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Let's All Go Down to the Rising River


by Ted Laramie


As the pastor of a small southern church, I'm often asked by our younger members about this prickly notion of global warming.  They herd around me, as adolescents are prone to do, and they ask me, “Dear father, is this something that we should fear, these rising temperatures that the scientists say will destroy our lovely planet?”  I reply to them with a simple question, “Children, are you not Christians?”  They always look politely back and forth at one another, worrying, I'm sure, that I've lost my mind.  They say, “Well, yes sir, you know that we are Christians.”  Then I laugh, pat them on their heads reassuringly, and quietly tell them, “Then no, my dear children, you should not fear this thing; rather, you should celebrate it!  Rejoice in the warming of the airs and seas, the melting of the frosty ice caps, and the surge in the temperatures across all of God's green pastures, His arid deserts, and rocky mountaintops.  Do not fear!  Rejoice!”  They smile, as children are happiest when reassured, but still they look sideways at one another, unsettled by the things they're told in the media and in their classrooms.  But it's true, my dear people.  Only those that fear for His return, should fear this worldwide warming.

Let me repeat that: Only those that fear for His return, should fear this worldwide warming.

Do you fear for His return?  I don't.

Then how could it be so?  How are we to rejoice at what these scientists say is a certain calamity, destined to destroy the very ground upon which we walk, rendering the earth putrid and uninhabitable?  Are we to rejoice at the rise of the seas, the increased violence of the tornado and hurricane, the ensuing volcanic eruptions that are sure to follow, which the likes of man has not yet seen?  Rejoice?  “Now just a minute, here Dear Pastor,” say the young people.  “What is it that you're saying?”

But yes, what I'm saying, it is true.  I've got the charts right here.  The very same charts and figures that those scientists point to with wagging fingers.  Unless you're infirm, then you may see them right here.

Look at this graph.  Do you see this black line here, how it ascends?  This black line here represents the rise in global temperatures, year over year, since the beginning of recorded time, thousands of years ago.  You can't argue with that black line anymore than you can argue with the thermometer hanging outside your window.  Neither one has ears, like you and I.  It's like the rest of scientific measurement, deaf and blind to mankind.

Now, allow me to overlay this blue line over the same chart.  This blue line, as you can see, descends rather steadily, in proportion to the black line's ascent.  Please stay with me now, for I know this scientific gobbledygook confuses some, myself included, but it's essential that we understand the relationship between these two lines, which will shortly become quite clear to both you and I, lay people, struggling with these high order concepts and scientific thoughts, which through the nature of our lives spent in devotion, we are not accustomed to wading through.

What could this blue line possibly represent?  Well, I'll tell you, though in telling you my heart feels heavy and the mountain before me seems forever tall.  This line, my dear people, represents the year-over-year decline in the number of people who identify themselves as Christian.

I was horrified myself.  But what we notice here, what we see there, is that as the blue line goes down, the black line goes up.  Put another way, as the number of Christians in the world goes down, the temperature of the earth goes up.  I was shocked to see it myself.

And it's not at a random proportion, either.  The relationship is as clear and ubiquitous as the sun rises and sets.  If you pour water from one vessel to another, the level in the first vessel goes down in direct proportion to the rise in the level of the second vessel.  Our loving God long ago laid out these hard and fast relationships so that we might not live in a world of chaos, though through our careless actions, we've courted chaos and deceit and frivolity -- all of which, as you'll see with this next line, relates to this so called problem of global warming.

This red line, which I'm now overlaying on our graph, ascends at twice the rate of the temperature.  It's really skyrocketing up there, isn't it?  And do you know what this line represents?  Well of course you don't.  I haven't told you yet.  And it gives me no pleasure to do so.

This line represents the number of people who have thrown aside the true name of Christ, who've not only rejected the one true faith, but cast it into the gutter where they think all that is good truly belongs.  I'm talking about the Islamic and the Muslim and the militant Jew.  This line represents all of them, inclusively, though it gets much worse.  For it also represents all of the once decent men who've taken to their knees, not in prayer, not in the acceptance of Christ's body, but in the drawing of another man's genitalia into their mouths.  You're shocked!  It's true.  There are those despicable men out there who not only take the penis into their mouths, but into their rectums, preferring the flesh of men over the flesh of women.  And the women have not escaped either.  This line represents them too.  For they too have fallen into lesbian tendency through sports participation and a marked departure from the home arts.  And we've not only lost our once decent women to one another, but also to the shadows of the fields, where they lay with beasts who call themselves men.  And let us not forget all the murderers and rapists and tax dodgers and prostitutes and gamblers and thieves -- all manner of heathen hoists this red line above the rest.

It's sickening, I know.  But it's also very clear.  It's clear to me.  Is it clear to you?  You aren't blind are you?  I see you sitting there.  You see me standing here, beside this scientific chart.  You see the lines on the chart and their correlations.  We need not be geniuses to surmise their relation.  It reflects the simple mathematical model by which God forbade the universe from flying apart in all directions.  He's here in the chart just as He's here in you and I.

So, my dear people, what exactly are we to make of this?  As I said before, we should not be afraid.  And we should not, though we are surrounded by rising temperatures and demons.  Man's depravity raises the temperatures around him.  He calls forth upon himself the fires and brimstones of Hell.  Soon the earth will erupt in flames, swallowing all those not wearing the retardant suits of Christ, His name.  Those slanderers will run red faced and screaming, with torn genitals covered in feces marking their shameful ways.  They'll chase all around us, terrorized by the rising oceans and scalding sun from which they'll find no suitable rafts, no places of shade.  Depravity, my friends, will bring Hell to earth.  And not a despicable man will survive it.

Rejoice!  Grab one another's hands!  Raise your hands up!  As the wicked are devoured by the flames, we, the devout, shall rise up into His arms, saved from the wicked fires of Hell.  Hallelujah!  Praise Him!  He saves us from the wickedness that engulfs all others who reject His name.  Let the temperatures rise!  Let the thermometers shatter!  For where we're going, it's always a pleasant seventy-two degrees.  Sing with me now!  Hallelujah!
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