Yet another report has highlighted the fact that the earth is getting warmer as a result of human activity. The only hope, says the report, is for us all to change the way we live.

We might reflect on the significance of this verse in the Bible:

‘The Day of the Lord will come… and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be burned up’

(2 Peter 3:10).

Should we take this literally? ‘The heavens and the earth’ is a way of describing rulers and people. For example Moses addresses the leaders and the people of Israel, saying, ‘Give ear, O heavens and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth’ (Deuteronomy 32:1).

The verse in 2 Peter 3:10 is an echo of Isaiah: ‘I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered’ (Isaiah 65:17). The prophet is not telling us that the whole universe will be replaced - but that the world will be governed by new leadership.

This then is assuring for us - if we believe the Bible is the word of God. For it tells us that the policies and the behaviours that are destroying planet earth will be replaced by what is called ‘the kingdom of God’.

For it is God’s purpose that ‘all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord’

(Numbers 14:20, cf Habakkuk 2:14).

Peter goes on to write: ‘Since all these things (that is, present human activity) are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness’.

We need to change the way we live – and it seems that everyone agrees this is necessary.

But only the Bible tells us what fundamental changes are needed. By reading it, believing it and changing our lives, we can look forward with hope. The future can be secure and safe – for us and for planet earth.

Contact us for a free booklet:

‘Hope for a Hopeless World’

Code Red for the Planet

The recent UN Climate Change report has been widely publicised as a “Code Red” for our planet. “The door is still ajar”, we are told, to avert catastrophe, but will soon shut irreversibly. The rate at which we, the human population, are causing irreparable damage has risen exponentially.

We are already seeing and feeling the results of this:

everywhere on Earth, people are experiencing messed-up, unpredictable weather patterns. 

Some have been hit with disastrous flooding from excessive rain 

and others with devastating wildfires from excessive heat.

What, if anything, does the Bible have to say about our environment?

Right back in the Garden of Eden, man and woman

were given responsibility for looking after the earth, along with obeying God’s commands. It’s a responsibility which we have failed to live up to, developing societies based on greed, selfishness and convenience instead.

It’s therefore not surprising that we are paying the consequences – not only environmentally, but morally and physically too. Romans 8:22 says that “the whole Creation groans”: by dislocating our relationship with our Creator, we have made a mess of everything.

But that “groaning” is not just in despair: they are the groans of “birth pangs”! A better time is coming, which this environmental damage is presaging. God has a definite purpose with the Earth: “…God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited…” (Isaiah 45:18)

God is not going to allow the planet to be destroyed. He has a plan for it – “…as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD…” (Numbers 14:21). This glory will not only be physical beauty but moral perfection too, when God’s beautiful character will be reflected in every person living on the earth.

So, whilst some wring their hands in despair, some shrug their shoulders in indifference and others throw themselves into environmental campaigning, we look forward in hope to the glory that will soon come.

We show respect to the wonderful planet that God created, doing our best not be wasteful or damaging, but recognising that the ultimate solution to this terrible problem lies in the return of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the earth, to transform it both morally and physically.

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20)