It’s snowing… so pretty, so peaceful outdoors. If your school is closed, if you can work from home, snow days are an escape from reality.
About reality, yesterday scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight. Not a real clock, but figurative, the “clock” is scientists’ predicting how close we are to midnight, to worldwide catastrophe. The war in Ukraine, the end of the post-World War II era of relative peace, climate change, and biotechnology are major factors why the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has shortened the time earth has left. Which will last longer, peaceful snow or our problems? 90 seconds to midnight.
The Bible calls it the “Day of the Lord.” Unlike the Doomsday Clock, the Day of the Lord is not about science and governments saving us from man-made catastrophe but it’s about mankind’s sin. “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it… I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless” (Isaiah 13:9, 11). “Who can endure the day of his coming?” (Malachi 3:2).
“For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 4:2-3). That Day started with Christ’s birth. “Hail, the heav’n born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n with healing in His wings.” And we’re promised to see the end, to “see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26). That day we’ll be like kids off from school, outside playing in the snow, and no one will say, “It’s time to come in”!
90 seconds to midnight? “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).