A compare and contrast exercise

If you look at the world today it is dark, ugly, and bleak. Stay with me, it gets good.

There is a report of another oil spill in the Gulf. It is reported to be 100 miles long and 10 miles wide. The Coast Guard did go out and check, and confirmed some slicks. Their investigation continues.

Radiation from the Fukushima prefect in Japan is now high enough to have infected milk, spinach, and Tokyo tap water. All food sales from that district have been halted.

The radiation plume from Japan has made its way across the Pacific and USDA is now testing west coast milk for milk infection.

Dead baby dolphins are washing up along the Gulf shores and also along the coasts of SC. Ten times as many as usual. Imagine walking along with your kids and coming across a badly decomposed 6 foot mammal. Ugh. Scientists do not know why only dolphins are dying.

Wars, bombs, and death in the Middle East continues apace.

A huge swathe of land in Washington state is sliding down the hill, taking people's homes with it. A huge section of Route One in California slid into the sea. 

To sum up, the air is toxic, the water is polluted, the land is poison, the animals are decaying, and the land is unstable. It's gross everywhere, and more of it is coming.

This reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode called The Masks, set in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras. A rich guy with a hateful family is dying. He calls them all to his house for his last breaths, and he knows they will come because they want the money. They are insufferable, one being a coward, one a self-absorbed brat, another a buffoon, and another a greedy miser. The rich guys says you can all have the money but you have to do one thing: wear these Mardi Gras masks until the stroke of midnight. They are grotesque masks, but the family accepts the condition because they want the guy to die so they can have the money.
The guy does die after making his final speech to them, and the clock strikes midnight. They gleefully cheer (over the guy's dead body) and peel off the masks...except they won't come off. Their faces have transformed into the characteristics of their awful inner selves. What was inside them, hidden, was made manifest on their exterior.

The world's awful condition is manifesting its sin on its exterior.  Once charged to take care of the world (Genesis 1:27-30), in our sin, we corrupted it. In its pollution and toxicity and poison, the invisible qualities of the world's sinful people are made manifest.

ALL TO HIS GLORY!

How so, you ask? Because He will lift us out of this place, from its poison and rot, its radiation and oil, and how much MORE glorious His face will seem! How much MORE pure! How much MORE holy! He shines like the sun! His throne is radiant with rainbows shining about it! He is like silver, refined seven times! Turning our face from our rotted planet, we will see how much more glory He deserves in His sinlessness!

If there is anything good about this world, it is that His shining visage will appear all the more bright when we SOON gaze upon it.


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