Heatwave Panic

Some weeks ago, I had an unusual bout of foresight, and purchased an ‘air cooler’. One might call it poor man’s air-conditioning. It is essentially a fan that passes the air it sucks in through a trickle of cold water, so that when it is blown out, it is cooler than when it went in. I find it most pleasant and useful, especially in the last couple of days, during which we have had a heatwave. And not just any old heatwave- A RED WARNING had been issued for this EXTREME HEAT. In parts of England, it is LIKE LIVING IN AN OVEN, quotes the BBC. Doubtless, January’s headline will liken us to living in a freezer when the snow next falls. We used to have a word for a series of days of hot weather, what was it? Ah yes- ‘summer’. Still, there are some advantages to the heat. All those potholes, for example, which councils seem incapable of fixing, might just fill themselves now the tarmac is melting. The climate change evangelists will already be writing their articles and plotting their charts to show how this is all the result of Westerners releasing too much carbon and that destroying working class occupations will save the planet. In fact, excessive heatwaves are a token of Christ’s imminent return. In Revelation 16 8-9, we read:

Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.

The current warmth is too much, but not so hot I think that people across the planet blaspheme the God who made them (though they find a plentiful supply of other reasons). Yet in Revelation chapters 8 and 9, the sun is ‘struck’ and compromised by thick smoke, causing it to be darkened, which presumably lowers the heat it radiates onto the earth. I suspect our current two days’ worth of excessive heat are not fulfilments of apocalyptic promise. Yet what else is being reported by the BBC this week?

Ghana confirms first cases of deadly Marburg virus

Spending power squeeze worst for 20 years

Ferocious European heat heads north

Australia's environment in 'shocking' decline

Ukraine war: Putin to visit Iran in rare international trip

War, poverty, natural disaster, pestilence… it isn’t the premillennialists trying to scare us out of our wits, but the secular media. It is with some irony that the world is terrified of everything but the terrifying return of its dread Sovereign who comes to judge the living and the dead. Until then, I shall continue to sit by my air cooler, looking to the Saviour’s return.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 2 Peter 3:10