Certain questions, like the title of this post, seem rather remote and disconnected from every day life. Like I like to put it to people, "It seems like an island that has nothing to do with the mainland, so why paddle out to that." The world, however, takes great note of these questions and their answers. We should have the true answer and be able to state it -- not to every such question, but to such questions. We introduce the world to the real world. They are stuck in their alternative reality and we are responsible to deliver them from it. I know that today people state it as taking the red pill, but if this is a pill, it's probably not red or blue, but the concept itself is valid.
After about a year in Oregon, a friend and member of our church in California came up to visit on the weekend, we went door-to-door evangelizing Friday and Saturday, had Sunday services, and yesterday, we drove up to Crater Lake, which is also a national park about an hour and a half drive from where we live. Crater Lake is beautiful. It is essentially the top of a mountain that has been hollowed out with no outlet and water has accumulated there through various means over a long period of time. It looks like a crater filled with the brightest blue, almost transparent water. In the lake is another old volcano that also has a crater, a mini-island within the crater, a mountain within a mountain. It was hazy, when we visited Crater Lake on Monday, because of wind blowing smoke up from fires in California. Nevertheless, the views, as we drove all the way around and hiked to two locations and got out of the car at least ten times to look, were awe inspiring (if you click on the pictures, they get bigger and better).
Requisite now for national parks, which are very often very beautiful, are historical and apparent scientific explanations. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and it is the ninth deepest lake in the world. At many of the scenic overlooks were placards and displays that talked about the formation.
The explanation for Crater Lake is that it was Mount Mazama, which became an active volcanoe, which erupted 6,000 to 8,000 years ago which blew out twelve cubit miles worth of material to form a cadera, the gigantic crater. That bowl filled up with water from huge snows and the melting of the snow pack in the winter. Since there are no inlets or outlets, it is very pure water, some of the purest of the world, and it is estimated the water completely changes every 250 years through the exchange of evaporation and precipitation.
If you read the descriptions on any of the placards or displays, there is no mention of God. God does not enter into the explanation. He should. Crater Lake formed by means of a universal flood over the entire earth from which the original water also came. Yes, it has since been replenished in the way described, but was a lake at the time of the great flood, revealed in Genesis 6-9 in the Bible.
God was angry with mankind and so He revealed to a righteous man, named Noah, that rain and a flood and destruction werre coming, because of man's sin. Man was sinning and unrepentant of it. Violating the moral law of God brings consequences. God doesn't allow man to interminably get away with sin. He reacts with righteous indignation and true justice.
God is also merciful, because he instructed Noah to preach to mankind to warn him for 120 years. God also provided for a way to instruct the destruction of the flood, an ark. Noah and his family would build the ark to save whoever would repent and believe. No one did, so except for the eight people in Noah's family, everyone died.
The flood changed the topography of the earth. Water came from beneath the earth's surface and from above. A feature of the earth before the flood was the firmament, waters which protected the earth from factors that would greatly shorten people's life spans. Proceeding from God's power, waters broke forth from beneath the surface of the earth and rained down from above it.
The pressure of the water that covered the earth completely changed the topography of the planet. There was a tremendous upheaval that is responsible for what the earth looks like now. This occurred by the powerful judgment of God and then the natural forces that followed from that. Genesis 10 talks about the division of the earth. It took awhile for the earth to settle. The population was very small and in one location and everywhere else were massive changes from which are repercussions still today.
The forces at work from the worldwide flood caused volcanic eruptions and huge shifts of the earth's crust, leaving still the consequences of sin in the way of volcanic and seismic activity. The earth still often shakes with the shifting of plates and destroys what's on the surface, leading to further death. Giant waves form and hit the shore of populated area, destroying life and property. The weather that followed the flood has continued to wreak havoc everywhere and all the time with the far less stable living environment than what existed before the flood. Life changed drastically and it was all because of sin.
God's judgment of sin formed Crater Lake. It also formed the Rogue Gorge, which is nearby Crater Lake about 45 minutes away.
These formations are beautiful to see. They are powerful. All of them have arisen from the power of God's destruction of a former world because of its sin. No one mentions that at either location, but it is true and it is the most important story at both Crater Lake and Rogue Gorge.
Further judgment is coming to the world. God has already warned about it. He wants His children, His saints, to preach about it. It's obviously nearer today than it ever has been. Even the smoke over Crater Lake reminds me of that future fire that will destroy the world. Like Noah and his family could be saved, God offers salvation. Let's not miss that. A former world was destroyed without repentance. Only those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ will escape the next judgment of God.
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