The Bible tells us that all things will be judged by God. Every man will be judged according to their works. Their works are the manifestations of what they believe, what their faith really is. This proclamation having been stated countless times throughout the Bible and over centuries in every nation on earth has been common knowledge among men everywhere.

This prophetic scene which took place in heaven was recorded in Scripture around the year 90 AD by John the Aged, that disciple of Christ who held the revered title of ‘the one whom Jesus loved.” The scene depicted in the Book of Revelation chapter four is one of twenty-four kings gathered from among Mankind. They encircle the throne of God where John sees them casting their crowns at God’s feet in a gesture of complete submission to His Lordship over all things created, whether in heaven or earth. They are singing praises to their Creator and Master, bowing in subjection to His majestic purpose and to His benevolence as the inventor of love.

John is witnessing this celebration. Reporting on what he sees. Also, John perfectly understands the spirit of their worship for he is greater in worship than those enlightened kings who love God in truth. John is the archetype of those few disciples who are greatest among the great lovers of God, because John is symbolic of those who desire to be resting upon the heart of God, leaning upon God’s breast, yearning to be near Him in unison with His every heartbeat, listening silently for His every hope, His wishes so they might do them, express them, live them – be them, be in rhythm with every beat of life that resounds from His heart and spirit.

John then records a prophecy telling of an hour in history that was waiting to happen in a future time in heaven, a time which is rapidly approaching this our day. Twenty-four “elders” fall down prostrate before the throne of God, worshiping Him that always was and always will be. They throw their crowns at His feet, saying “You are worthy Lord to receive glory, honor and power. You have created all things. For your pleasure they are and were created.”

This is a solid affirmation of who owns all creation and for what purpose. God, whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are far above ours, takes pleasure in the very thing that He is… LOVE. Later in John’s report the twenty-four elders are seen again. They continue their worship. “We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” Rev 11:15-18

A reward, justified only by God Himself, will be given to His servants the prophets, and to the saints, to them that fear His name small and great, the overcomers who have heeded God’s voice, the righteous, the ones who obey His commands, the holy. Jesus says “behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” A justified reward also awaits the fearful and unbelieving, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, whoever works abominations, the unjust, the filthy, murderers, whosoever love and make lies, and them which destroy the earth.

Today we see the world is very aware of the environmental problems associated with the destructive forces exacted upon the earth by those who disregard the welfare of their fellow man, but not everyone realizes how aware God is; In fact He has told us He will destroy those who destroy the earth.

Destroyers Of Earth Prove Disdain For God & Fellow Man

While it’s true that man has in many ways been wrecking the earth for a very long time, it is especially true that over the last two centuries this activity has escalated to levels never seen before. Yes, scientists have discovered particles in mummified lungs of ancient Egyptians that indicate a presence of air pollution. It’s also known that the Roman Empire practiced large scale deforestation to supply fuel for metal refining and to grow huge crops needed to feed their growing populations throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. They had to deal with air pollution, water pollution and even lead in their public drinking waters. But over the last 250 years, since the dawn of the industrial revolution where the demand for coal, oil, metals and synthetics has grown like never before, the earth been paying dearly for it while the lives of many are lost or destroyed.

 

Destroyers of the earth care nothing for stewardship of God’s possession. They care nothing about tending the earth. Contrary to God they think having dominion over the earth and subduing it is license to do whatever they want for their acquisitive gain. Reckless forms of mining, deforestation, poaching, overzealous hunting, air pollution, water pollution, heavy metals and radioactive wastes, endless drilling and fracking, carbon emissions and poisons of all sorts are some of the fruits of man’s ingenuity gone awry that are destroying the earth and devastating the lives of one another.

God is not going to put up with it. A day is coming when he will judge those who choose to destroy the earth because people suffer greatly at their hands. The fact is God has made it known He will destroy those who destroy the earth. God isn’t going to put up with it. Destroyers of the earth will reap what they sow because there’s something greater at stake than the earth itself which causes God’s wrath to stew.

The Psalmist wrote “The earth is the Lords, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Contrary to what many people believe, this blue marble is not man’s possession, it is God’s. God took Adam, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. God has instructed mankind to have dominion over the earth which He created; to subdue it. Simply put, it is intended that Man be a good steward of God’s creation, tending the earth- not greedily raping its goodness and bounty without regard for the effects that are exacted upon their fellow man and the earth’s natural bounteous goodness.

The very start of the Bible says “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” What follows in Scripture is the account of creating the earth as we are familiar with it today and when all was completed God, the creator, “saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Very good because it was created perfect. It is the perfect setting for the love of God to bring about Man’s redemption into eternal life, for Him to present to His Son an eternal and spotless bride. God has promised in His prophetic Word that He will not allow Man in his reckless abandonment to destroy the earth out of their unbridled greed and callous disregard toward His Will and wisdom which is the only wisdom that knows how to take care of the things He has created

So What About The Earth’s Future?

The Apostle Peter’s letter declared “that one day with God is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day.” This reveals a truth that God, who created the sun, moon and stars above, exists outside the dimensions of time. At His word He accomplishes whatever He desires. He is not constrained by time, yet those who trust Him learn His timing is always perfect.

There is a Bible prophecy also told by Peter which reveals what many might consider bad news. A pill bittersweet and hard to swallow is waiting for folks whose God is Mother Earth, but not God. This prophecy speaks of “the day of the Lord” which will come as “a thief in the night.” Though we are warned, it will come unexpectedly upon those who are not watching, waiting – believing in God’s Word. The Bible speaks of many things that God will accomplish in “that day.” They seem troubling at first glimpse, even to believers. These things, like; “the heavens will pass away,” “the elements shall melt with fervent heat” and “the earth and all the works contained in it shall be burned up” are bewildering at first, until we are schooled in the truth that someday they will no longer be needed, put away like an obsolete tool to make way for a more useful one; a tool suited to serve the new redeemed Man in an heavenly new world of different dimensions of an unknown new time and space only hinted in the last few chapters of the Bible, a new heaven and earth suited for the newly saved and redeemed Man, where there is no gender, no marriage per se, no criminals, no wicked, no liars, thieves, murderers, malcontents or unbelievers – or destroyers of things created and instituted by the Creator of all things.

Revelation prophesies of that future hour: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Rev  21:1-2

Everything we see around us in this world, including the earth and the heavens above are temporary, merely like a set placed upon the stage of a theatrical play, and when it is finished God will bring down the curtain, wrap-up the set and a star will have been born; born out of God’s pageant will be the jewel in the King of Kings’ crown, His Bride. This Holy City called New Jerusalem will be the habitation of God. This will be a place of residence for those who are redeemed from among men and they shall live in his presence for all eternity. Those who belligerently, selfishly and ignorantly set about to callously destroy the earth for personal convenience and gain will have no part in ages to come.

Shortly, in due time, God will wrap-up the “set” called earth. Why the harsh judgement to those who destroy the earth? Because those who callously choose to ravage the earth of its resources and manipulate its natural order to further their industrious ingenuity do so at devastating costs to nature and human lives, all for satisfying their insatiable thirst for power and money. Destroyers of the earth who pump seas of oil from beneath its crust, who decimate rain forests, spew carbons into its fragile atmosphere, that  willfully turn a blind eye towards the wake of destruction that follows them; not just a destruction of the earth but ruination reeking havoc on so many others who are left unable to defend the quality of their own lives, will be left out in the cold having no part in the future paradise that God has promised.

Snap-Shots from History:

Destroyers of the Earth

March 10, 1906 France – Europe’s worst mining accident leaves 1099 victims dead. This coal dust explosion devastated the lives of many in the surrounding villages that supplied many of the laborers for the large corporation that operated numerous mines. Eight days later a worker’s strike was started that spread across the region.

April 26, 1942 China – Benxihu coal mine disaster. A decade earlier Japan began invading and had taken control of northeast China. The Japanese take over the Benxihu Colliery, a large coal mining operation within the province, with Chinese slave labor. As expected the work conditions are severely harsh; Beatings, insufficient clothing, disease, long extended shifts and little food describes routine conditions. On April 26, 1942 an explosion rips through miles of mine tunnels killing hundreds instantly. To prevent further possible damage to the mine by fire underground all the mine shafts are quickly sealed off before all remaining survivors have made their way out and many more suffocate to death. Despite initial efforts on the Japanese to minimize the death toll reports it was finally reported one third of that days workers died. 1549 bodies were tossed into a mass grave where the earth contained them once again.

Mercury poisoning victim – Japan

1956 – Minamata,  Japan –  Severe mercury poisoning to many of the local populace of the Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea was the direct result of Chisso Corporation dumping their industrial wastewater containing methylmercury. Chisso operated in this way from 1932 – 1968.

Hardly anything was done by the government or the corporation to prevent the pollution for 36 years. Mercury attacks the nervous system. Symptoms are lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movement, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect fetuses in the womb. 2,265 fatalities and thousands sickened or gravely affected are recognized as a direct consequence to this polluting event.

July 12, 1959 – Simi Valley, California – The Atomic Energy Commission was conducting experiments in the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in a typical type industrial building, 2 miles from the city of Simi Valley and 30 miles outside greater Los Angeles.  The Sodium Reactor Experiment, designed to prove that nuclear power could be used to generate commercial power, went terribly wrong. Decisions were made that allowed deadly plutonium and strontium to be vented as vapor into the open air for 14 days. At the time in this remote area no one with an awareness was around to report the incident. Today experts know the measuring equipment of the day would have read off the charts for the extremely high emissions of radioactive fallout that were escaping the plant . There remains no record of the emissions  and The U.S. Department of Energy and Boeing, the current landowner, both try to minimize what is believed to be the largest nuclear disaster in the United States. Based on a five year study experts claim radiation released over the San Fernando Valley was 459 times that which was released at Three Mile Island.

1976 North Carolina –  The Ward Transformer Company hired a trucking company to spray 31,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil along 240 miles of North Carolina roadside throughout 14 counties. The covert nighttime illegal dumping was discovered in 1978. The contaminated soil remained along roadsides until September 1982.  The population living near the contaminated soil reported an increase in miscarriages and birth defects.  Then for clean-up the state of North Carolina decided to dump forty-thousand cubic yards of PCB- contaminated soil in a newly created 142 acre landfill in Shocco, a rural town in Warren County that was 75% African American, with neither a mayor nor a city council to object.

2005 – Present – Guiyu China – Home to the largest electronics waste site on earth. Reports show 88% of the children who live within the four small, poor villages of the “electronics graveyard” now suffer from lead poisoning and there is more than the average rate of miscarriages. 

August 2006 – Ivory Coast, City of Abidjan – A Dutch-based oil and commodity shipping company charters a Panamanian ship full of toxic wastes, 500 tonnes of a mixture of fuel, caustic soda, and hydrogen sulfide, to offload it’s tanks in the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan. The waste was then trucked out and dumped in 12 sites in the Abidjan. Gases released from the waste ultimately caused the deaths of 17 Ivorians and injured 30,000. It was later discovered that Trafigura, the shipping company responsible, chose to avoid waste disposal in Amsterdam for cost reasons and lied about what the actual waste contents were. Emails proved corporate leaders knew how dangerous the chemicals were to the environment.

The Psalmist wrote “The earth is the Lord‘s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”  It is clearly told in the Bible, God isn’t going to put up with this forever. Destroyers of the earth will reap what they sow – Destruction.

August 2012, Bayou Corne, Louisiana – Residents in the area of this small community began to notice the ground shaking and turbulent air bubbles rising from multiple locations in the water nearby. This drew a greater concern when pungent odors of methane gas and crude oil start wafting in the air. Then the ground under the aerated water began to sink and a growing two and a half acre sinkhole formed near their neighborhood. Today it is near 40 acres large and nearly 700 feet deep as all the surrounding property including large 100 foot tall cypress trees have slipped underwater into the abyss of what now appears at the surface to be an toxic oil-slicked lake. 350 residents in the area been ordered to evacuate their homes for fear that noxious petroleum and methane gases would not only sicken them but could literally explode. Is this a natural occurrence or the result of man destroying the earth? Not all sinkholes are the work of nature as Bayou Corne residents soon found out greedy hands of men are responsible.

Naturally the whole area of southern Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico are rich with two things. Oil and salt. Salt has been mined here for a long time. What lies underground relatively near the surface are the tops of “salt domes” that stand tall underground like mountains, some as tall as 35,000 feet deep. Mining the salt underground has created mazes of tunnels and empty caverns. The cavern walls remain under enormous pressure and this has to be considered all the time to avoid collapses. Some caverns are created specifically with oil storage in mind because that is the other subterranean booty awaiting corrupt and avaricious corporations. Oil is sometimes miles beneath the topsoil and is accessed with precise drilling around nearby salt mines. The two enterprises work side by side and benefit from one another while the oil drilling operations use salt caverns as huge storage reservoirs for crude that is sucked out of the earth, later to be shipped out to refineries. Texas Brine is the company responsible for the Bayou Corne sinkhole disaster. They create salt caverns for oil storage and they made choices that led to the wall of a cavern to be weak and collapse, subsequently the collapsing earth from above is displacing the toxic oils and gases below that have found their way into the aquifer, surface water and the lives of those who live nearby. This is only one of many man made disasters that have adversely affected peoples lives and the natural environment.

While the Bayou Corne sinkhole continues to grow so do the hopeless frustrations and needless despair grow in the lives of its residents. But this isn’t the first time Louisiana has been faced with a sinkhole disaster as a result of men destroying the earth. 

November 20 , 1980 Lake Peigneur, LA – a Texaco Oil drilling rig in the southern Louisiana waters of Lake Peigneur mistakenly bored a 14 inch hole into a tunnel of an active 75 year old salt mine operated by Diamond Salt Company. This careless miscalculation set off an epic chain reaction of events that forever changed the area’s environment and lives of the local people. In a matter of hours the 14 inch hole in the lake bottom grew enormously creating a 100 foot diameter whirlpool as the lake drained into the salt mine 1300 feet below. The drilling crew abandoned the tilting 150 foot derek only to watch it disappear into a once shallow 10 foot deep lake. As the lake drained into the mine below all 55 miners managed to escape without loss of any lives. Air pressure being forced out of the mine shot a 400 foot geyser of salt water mist straight out of the mine shaft. 11 barges, with tractor trailer rigs aboard, and a tugboat soon converged to the center of the whirlpool and vanished. 65 acres of pristine property were sheared from the shoreline and disappeared into the vortex that forever changed the shape of the doomed lake. Lake Peigneur, connected to the Gulf by the Delcambre Canal, was emptied below sea level and the canal that always flowed south changed direction as the Gulf of Mexico flowed north for the first time in known history. While the waters of the lake,  canal and Gulf equalized onlookers witnessed a waterfall 150 feet high, the highest ever in Louisiana. The tragedy ensued for two days. Lake Peigneur, no longer the shallow freshwater lake it once was, became a larger and deeper brackish salt water hole. Greedy destroyers of the earth caused a devastating ecological mess and a loss to the livelihood of many people.