1997"...at the last trump..."Chapter Eight by G.Stephen Benton

CHAPTER EIGHT

IF THERE WERE NO PROPHECIES,

HOW LONG COULD THIS EARTH LAST?

            Because  God  operates  on a 50 year cycle, if 1997 were not the year of the Rapture,  the next window in time for the last trump to sound would be 2047.   The issue I present here is whether or not  the earth can continue  for another 50 years under the stress to which man has subjected  it.

            When God delivered this earth into the hands of Adam, the transfer was accompanied by a blessing and a charge of responsibility.

            "And God blessed them, and God said  unto them, Be fruitful,   and multiply,  and replenish the earth, and subdue it..."    Gen.l:28

            The instructions  to Adam  are clear.   These instructions  have been misconstrued to apply only to having children.   While that  is included  it is not the only thing Adam  was to multiply.   Every tree and plant and every living creature was to be multiplied under  man's control.  Every species of animal and plant life was to be preserved as long as man existed  on the earth.   Man  has failed miserably in that  respect.   Pollution and extinction are the main topics whenever the earth is discussed  today.  Whatever man has not polluted he has exterminated.

             When the pioneers of our nation began  moving west, historians  report that buffalo  herds were always in sight roaming the great prairies.   Today one can drive from coast to coast  and never see a single buffalo.   Their senseless slaughter was the primary cause of the Indian's hostility against the white invader.

            In India and Africa elephants were massacred by the thousands just  for their ivory tusks. 

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Were it not for recent laws banning the ivory trade,  the world's elephants today would exist only in zoos.

             Plankton  is the beginning  of the food chain for all marine  life.  The increase  in  ultraviolet  radiation is destroying  its production.   The disappearance  of this vital food source  is having a tremendous domino effect on all marine life.  Because so much of the world's food comes directly from the ocean, human  beings are especially vulnerable  to any adverse  reactions  in the sea.

             Various species of whales have been hunted to extinction and only the temporary passage of  laws have saved those that are left.

             Another casualty of the sea is coral.  In addition to increased exposure to deadly ultraviolet  rays, it is also a victim of a decorating  fad.  Many coral reefs are in danger as well as the marine life they support merely so someone can have a pretty artifact on their  mantle.

            Data on the internet lists 31 fish species in the United States alone that have become  extinct since 1928. It also lists over 40 species of birds on this continent that have become  extinct since the late nineteenth century.  Those lists do not reflect worldwide extinctions.

            A notable scientist in the Amazon who has observed fish harvests there since 1970 has noticed  that  the fish being caught are much smaller.  He has determined that the smaller fish represent a large decline  in actual numbers.

            Along with the depletion  of fish, the rain forest's food and inhabitants  are suffering from mercury poisoning.  The Amazon is currently being mined for gold.  Mercury is used in the mining  process to separate the gold from the gravel.  That mercury is now appearing in the Amazon River  and infecting its fish.  Because fish are a major  part of the diet of the inhabitants  of the forest (animals and humans alike) they, too, are being poisoned by this liquid metal.

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            The valuable Amazon Rain Forest is disappearing at the rate of 20 football fields per minute.   Most of the trees are being cleared for farmland.   Studies have long ago proven  that  the land will yield a crop for about  three years, afterwards it becomes a desert.   Most of the vegetation is being cleared by burning.  The trees capture and store carbon dioxide but their burning is releasing large levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Carbon Dioxide

is a natural insulator and as such it holds the heat In our atmosphere that would otherwise return  back into space.   The result is global warming.

             The Amazon is not the only rain forest on the planet being destroyed.   The same thing is happening  in New Guinea,  Canada, and Africa.   In areas where the forests are not being burned  with fire, they are being destroyed with acid rain.   The number of unidentified bacteria, insects, herbs and viruses being destroyed in the rain forests are larger than those that are known.

            There are now over 2,000 viruses loose on our planet,  some more virulent than the AIDS  virus.  The cures for many of these are being destroyed along with the rain forests.

             Our planet is under the constant threat of nuclear war.  While many nations have signed  a ban on nuclear testing,  China and France conducted  a nuclear test during the writing of this book.   Barring a nuclear war, necessity has brought about the use of nuclear energy.  While it may indeed  be the cleanest source of energy, the failure of another  nuclear power  plant  such as the  one in Chernobyl presents unimaginable horrors.

            The greatest danger facing our planet is the destruction of the atmosphere itself.  The earth is protected by a layer of gas called ozone.  This band of gas shields the earth  from the  sun's harmful  ultraviolet  rays.  Measurements of the ozone layer have been conducted

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since  1956.  The now infamous  "hole" in the  ozone  began forming  in the 1970's and no preventative  measures taken have been able to stop its growth.   The ozone continues  to be depleted   at alarming  rates  while the  average temperature of the earth is slowly rising.

            We have come to realize that the ozone hole above the Antarctic is the result of our releasing  chlorofluorocarbons  (CFC 's) into the air.  This gas produces a chemical  effect  which literally eats  away at the ozone layer.  We know that water boils at 212 degrees (F) and  freezes  at 32 degrees  (F).   We refer to those chemical changes as either freezing or boiling points.   As we continue  to destroy our atmosphere we have no idea at what point it will react violently  and  destroy itself and us.  As we release hundreds of different gases into our own gaseous  atmosphere we are arming a time bomb while having no knowledge of its overall  destructive  effects,  or at what  final temperature the detonation will occur.

            In his book Crises in the Atmosphere,   Ed Phillips says the following:  "Climatologists are predicting  that global temperatures could rise by as much as 9 degrees fahrenheit during the next 50 years." He  goes on to say that the average global temperature has risen one degree  fahrenheit in the past 100 years.   "It may not sound like much, but considering it took 2,000 years for the earth to warm one degree fahrenheit before this, that's a significant increase."

            Jesus prophesied  that there would be famines on the earth before and  during the  Tribulation.   Because famines  have  occurred  regularly in various  parts  of the world throughout history, that  prophecy has been played down.  In these last days however, famines  will begin to occur in epidemic  proportions   and  in areas never  before affected  by such tragedy.      ,,

            The United States is known as the  "world's breadbasket."    During the latter part of the  1980's and  into the '90s the nation's leading crop producer,  California,  was hit by

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severe  drought.   The reduction  in crops and the cost of growing them caused produce prices  to skyrocket.

            During  the  same period  the great  southwest  and midwest areas of the nation have been  repeatedly  inundated with floods.  The Mississippi River has overflowed its banks twice within the  last four years resulting  in vast areas of farmland being covered with the river's silt and  sand.  Thousands  of acres of once fertile farmland are now unable  to produce.

             Scientists  studying the sun and its phenomenon  of sunspots  have noticed  that  their  occurrence,  which is precisely every 11 years, produces rhythmic periods of drought on the  earth.   The last time  sunspots  reached  their peak  was in 1990.  The next  11-year cycle of sunspots  and droughts is due in the  year 2001.

            Comedian  George Carlin performed a comedy skit about the  "save the planet"  mongers.   In his own inimitable style he explained how the earth  has been around  for billions of years and has survived every disaster  it has encountered,  including man.   He pointed  out that  the earth simply evicts its inhabitants  and starts all over again.   He predicts that it will continue  to survive long after man is gone and  since the earth seems much more capable of survival than its various  species  of life, man should concentrate on saving himself.

            I have not even began to touch the surface of the state of affairs on this earth.   Many  books  have  been written  on that  subject, alone.   But I believe  I have  said enough  to give a clear impression that  this earth cannot stand  another  50 years of abuse from mankind.

            We are already dying of the air we breathe and there aren't any signs of improvement   even though many changes have been implemented and much legislation has been  passed.

            Greed is the driving force behind the destruction inflicted on the earth.   Until something 

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can be done  to change the very nature  of man and  deter his love for money  and  power  regardless of the consequences  wreaked upon  the  earth,  there is no hope for either man or the

earth.   One thing is certain  though,  God made the earth to abide forever.

            Revelation  tells us that God will renovate this  earth by fire and recreate it all over  again.   Every trace of the works of man's  hands will be completely removed from the

earth:

            "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 fervent  heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

            Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved..."

                                                                                                II Pet.3:10&11

            Once  the earth is again  restored  to its original pristine condition it will remain that  way perpetually because  all of those who destroyed  the earth and  the greedy nature of sinful man  will have been  confined  to hell forever.

            Isaiah wrote about a wonderful future for the earth.  I am uncertain if his prophecy begins  at the start of the millennium in 2006,  or if it is reserved for the period after the renovation of the  earth but it is a day that I am anxiously awaiting.   Let's see what  Isaiah prophesied for the earth:

            "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young  lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

            And the cow and the bear shall feed; and their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

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            And the suckling child shall play  on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put  his hand on the cockatrice den.

            They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."   Isa. 11:6-9

             Satan  will be forever  confined  to hell  as well as all sin and  evil and  the  earth  will enjoy an eternity of peace and bliss dwelling in the presence of God.

            It is unfortunate that there is not more preaching about  the wonderful future that lies before us.   Of  course, there is only so much that can be preached because we haven't an inkling of an idea of the great things that God has prepared for those who love him.

            "But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."   I Cor.2:9

            We  serve a God  who possesses  unlimited creative ability.  Just look at the things he has created and you'll get a small peek at his imagination.   Now consider yourself and your dreams for your own children.    If I had the means, my children would be thoroughly spoiled because there is nothing  that I would not give them.   I'm restricted not only by money but I know that it would  not be to their advantage  if I gave them everything.    But where  God's children are concerned,  the spoil factor is eliminated.  God has an eternity to fully display  his love to his children and the unlimited resources to do so.

             The next verse lets us know that God has revealed those future things to us and  that  revelation  comes when we meditate on  God's word.

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            "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God.

            For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?  Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

            Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."    I Cor. 2:10-12

            I will look forward to meeting you in the city of Heaven and seeing you throughout eternity.

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REFERENCES

An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages,  William Marion Branham,

Branham Campaigns, 1970 Jeffersonville,lnd.

A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus,  Andrew Bonar, Great Summit Books/Baker Book House, 1852,1978 edition

Grand Rapids, MI

 The Book of Leviticus,   S.H. Kellogg, D.D. Klock&Klock Christian Publishers,  1899, 3rd Edition,  1978 Minneapolis, Minn.

 Notes on the Book of Leviticus,  C.H. Mckintosh, Fleming H. Revell Company,-  1860

 Number in Scripture,  E.W. Bullinger, Kregel Publications,1967  Grand Rapids, MI

 Gospel In The Stars,  Joseph Seiss, Kregel Publications,  1992 edition,

Grand Rapids, MI

 Matthew Henry's Commentary,  Volumes 1-6, McDonald Publishing Co., 1708 Mclean, VA

Word Studies in the Greek New Testament,  Kenneth Weust Volumes 1-3, Wm.B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 1979 Edition,

Grand Rapids, MI

The Jewish Encyclopedia

Expositor's Commentary

The Pulpit Commentary

The 1995 World Almanac, Funk &Wagnalls Corp.

Celestial Delights: The Best Astronomical Events through 2001

Francis Reddy & Greg Walz-Chojnacki,  Celestial Arts Publishers, 1992 Berkeley, CA

  

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Crisis in the Atmosphere, The Greenhouse Factor, Ed Phillips,

D.B Clark & Co. Publishing, Phoenix AZ

 Eclipse, Bryan Brewer Earth View Inc. 1991 2nd edition

Seattle, WA

 ARTICLES:

"Aviation Week & Space Technology" Magazine, Jan 29, 1990

"Newsweek" Magazine 7-9-90 (Hubble Space Telescope)

"Heaven Can Wait," 1981m "Delays & Dollars"

"News and World Report" Magazine, July 9, 1990, March 26, 1990

"Science" Magazine, Sept. 9, 1988

"Time" Magazine, 7-9-90, "Cloudy Vistas for Big Science," 7-23-90

"More Trouble for Hubble, " April 16, 1990

"U.S. News" Magazine, 7-9-90, "A Telescope Built by Mr. Magoo,"

3-26-90,   "A Journey to the Beginning of Time," 4-16-90, 

"New Window on the Universe"

  

Copyright, August 1995 G.S. Benton

To read more current revelations from Pastor Steve, check out his book published September of 2017 on Amazon.com

                 https://smile.amazon.com/Gods-Final-Secret-Stephen-Benton/dp/1976338476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509271792&sr=1-1&keywords=god%27s+final+secret+by+stephen+benton

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