God the creator and God the UNcreator

By Elizabeth Prata

Earthquake, tornado, sinkhole, flood, tsunami, ice/snow storm…People are unsettled after a natural disaster and they go looking for answers. The views here at the blog spike after a disaster but they rise the most after an earthquake more than any other natural disaster.

Personally I think quakes unsettle people because this is the very ground we walk on that is moving, splitting, and otherwise kicking up. If solidity isn’t solid, than maybe invisible God is real…The subconscious thought or fear is likely, “If the earth isn’t solid, then what is?”

God of course.

But any natural disaster sends people searching for what, where, why. God is creator. He made the earth and the stars and the heavens and the planets and everything in between. He made it…and He can UNmake it.

Man assigns lists and categories to everything in the natural world, trying to organize it, in order to understand it. In my 30s I was interested in the biological taxonomy of mollusks and studied it for a few years. The originator of classification of the plant and animal kingdom was Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. He organized plants and animals into a hierarchical taxonomy in the mid-1700s. Linnaeus was a product of the Enlightenment. This was a period from the late 1600s to early 1800s when man decided to switch worldviews from a religious view, to “rational thinking,” which was the science of the time – and not God. God was out. Science was in.

Wikipedia explains Linnaeus’ approach to taxonomy—

The establishment of universally accepted conventions for the naming of organisms was Linnaeus’ main contribution to taxonomy—his work marks the starting point of consistent use of binomial nomenclature. During the 18th century expansion of natural history knowledge, Linnaeus also developed what became known as the Linnaean taxonomy; the system of scientific classification now widely used in the biological sciences.

The Linnaean system classified nature within a nested hierarchy, starting with three kingdoms. Kingdoms were divided into classes and they, in turn, into orders, and thence into genera (singular: genus), which were divided into Species (singular: species).

I bought plastic divided tackle boxes at Wal-Mart and collected shells from all the oceans I sailed on and all the beaches I walked on, labeled them and placed them within a taxonomy … and it felt so good to organize the world. I felt that if I could organize it, I could understand it, and then I could control it.

Of course that is a mistake, no matter how fun it is to study natural history. But I wasn’t saved then and I didn’t know God.

It is the same with all unsaved people. They suppress the truth of God’s existence in unrighteousness. They know God exists because they can see the world and its beauty, complexity, and design. (Romans 1:18-32). But they refuse to believe it came to existence by the mind and hand of a greater power namely, God. So they, as did I, make lists and classifications to organize the world so we can understand it – without God.

They do not know as much about the order of the universe as they thought they knew.

The earth is not as solid as we think and the wind is not as constant as we think and the sun is not as active (or inactive) as we think. If, in the present days, the snow doesn’t come where we think nor the ice to places where it should, and we ignore and suppress the truth of the origin of those anomalies, then The Tribulation will ramp up the anomalies until people will not be able to ignore who is behind it.

It’s like God says, ‘OK, I’ve allowed you your delusions long enough. NOW you will see who is in charge. And it’s not humans.’ When they can no longer suppress the truth, some give way to righteousness and repent while others give way to sin and blaspheme God. Revelation 11:13 clearly tells us that when these things happen some people accept that it is God and give Him glory. Revelation 16:11 describes others who know it is God behind these “natural disasters”, but blaspheme Him instead of repenting.

The Tribulation will be a time when all the cycles and taxonomies and orderliness of what has been a seeming normal will morph into a new normal: the horror of uncreation. God was orderly when creating the world, wasn’t He?! Genesis 1 shows us. Man wasn’t around when God created the stars and the earth in a supernatural way, but man will be around when He uncreates it in an equally supernatural process.

For example, the wind won’t blow.

“After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree” (Revelation 7:1).

The sun turns hotter.

“The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory” (Revelation 16:8-9)

Hail will be supersized, 100 lbs, and crush mens’ heads.

“And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.” (Revelation 16:21)

The Tribulation  will be a time when God will uncreate the earth, unspooling it from the seeming normal rhythms and orderliness humanity has enjoyed, to a future period when nothing will be normal.

Spurgeon wrote that in the creation, “The light which broke in upon the primeval darkness was of a very mysterious kind, and came not according to ordinary laws, for as yet neither sun nor moon had been set as lights in the firmament.”

MacArthur wrote of the uncreation of Revelation: “The present laws of thermodynamics, which state that matter can not be created nor destroyed, will no longer be in effect. As a result, “The universe “will be burned up,” it will be totally consumed. (2 Peter 3:10-13). The absolute reverse of creation will occur. It didn’t take eons of evolution to create the universe, nor will it take eons to uncreate it. The uncreation of the universe, like its creation, will take place by the word of God.” (source “Revelation 12-22 MacArthur New Testament Commentary  By John F MacArthur”)

All praise our holy God who creates, makes things orderly in their time, makes things disorderly in their time, and will dissolve and recreate the universe when it is time!