Storms, Love, and Nonsense of Biblical Proportions

Is Jack Englehard a Christian ?

He wrote the novel "Indecent Proposal".

/// ... "Engelhard wrote the international book-to-movie bestseller "Indecent Proposal”.. ///

I don't know much about the author but it sounds like he has read the Word and the thrust of this article is to question the rationalistic worldview prevalent in the US and Israel. He makes some very good points as he states with Solomon that "All is vanity." There is a twist of carpe deium mixed in with it so it isn't by any means pure.

by proudpapa
Is Jack Englehard a Christian ?

He wrote the novel "Indecent Proposal".

//Engelhard’s family escaped the Nazi invasion of France and found refuge first in Canada and later in the United States. Engelhard became an American citizen in 1961 and considers himself an American patriot.//

Whether or not he is Christian, he has touched on some truths here, even if he does not fully understand the outworking and implications.

I think we err if we consider on one hand all these physical effects of the earth as a direct judgement of God or on the other hand 'just weather'.

It is a sign of the times and the creation reacting to being in bondage to sin and wanting it's redemption.

Consider....

Matt 24:6-8
"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all[fn] these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences,[fn] and earthquakes in various places."

Romans 8:20-22
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;"

"because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

"For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now."

"All these are the beginning of sorrows."

Labor pains of the earth! When a woman is in labor the the pain and contractions getting larger and more frequent as the time for delivery approaches. This is why we are seeing such an increase in intensity of such things as earthquakes, storms, famines, wars, etc, etc. It will only get worse until the Lord returns.

I appreciate the sentiment but what proof do we have the earth is getting "worse?"

At one time the earth was covered by a flood. At other times it has been a great tropical swamp (dinosaurs). There have been several ice ages from great to little. Now we are allegedly in a period of man-made warming, but I would not be surprised if in the next 100 years they will be talking about global cooling.

Meteors and asteroids have always struck the earth sometimes catastrophically. There have always been typhooons, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, floods, droughts and famines. We cannot know how terrible many of these may have been because of when they occurred (prior to population or media).

One thing that HAS increased is our awareness of same, due to mass population in areas prone to weather events (e.g. coastlines and faultlines) and proliferation of mass media.

A number of prophecy teachers say that a pronounced increase in frequency and intensity of earthquakes has occurred in the latter part of the twentieth century, a worldwide trend fulfilling a prophecy made by Jesus. Contrary to these prophecy teachers, no obvious trend is found indicating an abnormal increase in the frequency of large earthquakes during the last half of the twentieth century. Neither is there a noteworthy deficiency of earthquakes in the first half of the century. Graphical plots of global earthquake frequency indicate overall a decreasing frequency of earthquakes through the century. The decades of the 1970s, 80s and 90s experienced a deficit of larger earthquakes compared to earlier decades of the century. The 70s, 80s and 90s are precisely those decades that many prophecy teachers suppose, erroneously, show a dramatic surplus of larger earthquakes. Regional earthquake data from California and Japan also do not argue for increasing earthquake frequency in the latter decades of our century.

At the time of Christ the Jews had a heightened anticipation that wars, famines, pestilence and earthquakes communicated signs having apocalyptic significance. Jesus responded to apocalyptic expectations in the Olivet Discourse. Whether one interprets Matthew 24:4-14 as (1) events which will occur during the tribulation period, or (2) general signs of the present age, there is no clear scriptural warrant for the claim that earthquakes will increase dramatically prior to the return of Christ. In the former interpretation, these earthquakes would be part of the tribulation period and so of little significance for any increase in earthquakes during the present Church age. In the latter interpretation, earthquakes are seen as recurring catastrophic events common to the present age - events that must not be misinterpreted as "signs" of an immediate end. It is ironic that a passage that intentionally teaches that earthquakes are not indicators of the "end of the age" should be so frequently interpreted as teaching exactly the opposite.

Jesus' statement, "all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs" (Matt. 24:8), has been misunderstood to imply that pain would increase steadily in time. The birth image associated with such signs does not point (necessarily) to an increase in pain with time. Paul's understanding of creation's pain (Romans 8:18-25) is not that pain will grow steadily worse, but that the present period of suffering provokes eager longing for the new birth and the consummation of the coming age. The author of Hebrews sees a similar hope, not in anticipating a future "sign" of increasing earthquake activity, but in the coming of a sudden cosmic cataclysm producing a "kingdom which cannot be shaken" (Heb. 12:28).

From: Intitute for Creation Research.

Thanks for posting that.

It is indeed- but Paul said it was groaning 2000 years ago as well.

Heydave wrote:

It is ironic that a passage that intentionally teaches that earthquakes are not indicators of the "end of the age" should be so frequently interpreted as teaching exactly the opposite.