by Cecil Maranville, Mario Seigle, John R. Schroeder, David Palmer
Casualties Mount in God's Creation
Man is wiping out his surroundings. A third of the
natural world has been lost in the last 25 years. Ecologists call our
present assault on the environment "the biggest extinction since the
dinosaurs." This is the legacy of our present generation.
More specifically, the rain forests
in South America have declined from 3.4 million square miles in 1970
to 2.7 square miles today. Also just half of the original Florida Everglades
are left. And the disturbing hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic
was the biggest on record in September.
Moving on to the animal world, black
rhinos in Africa have fallen from 95 per cent since 1970 to a low figure
of 2,500. Red squirrels could vanish from England in twelve years.
In the Atlantic, the bluefin tuna has declined by 90 per cent since
1975.
These few examples form the proverbial
tip of the iceberg. God has given sufficient specific laws for the
protection of planet earth's environment to establish the proper principles
of stewardship that should rightly govern mankind's ecological activities.
Especially during the 20th century, man has failed miserably to respect
his environment.
God is justly concerned about man's
treatment of His marvellous creation. Beyond the normal payback from
the earth's ecological systems, God promises that He will "destroy
them which destroy the earth" (Revelation 11:18, KJV) at the Second
Coming of Christ (verses 15-17). ( The Independent (London),
October 2, 1998; The Daily Mail (London), October 2, 1998.)
