Earth Day

Earth Day. What are we really focusing on? I'm convinced it's not really about saving the Earth but instead favoring mankind's ego. That is, that in his nothingness he believes he somehow has the power to destroy an entire planet - a world created by the hand of God?! How vain and foolish. The only way the Earth could be destroyed is if God willed it to be. It's that simple. 

I love the following scripture in the Pearl of Great Price when Enoch stated:

"And it came to pass that [he] looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof. saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?" (Moses 7:48)

This short verse totally destroys and defeats the entire Green movement. For instance, the earth is pained and weary because of the wickedness of men. I don't ever recall CO2 emissions, greenhouse gases or bovine farts referenced as sins or listed on the Ten Commandments or ever being added to the seven recorded things the Lord hates:

"A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." (Proverbs 6:32)

Better reread that last verse again just to be sure...nope. No mention of "Global warming," "global climate change," "global climate disruption" or "climate challenges." Recall again that the earth itself asks when it "shall rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me?" In other words, the earth is describing the filthiness upon its face as man himself rather than the ozone layer, sea levels, a lonely polar bear drifting upon a small ice sheet or melting glaciers. To be sure, there is no reference of man's industry ever going forth into the earth only that his wickedness [the things the Lord hates] has gone forth out of it. Again, wickedness never was greenhouse gas. It does not correlate with barometric pressure or temperature value - only to the degree of glory one will inherit after the Day of Judgment. That's it.

Indeed are the "great pollutions" mentioned in scripture really just the by-product of sin - homosexuality, infidelity, domestic abuse in all its forms, etc. It has less to do with car exhaust and more to do with the waste coming from human mouths. 

Truly the earth is weary and disgusted with the manner in which its inhabitants are openly forsaking [natural] love and brotherly kindness in favor of warring against each other - neighbor against neighbor, husband against wife, friend against friend or child against parent as if sinning were a contact sport where the end goal is a medal - gold, silver or bronze. There can be no victory in sin, only defeat and submission.

To suggest that we, in our fallen and corruptible states, can disrupt the total physical state of our created planet is to make the claim that we are as capable of dethroning God, for the earth is His footstool and handiwork. But no matter the effort, the created can never destroy the Creator. He may attempt to undermine, reject or ignore Him and His counsel but, like the infamous Tower of Babel, he will invariably fall.  

So in honor of Earth day, we ought to instead offer prayers of thanksgiving to God for this beautiful world we call home and not take it or Him for granted. We are truly nothing without Him and by comparison as insignificant when standing before the great sea or on a lofty mountain top. 

In closing, I have always loved the Prologue to Michael Crichton's classic novel, Jurassic Park, where he describes the vanity of man and his foolishness to suggest that only he can destroy the planet. This fantastic excerpt was once read by the late Charlton Heston, a real patriot and conservationist of liberty and truth. And while there are some evolutionary components and significant dates mentioned which I do not support, the underlying message is still there and spot on. Here it is:

"You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. 

Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. 

Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive gas, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. 

We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us."

Only by humbling ourselves in prayer can we begin to heal. For the Lord has spoken it.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Long live the fighters