It had begun to snow again overnight, which wasn’t too surprising since it was mid-November in Alberta. It made conversation, though, and so when I handed the room key to the clerk, I mentioned how it was beginning to get white outside again. The clerk responded with the current prediction of 15 centimetres, which caused us to do mental math. She was more skilled than I and soon complained, “Oh no, not six inches again!”

“Yes, this is Alberta,” I replied, “And in the last two weeks, we have already had temperatures way below freezing with lots of precipitation. I didn’t expect it to be so severe so soon!”

She went on to describe the extremes of the bitter cold from the Arctic conflicting with the warmth of the Pacific Ocean just over the mountains of British Columbia. She became a bit graphic in explaining how bitter weather can give way to a chinook in only a few hours. “Why we can be in flip flops and shirt sleeves one day and wearing a parka and shoveling snow the next and back to flip flops the next,” she said. “We say, if you don’t like the weather, then you can wait five minutes, it just might change.”

“Well, that’s exactly the way we used to describe it in Florida when I was a boy,” I said.

But then the middle-aged clerk went on with a comment I wasn’t expecting but have come to hear in different places.

“I will tell you what I think it is. We have Mother Nature mad at us with what we’ve been doing to her. We keep polluting our environment, leaving our carbon footprint all over the place, and Mother Nature is getting madder and madder at us.”

When she said that, I walked closer to the counter and lowered my voice to almost a conspiratorial tone. “May I tell you what I believe is happening?” I asked.

When she nodded, I began, “The Bible has prophesied in both the Old and the New Testament about a different time period that is going to come on the earth. It is a time known as ‘the Day of the Lord.’ You see, God has been showing His mercy for thousands of years, and mankind just about believes that God overlooks all evil in His love for man.

“But the Bible tells us of a time period coming–of at least seven years–when God is going to change the way He relates to this world. This is labeled the Day of the Lord or the Day of God’s Wrath. Some of it will be a time when it seems like all of nature, and even the universe has gone berserk and is conspiring against mankind!

“The prophet Amos described it as if a man is walking along one day and unexpectedly, he meets a lion. He is terribly frightened, and he turns around to run with all of his might, but as he runs, out steps a bear directly in front of him. Frightened beyond description, the man manages to run to his house. Shaking with all the adrenaline in his system, and with exhaustion, he goes into his house and supposedly to safety. As he goes into his house, he leans on a wall, and when he does, a snake comes out of the wall and bites him. (See Amos 5:19-20).

“This is a picture of what it will be like in the ‘day of the Lord’." I explained. Seeing I had her interest, I went on, “And I believe what we see now is the false labor pains. You see, the Bible says this time will be a time of suffering, like when travail comes on a woman with child.”
Then I asked her directly, “Have you had any children, do you know what travail or labor is like?”

“No,” she said, “I haven’t had any children.”

“Then I guess you can’t relate to that comparison. My wife here can tell you what labor pangs are like because we’ve had children,” I said.

“But before labor comes, there is almost always false labor. I personally believe that is what we are seeing now in the strange weather patterns–the false labor pangs that come before the real travail of ‘the day of the Lord’.”

Thinking that I had given her pretty much, I wanted to share a little bit of a remedy yet. When Jesus was here, He gave us direction on how to escape the coming day of God’s wrath. He told us that we should pray that we would be accounted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of Man in that last day. (Luke 21:36)

Dear reader, we would like to urge you to consider what is happening before our eyes. Maybe climate change is being exaggerated, and things are proceeding in normal patterns. The Bible prophesied there would be people who refuse to acknowledge change as it comes. And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation (2 Peter 3:4).

But change is coming. Our Lord foretold a time as Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken (Luke 21:26).

Is Mother Nature mad at us? If she is, it is because “Father God” desires to awaken men to the serious reaping for sin and His desire to have men saved through the path of repentance of their sins. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

زبان

English

نویسنده

Stephen Ebersole

ناشر

Pilgrim Mennonite Conference

موضوعات

آفرینش

بشارت

پیشگویی/زمانهای آخر