THIS IS THE
ICE AGE PESHER
Day of St. Matthias (August 9), 2002
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
- Hebrews 1:10-11
Beloved:
"On the last, cold day of December in the dying year we count as 406, the river Rhine froze solid, providing the natural bridge that hundreds of thousands of hungry men, women, and children had been waiting for. They were the barbari - to the Romans an undistinguished, matted mass of Others, not terrifying, just troublemakers, annoyances, things one would rather not have to deal with - non-Romans. To themselves they were, presumably, something more, but as the illiterate leave few records, we can only surmise their opinion of themselves.
"Neither the weary, disciplined Roman solidiers, ranked along the west bank, nor the anxious, helter-skelter tribes amassing on the east bank could have been giving much thought to their place in history. But this moment of slack, this relative calm before the pandemonium to follow, gives us the chance to study the actors on both sides of this river and to look backward on what has been and forward to what will be."
So opens the Second Chapter, "How Rome Fell - and Why" in Thomas Cahill's masterpiece: How the Irish Saved Civilization (Doubleday, 1995).
To this day, we live in the shadow of Rome; for Rome was the last, truly world-class civilization. Since then, we have had fragments of empires and the synthesis of cultures from the scraps that once was Rome. Our theology, philosophy, legal doctrine, education, language, not to mention horticulture, science, banking and entertainment still bear the stamp of Rome. We have had nothing so durable and extensive. Rome is and shall forever be the living memory of our species. It was an accomplishment of mankind.
Yet, Rome - Christian Rome - fell. Rome was not eternal; for it could not work-out the internal contradictions of its first principles. For that reason, it had exhausted its cultural symbols. Augustinian Christianity could not save Rome. It was not able to transform and then institutionally absorb the destitute masses which crossed the Rhine in 406 AD. In four years, Rome was sacked for the first time. And a generation later, it fell for good.
"The Rhine froze solid" - and formed a land bridge to facilitate an invasion of immigrants. Here we have a weather event starting a chain reaction which destroys the greatest civilization mankind has ever produced. Can you sense the irony here? Rome built its greatness by prevailing over every foe imaginable, even Nature itself. And yet, here, Nature exacts revenge. "The Rhine froze solid", a natural boundary collapses and Rome is no more.
Science can tell us now what happened in 406 AD. The world was in the grip of a mini-Ice Age. The people north and east of the Rhine were experiencing famine. They coveted the Meditteranean air of the south and west. Like leaping from a burning skyscraper, they had no choice. It was either face Rome or die.
That was why the Rhine froze solid in 406 AD. And Rome, like an old garment, was folded up by the Almighty and put away. The invincibility of Rome was nothing in the face of God's wintery blast.
The Myth of Global Warming
As is often the case in the small-minded world of turf-coveting academia, it has been an outsider, a lay scholar from Seattle, Washington, Robert Felix, who has written perhaps the most important book of the 21st Century - Not by Fire, but by Ice (Sugarhouse Publishing, 2000), subtitled: "Discover What Killed the Dinosaurs . . . and Why it Could Soon Kill Us".[1] Marshaling evidence from respected scholars and researchers in geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, meteorology, and every pertinent discipline - he has demonstrated that we are witnessing the commencement of a new and major Ice Age. The El Niņo effect, the massive storms, and other weather anomalies are signs of what is to come. The implications of his assessment are staggering. The world trembled at the uncertainty of our technology during the Y2K crisis. Had the worst happened, our technology would have failed, but there still would have been a sunrise the next morning. With the scenario Felix describes, the sun will not help us.
The scientific community has been telling us for years that the Earth is warming. This fact has become entrenched in our national psyche and in our public policy. Our government and our institutions operate on its assumption. Laws are passed to stem its effects. But it isn't true.
The oceans are warming. And as Felix demonstrates, warming oceans are a necessary prelude to every ice age. The massive ice sheets of an Ice Age require massive amounts of moisture. The moisture comes from the evaporation of warming oceans. It falls in a snow blitz during the winter and doesn't melt away in the summer. Then, more is added the next winter, and the next, until it compresses into ice. Finally, the continents begin to cool, even while the oceans continue to warm, until large land masses are covered by glaciers.
This is not a hypothesis. It is hard science. Studies of previous ice ages show this same pattern, a pattern which is occurring at this very moment. Yes, on the coastlines, glaciers are melting. It is to be expected. They are close to the warming seas. But inland, such as in Antarctica and Greenland, the ice is accumulating at an alarming rate.
Why are the Oceans Warming? They are warming because of underwater volcanoes. There are thousands of volcanoes under the ocean. They are becoming active. We see volcanoes on land; they are dramatic events. But we forget about the volcanoes in the ocean. The ocean covers two-thirds of the earth. It stands to reason that if more volcanoes are reactivating on land, they are reactivating at sea, also. They are the causes of warming oceans and the El Niņo effect, not puny little man who scratches the soil for his sustenance.
Will the Church have the Answer?
The Evangelical world is not prepared to speak prophetically to this crisis. There is not a single prophetic model offered today which fits the scenario of a 11,500-year Ice Age cycle. Evangelicals are expecting the Second Advent. They are expecting fire, not ice. They believe the Earth is 6000 years old.
The answer is found, of course, in the Scriptures, but like all of our other institutions, the Church is controlled by dogma and not by the Scriptures. And because it is institutional, it takes the Church decades, even centuries, to change and conform to the truth. Ice Ages occur rapidly, as rapidly as twenty years. There will not be enough time for the Church to repent and show credible leadership. Like Rome, it will be folded-up and put away by the Almighty. God is going to make a "new heaven and a new earth".
The Bible and Ice Ages
So what does the Bible say about this issue? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing which even remotely refers to Ice Ages. So, does this mean the Bible is not the Word of God, or does it mean something else? Surely, the Bible, if it is truly God's Word, would say something about a major event like an Ice Age, wouldn't it?
That is the question a lot of people will be asking when they discover nine feet of snow a day falling in downtown Chicago. What will the scholars of Moody Bible Institute say to their flocks when Midwestern farmers cannot plough their fields in June because they are covered with three feet of snow?
We have a completely false paradigm for the purpose of the Bible. We use it like a crystal ball or a plan for the ages, when we should be using it as a moral compass for earthly dominion.
The last Ice Age ended in the global flood of Noah.[2] God said that would not happen again. Instead, He said that "summer and winter, heat and cold" would never end while the earth remained (Genesis 8:22). That is the Noahic Covenant. An Ice Age is an astronomical winter. That is all it is. If you are ready for it, you live. Just like seasonal winters, you prepare for an Ice Age. Mankind could have learned about Ice Ages long ago, but it was too busy with fighting world wars, global hegemony, and hedonism to learn the astronomical seasons of the Earth.
But are we not in the Last Days? Is not this just Earth signs of Christ's return?
No, it is not. The Covenant of God in the Ten Commandments says His faithfulness will extend "unto a thousand generations" of Covenant keepers (Exodus 20:6). How long is a "thousand generations"? Well, how long does it take for a generation to produce the next generation? It takes twenty to forty years. Do your math. We are talking about twenty to forty thousand years or more. That is how long the Covenant of Dominion has been promised to the righteous. You cannot change that any more than you can change the Ten Commandments.[3]
If Christians followed the Soteriological View of Bible prophecy instead of the Apocalyptic View, they would not be caught by surprise with Earth changes. But they are so desperate for the Bible to compete with fortune tellers that they look for things that are just not in there.
The Soteriological View emphasis the moral redemption of mankind. When mankind learns how to make Earth after the pattern of Heaven, that is when it will reach "the fulness of the stature of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). The Soteriological View says that history will not end until mankind has reached moral perfection.
The Apocalyptic View sees an arbitrary end to history. It sees destruction and hell at the end of man's journey. It sees the evangelistic period as a parenthetical period when God half-heartedly seeks to convert the world, but doesn't really expect it to happen. This is the prevailing view of our time.[4]
Science and the Bible
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the deep of the waters. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said . . .
- Genesis 1:1-2
Whatever we might want to say about the controversy between Creation and Evolution, it cannot undo what the Biblical text plainly states: "the deep" pre-existed land. The Creation account of Genesis One, while clearly declaring the Divine origins of all things, tells us that the world we now know came from a pre-existing watery world. Thus, the Creation account of the following verses is a narrative of a re-creation not an original creation. Our world began with a pre-existing planet.[5]
Classical Creationists, of course, feel uncomfortable with this view. To believe in a pre-Genesis Earth allows evolutionary scientists the billions of years they need for natural processes to have made us and everything we know. That is a misplaced concern, of course, because randomness over time produces more randomness, not design. Evolutionists do not gain anything with more time and Creationists know this. Evolutionary theory is not the real issue, here. For classical Creationists, it is the dogma of the Church and hermeneutics. A literal interpretation of the Scriptures requires a world that is 6000 years old.[6]
They will want to explain the geologic record of previous Ice Ages with the same assumption as they explain million-year-old rocks and stars millions of light years away: that God created everything with the appearance of age. That is a valid argument. Man was created as an adult, not as a child. Rocks, to be rocks, have their own maturity which requires a process of millions of years. They may be only a day old, but to be rocks, they must appear to be millions of years old. Stars were created with light on the way, and so on.
With Ice Ages, we could say that God created the geological record with the appearance of previous Ice Ages. That is a good argument, except for the fact of fossils. There are dead mammoths and dinosaurs and people buried in the ice. Did God create the record with the appearance of death? If so, then He anticipated the fall of Adam in the Creation itself.
Then, what of the Flood? The scenario presented by Creationists is that the Antedeluvian period was a warm period, a time with a water canopy which kept the planet uniformly warm throughout. It would not have been possible for glaciers of previous Ice Ages to have survived in such a climate.
God is not a capricious deity. He would not have left a geological record to test our faith and contradict Biblical revelation. The reason why Creationists put forward the idea of a world-wide greenhouse is to explain where all the water came from to inundate the world. But it could have come from other means. The Earth could have been baraged with asteroids which struck the oceans and caused them to overwhelm the land. There could have been a precipitous melting of ice glaciers which were many miles thick. The tectonic plates themselves could have dropped suddenly (especially if there was one land-mass at the time). Any number of factors could have caused the Deluge. The belief in previous Ice Ages extending into the past hundreds of thousands or even millions of years does not contradict the Bible. But it does contradict dogma.
Does God really ever say that He will destroy the Earth - the planet itself? In our opening text from the book of Hebrews above, it tells us that the earth "will be changed", not destroyed. Is it not possible, that like the transformation of our own resurrection - in which we retain our physical bodies, yet are changed - that the terrestrial universe experiences just such a transformation of its own, a resurrection? The Bible teaches us that there will be a "new heaven and a new earth". Is it not reasonable to suppose that they are simply a resurrection of the existing heaven and earth?
By Fire, or By Ice?
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with a fervant heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervant heat?
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
- 2 Peter 3:10-13
At first glance, it seems that Peter's description of a fiery end of the world will destroy the planet itself, but that is not so. Noah's Flood, which he described earlier in the chapter, did not destroy the planet. It destroyed the people and their civilization. It resulted in massive terraforming of the Earth, but it did not destroy the planet. The destruction Peter describes will burn up "the earth and the works that are therein", everything on the surface, but not the planet itself. As it says in Hebrews which we quoted above, the earth will be folded up and changed.[7]
The inference from Felix's book is that the end of our world will not be by a fiery conflagration, but by an Ice Age. That seems to challenge Apostle Peter's assertion. However, a closer reading of the process Felix describes is more harmonious with the Scriptures than what at first appears.
I have already identified volcanism as the cause of Ice Ages. But what causes the volcanism? Felix says it is caused by extreme and sustained disruption or even suspension of the Earth's magnetic field. The only physical cause big enough to do that is the Sun itself. Massive solar storms hurl huge amounts of radiation into space which overwhelm the Earth's protective magnetic shell. Oceanic evaporation is the protective means the Earth uses to shield itself from the Sun. Thus, Ice Ages are really the Earth's compensation and adjustment to solar assaults. All the major Ice Ages of the past resulted in massive extinctions. But Felix suggests that in many cases extinctions occurred from the events preceding the ice: intense radiation, geologic events like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc., and - electrocution. Apparently, during the turbulance of these periods, the Earth experiences electrical storms resulting from earth movements, the kind which occur during large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. They don't come from the sky, but from the ground, at a time when the Earth itself becomes a giant electrode. With the scenario Felix describes, his book would have been better titled: First By Fire, then By Ice.
The New Heaven and the New Earth
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
- 2 Peter 3:5-7
Notice carefully the words of this text. Peter describes the old heavens and "the earth standing out of the water and in the water" as the world which was destroyed in Noah's Flood (v. 6). The world after Noah - "the heavens and the earth" - is the new world in which we live and which is "reserved unto fire". Then, there will come yet another "new heaven and new earth" as he says in 3:13 and which is described in Revelation 21:1,
And 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.
So then, there have been two new worlds: the world of Creation in Genesis 1 which was destroyed in Noah's Flood and the world of our time, which will be destroyed by Fire. And there will be a new world after this fiery judgment.
However, we face an anomaly in the Bible's description of this period. In John's new world, there will be nations of people, animals, and the physical earth and sky, but no death. John seems to place the new creation chronologically after the Millennial Reign, yet much of his imagery is taken from the prophet Isaiah who identifies this imagery with the Millennial period which he also calls a "new heaven and new earth". But it is different from John's new creation; for it is a time when people still die (65:20), build houses, plant vineyards, and have babies (65:21,23):
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. . . The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
- Isaiah 65:17,25
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
- Isaiah 66:32
Since John assures us that there will be no death or pain in his new world (Revelation 21:4), it suggests that the new heavens and earth he describes are different from the one described by Isaiah.
Might it not be appropriate to refer to the Millennium as a "new heaven and new earth"? If so, then the Ice Age which is now at our doorstep, along with the Earth changes which are occuring everyday with greater intensity, may be heralding the Millennium and not the end of history.
However one wants to look at it, the Scriptures teach multiple creations, or re-creations of the world, when an old order is destroyed and a new order is initiated. It all still happens on this same planet, yet one which undergoes great change and terraforming.
Day of St. Matthias
Today, the Eastern Church celebrates the memory of Matthias, the obscure disciple who became the Apostolic replacement of Judas Iscariot. The Western Church honors his day in February. I have followed the Eastern Calendar this time to illustrate a point.
The Celtic Church is an eastern church because its origins are directly in Jerusalem. The Anglican Church, of course, while heavily influenced by the Celtic tradition, still follows Rome in many ways. That is why we do not honor Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in August, as do the Anglicans. Augustine was the arch-enemy of Pelagius, a preacher from Wales. Had the Roman world been willing to incorporate the Celtic heritage into its public policy, perhaps Rome could have transformed the barbarians, instead of being destroyed by them. As it was, it took the Irish, three centuries later, to do the job of Christianizing Europe.
According to Tradition, Matthias was one of the Seventy and a faithful follower of Jesus. Little is known about him, and he is not mentioned directly in any other Biblical text.
What is of particular interest to us is the manner of his appointment found in Acts 1:21-26. He was chosen by lots.
Choosing leaders by lots is here set forth as a Biblical practice which relies completely upon Divine Providence and removes the intrigue of politics from the selection process. Most Church leaders in most groups are selected according to the will of man, although not all. Some old-order Amish select their leaders by a lottery system. Such a system requires each man to equip himself for leadership; for he never knows if he will be chosen. It is worthwhile to consider such a practice in restoring Desposynic leadership to the Churches.
Today, churches are run like major corporations and pastors learn to operate like politicians. This is an unholy practice which corrupts leadership and laity alike. In the Celtic tradition, churches are families and their leaders are the fathers of families.
Ancient Rome collapsed in the wake of a mini-Ice Age. But "its deadly wound was healed" and it lives today in the institutions and practices of the West. It will not survive the next wintery blast from the Almighty. Like Judas, it will commit suicide from remorse and will be replaced by Matthias.
A Servant of Jesus,
James Wesley Stivers,
Church Overseer
Collect for the Day:
O Almighty God, who into the place of Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the Twelve: Grant that thy Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.iceagenow.com Felix updates his site every few days with the latest climate information.
[2] Or the last Ice Age may have been the result of a universal flood. In either case, the cycle of Ice Ages remains the same at 11,500 years with mini-Ice Ages at 360-year and 1440-year cycles.
[3] I am indebted to the late, David Chilton for calling this eschatological aspect of the Covenant to my attention. His treatment of it can be found in his book, Paradise Restored . http://www.dominionbooks.com
[4] If you want a published essay comparing these two models of Bible prophecy, send email message to papers@grailchurch.org and type "prophecy" in the subject line.
[5] Follow the language of Genesis One carefully. It does not say God created light, for instance. It says that He said, "Let there be light", not to suggest that light did not exist before the Earth's re-creation (indeed, "God is light"), but to tell us that Earth had no light. Likewise with the other parts of Creation. God said, "Let there be". The text does not say, "He created". It does say "He made" but that is a different Hebrew word which has wide applications. It does say, however, that "He created" the creatures of the Earth, including man. The pre-existing world was completely destroyed. There were no surviving creatures, unlike the destruction of Noah's Flood, in which there were creatures which survived in the Ark. Again, the point of origination of all things is God Himself (Genesis 1:1). Nothing pre-existed Him. The order and process of Creation is what is at issue here. God continues to create. New stars and galaxies and worlds are being created this very day.
[6] ala Bishop Ussher's chronology found in most study Bibles. A literal interpretation of the Scriptures also points to Earth-cycles of pre-existing worlds, as well. Bishop Ussher's chronology applies to our current world.
[7] This interpretation is strengthened by the New Testament's use of the word stoicheo - element - in Galatians 4:3 and 4:9. In those texts Paul uses the term in reference to the religious order and not to the physical universe at all.
UPDATE, SEPTEMBER, 2003
There is growing concern that a super volcano under Yellowstone National Park may soon become active. A large bulge is protruding on the floor of Yellowstone Lake and shallow earthquakes have recently been reported in the Park vicinity. The effect of the explosion of such a super volcano would have the size of a blast many hundreds of times larger than the Mount St. Helen's eruption. It could cause a "nuclear winter" which would plunge the earth into an immediate ice age.
There are other ominous reports. The Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean which warms both the East Coast of the United States and western Europe appears to be slowing down to a stop.
You are urged to stay informed of the latest data at http://www.iceagenow.com