The Green Delusion
April 15, 2021 Blogs by: Tim Jennings, M.D.
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As a Christian, what do you believe the future holds for planet Earth? Do you take a biblical worldview?

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind (Isaiah 65:17 NKJV).

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea (Revelation 21:1 NIV84).

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end (Psalm 102:25–27 NIV84).

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail (Isaiah 51:6 NIV84).

Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD’s wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth (Zephaniah 1:18 NIV84).

According to these scriptures, what is going to happen to planet Earth? The Earth as we know it is going to be destroyed and replaced with a new heaven and Earth, a sinless Earth, an Earth free from all disease, decay, and deformity—the home of the righteous.

Can we stop this future from happening?

Should we try to stop it?

 

Good Stewards

Because the Earth is going to be destroyed by God and replaced with a new Earth, a planet free from all marks of sin, does that mean we do not have to be good stewards, that we are free to pollute, abuse, and destroy the Earth? Absolutely not!

We have a God-given responsibility to be good stewards, to protect the Earth, to care for the animals, to practice God’s methods of love in all that we do. Why?

What happens to the Earth if we are good stewards and care for the planet or we are faithless and exploit it? The planet still gets destroyed and replaced with a new Earth, our actions do not save the planet.

But what happens to us if we are negligent, selfish, and unfaithful stewards? We harden our hearts and obstruct God’s healing plan from reaching others.

It is by embracing God’s truth and love, by practicing God’s methods in how we live, by being good stewards and living in harmony with God’s design, and by protecting nature and helping others that we cooperate with God for our healing, development of mature Christlike character, and witnessing His kingdom to reach others with the gospel.

 

The Liars Trap

Now, let’s be very clear: Our enemy is a liar—He is the father of lies—and he has advanced his false worldview and is seducing Christians into joining his ranks through their desire to be good stewards. What am I talking about?

What is the philosophy that the world teaches today? Is the modern, so-called enlightened view that there is a God in heaven, a Creator, who is returning to eradicate sin and who will recreate this world in perfection—or is it that there is no God, that we evolved from lower lifeforms and our future is up to us?

And what future do those who reject God, who believe we evolved from lower lifeforms, anticipate? They see an overpopulation of the Earth that will destroy the planet and that the only way to have a future is to act to save ourselves.

The lie that is being foisted on the world today is that because there is no God, this planet is our “Mother,” our lifeboat, and it has limited resources; if we don’t stop population growth, carbon emissions, destroying trees through deforestation, and overfishing of the oceans, the planet is going to die—and then humanity will die. Therefore, we must act now to save the planet. And that means we must stop consuming, using fossil fuels, and filling the earth with plastics and other waste.

 

The Two Grand Worldviews

Understand that there are two grand world philosophies

In the Creator worldview, there is a God who created the Earth and the life upon it. In this worldview, God loves us—human beings made in His image—and the future is a future of hope in which the Earth as we know it is going to be destroyed and a new perfect Earth will be created by God. There is nothing we can do to stop this and, in this biblical worldview, people are more valuable than the planet. We do not seek to save the planet at the expense of the people; we take the gospel to the world to save the people!

But in the godless Green worldview, there is no God and this is the only planet humans will ever have. In this view, if we don’t act, overpopulation will soon consume all the resources and eventually destroy the planet’s viability as a home, so we must stop this process. In this Green worldview, the planet is more valuable than the people, and the population must be culled in order to save the planet. Thus, if you give your support to political movements that advance the Green worldview, you are empowering those agencies that will one day kill you and your descendants. The future for them is to reduce the population and protect Earth’s limited resources for themselves and their descendants.

Martin Armstrong, an economist, posted a satire about Greta Thunberg, the Swedish girl who has been thrust by environmental activists into the spotlight as their champion. He wrote as if Greta had a dream of the future in which the Green agenda actually achieved a world without any more petroleum products. In this world, there is no carpet or toothbrushes, as such products are made from petroleum. When she discovers there is also no running water, her fairy-godmother gives a long monologue about …

… how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tires and how ore has to be smelted to a make metal, and that’s tough to do with only electricity as a source of heat, and even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tires and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace …

When Greta then becomes incensed at the news that her favorite aunt died of bacterial pneumonia, complaining that no one dies of bacterial pneumonia, because we have penicillin, her fairy-godmother replies:

Not anymore, the production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing—being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.

This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fiber boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/gretas-nightmare/

I quoted this satire because it exposes what the elites who push the Green movement actually desire; they want a future in which much of the world’s population dies. They want the planet and the resources for themselves and their descendants.

The Green worldview is not a movement of love, a movement of people who believe in the God of love; it is a movement that is led by those who do not believe in the biblical worldview and, thus, they do not value human life over the planet—they value self-preservation.

But they know that they cannot present their true agenda because everyone else also values self-preservation, so they present their agenda through the lie that the programs of the Green movement will save the population. Not so—the true agenda of the Green movement is to cull the population in order to save the planet and its resources for themselves.

Understand clearly, if the policies of the Green movement are implemented, everyone will not be impacted equally; the wealthy, the elites, will have their private generators, medical facilities, laboratories, and workforce. They will be protected. It is the masses, the poorest, that will be without heat, food, water, medicine, shelter; it is the masses that will die.

The apostle Peter wrote about the future of planet Earth:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed (2 Peter 3:3–6 NIV84).

We most certainly have scoffers today who mock the idea of Creation, who scoff at the idea of a worldwide flood and Noah’s ark. And they deliberately forget, meaning they deny evidence and facts. The scientific evidence for the intelligent creation of life is now irrefutable. So those who reject it do so deliberately. Life, in every form that we recognize as life, requires three elements: physical matter, energy, and the coded information found in the DNA of all living organisms. While theories exist as to how the physical matter and energy may have originated without an intelligence, it is impossible for information to code itself. Letters of the alphabet can never arrange themselves to form an encyclopedia; an intelligence is required. All reasonable people know this, but the advocates of a godless worldview purposely deny it.

And these people who deny evidence, facts, and truth, who cling to a false worldview, they are the very ones who are leading the Green movement. And since they have refused to accept the truth and believe in God, then who do you think is leading and inspiring them? It is Satan—the Green movement is not a godly movement, and we need to realize this and reject it. Peter continues:

By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness (vv. 7–13 NIV84).

What is the future of planet Earth? Understand reality: This planet is going to be destroyed. Before God returns and recreates it anew, things are going to get worse—and we cannot stop it. Satan is going to use the worsening conditions on the planet to incite fear—fear of climate change, of rising oceans, of terrible storms, of famine, of pandemics—and Satan will cause these calamities to increase. This will cause those who have rejected God to become more fearful and seek to save themselves by taking greater coercive control, passing more laws, taking away more freedoms, and ultimately seek to cull the population in order to try to save the planet.

If you are a Christian and you are supporting the Green movement, you are supporting the enemy of God; you are empowering those who value the planet more than the people on the planet—and whose policies are designed to cull the population in order to save the planet. But as children of God, we love people more than the planet; we want as many people as possible to come to salvation, which means we don’t want to cull the population; no—we want to bring people to Jesus!

Rejecting the Green movement does not mean that we fail to be good stewards of the Earth. In the very same way we govern ourselves, we will practice God’s methods and not pollute, not abuse animals, not exploit the environment—but we will also not give our support to a godless movement that values the planet more than the people, a movement that will initiate policies that will result in injuring billions in the name of saving the planet.

The biblical worldview teaches the opposite of the Green movement, that the Earth as we know it will be destroyed and a new Earth will be created by God as the home of the righteous. In the biblical worldview, the people are more valuable than the planet and God sacrificed Himself in order to save us! So be a good steward as you love the people more than the planet—and look forward in hope to the day our God creates a new heaven and a new Earth, the home of the righteous.

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Tim Jennings, M.D. Timothy R. Jennings, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist, master psychopharmacologist, Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Fellow of the Southern Psychiatric Association, and an international speaker. He served as president of the Southern and Tennessee Psychiatric Associations and is president and founder of Come and Reason Ministries. Dr. Jennings has authored many books, including The God-Shaped Brain, The God-Shaped Heart, and The Aging Brain.
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