Global Warming

Principle: God is Sovereign over a nation’s weather.

The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm,

And the clouds are the dust of His feet. (Nahum 1:3).

Global warming has become the mantra and drum beat for the explanation of many of our weather disasters.  The liberal media can spin heat waves that spark forest fires and blame global warming due to pollution.  At the same time they can blame heavy rains and flooding on global warming.  The disasters of hurricanes, tornadoes, or drought conditions all have been blamed on global warming.

Could there be other explanations?  Since the majority of our nation has made it politically incorrect to mention God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Earth and its weather, it is totally unacceptable to even consider that historically God has used the weather to bless or correct a nation.

Our weather is not perfect because the sin of Adam brought a curse on the earth.  God has established natural laws by which we are promised “seedtime and harvest,” as long as the earth remains.  However, God often uses weather in relationship to national judgment and sin.

“Thus they have loved to wander;

They have not restrained their feet.

Therefore the Lord does not accept them;

He will remember their iniquity now,

And punish their sins.”

11 Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for this people, for their good. 12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence (Jeremiah 14:10-11 emphasis mine).

In Jeremiah and Ezekiel the word famine was used over forty times as a result of Judah’s national sins against God.  Spiritual pollution before God is more of a factor for climate change than physical pollution.

The liberals are preaching a warning of climate change as America’s greatest future danger.  They blame this on man-made pollutions and greed for greater profits.  Their solution to climate change is to change the amount of pollutants in our air, water, and environment.   Some of these are reasonable goals as God expects us to be stewards of the natural resources He has given to bless humankind.

However, they are not warning against spiritual pollution that is the result of greater sins in our nation.  The liberal media, universities, and politicians deny that God created the world in wisdom and power and that God is sovereign over the weather.

The Word of God and history testify that there is a relationship between the spiritual pollution of sin and climate change.

The first great climate change took place in Noah’s generation because of the continual sin and violence of Adam’s race.  God completely altered weather and marked the earth with Noah’s flood.  The physical evidence of the flood is worldwide for those with unbiased eyes.  Noah’s flood reminds us that sin can cause God to use climate change to judge sin.

The historical book of Genesis reminds us that God can and does send rain or withhold rain.  God did call for famine in the days of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 12:10; 26:1).  Joseph told Pharaoh there would be seven years of good weather and crops followed by seven years of bad weather and famine (Genesis 46).

Moreover He called for a famine in the land;

He destroyed all the provision of bread.

17   He sent a man before them—

Joseph—who was sold as a slave. (Psalms 105:16-17 emphasis mine).

Israel’s history in the days of the book of Judges was one of turning from God to idols and returning to God after they experienced God’s judgment through oppressing nations.  The book of Ruth records a serious famine during that time frame (Ruth 1).

There was famine in the days of Elijah because of the wickedness of King Ahab and Jezebel.  It was the spiritual pollution and sin in the Capital that brought climate change and famine.

 So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab; and there was a severe famine in Samaria. 3 And Ahab had called Obadiah, who was in charge of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. 4 For so it was, while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty to a cave, and had fed them with bread and water (1 Kings 18:2).

When Elijah prayed for the heavens to withhold rain from Ahab’s wicked kingdom, he did so based on the covenant of God with Israel.  In God’s covenant with Israel, good weather was a covenant blessing and bad weather was a call to repentance before greater judgment came upon the nation.

12 The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season,

23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed (Deut. 28:12, 23-24).

During the good reign of King David there was a famine for three years.  David was wise enough to see a relationship between the climate change and sin.  God made it clear that the climate change was directly related to the violence and bloodthirsty reign of King Saul.

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, “It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah (2 Samuel 21:1-2).

When God raised up the Babylonian empire to be His “hammer,” to bring judgment against Judah and many nations, God made it clear that He appoints the weather as one of his means of judgment.

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind would not be favorable toward this people. Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. 2 And it shall be, if they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you shall tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord:

“Such as are for death, to death;

And such as are for the sword, to the sword;

And such as are for the famine, to the famine;

And such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.” ’

3 “And I will appoint over them four forms of destruction,” says the Lord: “the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. 4 I will hand them over to trouble, to all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 15:1-4 emphasis mine).

We must recognize that there is a relationship in climate change and weather disasters and national sins. We are not like the prophets Elijah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel who could say specifically that a change in weather patterns and famine was because of specific national sins.

One television evangelist tried to be specific and blamed a hurricane on the east coast on God judging certain sins of America.  He was wrong to do so and we should not put our trust in a man’s vision or “supposed personal prophecy from God,” but only the Scriptures. However, we can take the principles of Scripture and discern the times and seasons.

As we get closer to the Second Coming of Christ, we can expect our earth to have greater catastrophes. Jesus told us to look for these as signs.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows (Matthew 24:6-8, emphasis mine).

Many sincere Christians believe that those that are calling climate change the greatest danger to our earth have a political agenda.  God created natural law and of course pollution has a cause and effect relationship to our earth.  We should do what we can to be better stewards of our environment.  However, God has placed many things outside of man’s control and one of those is the weather.

When God told Israel through Elijah that sin would shut up heaven and it would not rain, Israel could not blame it on auto and industrial pollution.  God can humble our nation through His Sovereign hand in our weather patterns, but we should discern when it is due to our spiritual pollution more than our physical pollution.

If Elijah met our political leaders today, I do not believe that he would give a prophetic rebuke against our automobiles but of our national sins of abortion, adultery, pornography, and gay marriages, to name a few.

God spoke to Solomon to remind Israel of the relationship between national sins and God’s control of the weather.

13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.( 2 Chron. 7:12, emphasis mine).

To Israel, good hearts meant good weather, and bad hearts meant bad weather.   What about America?

Prayer:  Father you have blessed America with rain for our farmlands and rivers.  You have given us snow on our mountain ranges, and forests filled with wildlife and resources.  Our land is rich in natural resources for which we are grateful.  But Oh God, we have taken these blessings for granted and have grieved your heart through our sins.  Please forgive us and turn our hearts back to you.  If you shut up heaven and it does not rain, may we recognize that you are Sovereign over the weather and are calling us to repentance.  In Jesus’ name.