions of doom by the great minds of Isaiah’s day did not then, as they do not today, take into account the Sovereign Lord of the Universe and his plan for his people. Even when Israel thought she was beyond hope and redemption, God declared to her, “do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.” (Isa. 41.10)
God’s plan will come to its intended conclusion, whenever the Lord chooses and according to his timing. We, at our worst or our best, cannot alter God’s timetable. He will consummate his plan. He neither will be hurried or delayed in the playing out of the plan he has established. The Lord truly is in control.
