Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

The introduction to my message today may not sit well with some of you, but I pray that before you cast judgment on it, you will weigh it’s validity and appropriateness, with the body of thought that I will present in the message itself.

Recently in the news, there has been a quite a bit of emphasis on “climate change”!

From the many protests around the world...

Slide show

... to the prominent Swedish sixteen year old that has captivated the attention of the news outlets, her name - Greta Thunberg!

Greta Slide

Greta is an articulate intelligent young lady with a form of Autism that has become the spokesperson for climate change!

Her addressing the Swedish parliament about the dangers of climate control has brought new awareness to those concerned about the effects that greenhouse gases CO2 have on the climate.

Because she’s a child, she has been given much latitude in her rants and even allowed to confront our own congress.

The conservative right, the poster bully for the radical leftist movement in our country has been taken to task for criticizing this young girl.

They call it bullying!

But the real bullies are those special interest groups that are using her as a puppet to push their own agenda, an agenda based on fear and pseudo science.

In fact, no one has done anything to alleviate this poor girls delusions and fears of global destruction.

"My message is that we'll be watching you.

"This is all wrong.

I shouldn't be up here.

I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.

Yet you all come to us young people for hope.

How dare you!

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.

And yet I'm one of the lucky ones.

People are suffering.

People are dying.

Entire ecosystems are collapsing.

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.

How dare you!

"For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear.

How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency.

But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that.

Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.

And that I refuse to believe.

"The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

They’ve been saying that one for 30 years!

Incidentally, Greta sailed over to the USA on a “zero Carbon” non recyclable plastic 60 foot sail boat so as to reduce her own carbon footprint.

Now if that’s not hypocritical enough, two other men had to fly to the united states to navigate her boat back to Sweden.

This stunt, more that doubled her carbon footprint.

It would have had less effect on the Eco system had she just flown herself!

Now, before you say shame on you pastor Bob, she’s just a child.

There’s an old saying - If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Greta, I’m afraid has been another pawn in the game of climate control!

And everyone that sits back and allows this child to live in such abject fear, should be ashamed of themselves, including her own parents!

This now brings me to my text for this morning.

Would you please stand as I read the Word of God this morning?

I. Can mankind destroy the planet?

I suppose hypothetically we could build a powerful enough nuclear bomb or synchronize the detonation of enough of them to get the job done, but remember, I said hypothetically!

During the atomic age of the 1950’s children practiced duck and cover in their classrooms.

Duck and cover was a strategy devised by geniuses to give assurance to the public that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, one could be safe from the explosion by getting under their desks and covering their heads with their arms!

we won’t speak however of the radiation that would make you so sick you’d wished you had died in the explosion.

So, was there a real threat of having a nuclear warhead detonated in our country?

Yes!

Do we face similar threats today with Nuclear, or bio warfare?

Yes we do!

As long as the heart of man is desperately wicked, there will always be threats.

And so, even today there is the threat of contamination upon the planet by the greedy acts of mankind.

We can pollute the streams and oceans, the air, and ourselves.

But, can we destroy the planet?

unequivocally, NO!!

There are at least two good reasons mankind cannot destroy the planet:

God’s sovereignty

God’s promise

II.

Can mankind save the planet?

Again the answer is, NO!!

And here’s the reason.

A. It is not our planet.

We had nothing to do with it’s coming about.

We have no real idea of how fragile it is.

We cannot thwart the plans of Almighty God.

B. It is God’s planet created for His purpose.

He created it by His word.

He set it and the universe in motion.

He has a predetermined time for it’s conclusion.

He is in control of the outcome.

III.

Is mankind responsible for the planet?

Absolutely!

Don’t ever think otherwise.

After God created Adam and the garden, He told Adam to take care of it!

5647.

עָבַד ʿâbad, aw-bad´; a prim.

root; to work (in any sense); by impl. to serve, till, (caus.)

enslave, etc.:—× be, keep in bondage, be bondmen, bond-service, compel, do, dress, ear, execute, + husbandman, keep, labour (-ing man), bring to pass, (cause to, make to) serve (-ing, self), (be, become) servant (-s), do (use) service, till (-er), transgress [from margin], (set a) work, be wrought, worshipper.

But, what happens when man doesn’t exercise responsibility?

Man reaps what he sows!

If we do not exercise good conservation practices, we will poison ourselves!

We cannot just dump everything down the drain so to speak!

We should be conscious of what we do to the environment and how we treat it.

Why? one might ask.

Because God entrusted it to us!

What else happens when man doesn’t exercise responsibility?

God will intervene!

In the book of Jeremiah, God pronounces that Israel will go into Babylonian captivity for 70 Years, for their idolatry which caused them to disregard the Lord’s commands for 490 years.

One of those commands was letting the fields rest every 7th year.

They did not.

God told them what to expect back in Leviticus if they didn’t head His warning.

Conclusion:

Make no mistake about it, global warming is coming, but not the way people think.

And, there is nothing anyone will be able to do about it.

This is what should frighten us!