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We are a Christian Fellowship meeting in North London with a strong interest in teaching the Bible and understanding our time in
the light of Bible prophecy
The house on the sand
Jeremy Leggett, a former oil man, wrote an article in The Independent
(20/1/06) entitled, What they don’t want you to know about the coming oil
crisis. He wrote:
A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of an acute, civilisation-changing
energy crisis. … We have allowed oil to become vital to virtually everything
we do. Ninety per cent of all our transportation, whether by land, air or sea,
is fuelled by oil. Ninety-five per cent of all goods in shops involve the use of
oil. Ninety-five per cent of all our food products require oil use.
The world consumes more than 80 million barrels of oil a day, 29 billion
barrels a year. This figure is rising fast, as it has done for decades. The
US government expects that global demand will grow to around 120 million
barrels a day, 43 billion barrels a year, by 2025. However there is no way
that the oil industry can produce this amount of oil. Leggett says, The
most basic of the foundations of our assumptions of future economic
well-being is rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has
no precedent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.
The modern industrial world has been built on the supply of energy keeping
the electricity supply to our homes and work places running and fuelling our
transport system which ensures that goods and people can move from place to
place around the world. Without the energy sources - coal, oil, gas and
nuclear power - the whole system crumbles.
In America that possibility is beginning to be considered by those who see
the phenomenon known as Peak Oil as the next big threat to the western way
of life. Peak Oil is the point at which oil production reaches a plateau
before it declines while demand for oil consumption continues to rise. Once
worldwide demand for oil outpaces worldwide production (of oil by a
significant margin the price of oil will sky-rocket, oil-dependent economies
will crumble, and resource wars will explode.
Matthew Savinar has written an article on this subject on the Internet site
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. He writes, Civilization as we know it
is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday
cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather,
it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected
geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are
rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely
terrified by a phenomenon known as global Peak Oil.
When will this happen? According to Savinar, Some geologists expect 2005 to
be the last year of the cheap-oil bonanza, while many estimates coming out
of the oil industry indicate a seemingly unbridgeable supply-demand gap
opening up after 2007, which will lead to major fuel shortages and
increasingly severe blackouts beginning around 2008-2012. Richard Heinberg,
in his article Smoking Gun: The CIA’s Interest in Peak Oil says A growing
consensus of petroleum geologists places this event in the mid-range period
of 2006 to 2015.
Savinar dismisses alternatives to oil as sources of power for the current
world system as fantasy. Green alternatives like solar, wind and wave power
produce only a tiny fraction of the power now available through oil.
Hydrogen as an alternative to oil does not work either due to the huge costs
of producing it and the vast problems of storing it. He says there is no
time to develop the huge infrastructure needed to switch from an oil based
industrial system to an alternative one. Nor is there the political will or
the financial capability.
Savinar sees an inevitable collapse of the US economy coming which will drag
down the rest of the world. As the driver of the worlds economy, the
demise of the US will take down other industrialized countries. The
financial dislocations wrought by the coming oil shocks could set the stage
for a series of destabilizing resource wars and currency insurgencies, in
much the same way Germanys financial meltdown during the Weimar Republic of
the 1920s set the stage for the rise of Third Reich in the 1930s and World
War II in the 1940s.
Added to all this is the fact that the present suppliers of most of the
worlds oil are anything but reliable. 70% of global proven reserves of oil
are to be found in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has the worlds largest
reserves with 264.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (25% of the world
total). Oil from this area is the easiest to extract and export. Recent
finds of oil in the Caspian Sea area and in Central Asia are not as great as
was originally hoped and these areas are landlocked so getting the oil out
involves building pipelines through such unstable regions as Afghanistan to
the south or the Caucasus region to the west. The vulnerability of pipelines
to terrorism has been shown by the frequent attacks mounted by insurgents in Iraq.
A disruption anywhere could cause market panic and spiraling prices. Texas
oil analyst Matt Simmons has written a book Twilight in the Desert which
warns that the skyrocketing price of oil could plunge the world into war.
One spark which could ignite this fire is Iran’s nuclear programme which is
causing worry about possible disruptions of the supply of oil from the
Middle East. In January 2006 Iran threatened to cut oil supplies if Europe
continued to meddle in what it sees as its right to develop a nuclear
programme. It has also threatened to block shipping through the Straits of
Hormuz at the entrance of the Persian Gulf if its nuclear facilities are
attacked. Every day, 15 million barrels of oil pass in tankers through these
narrow Straits.
Production of oil is in decline in more than 50 oil-producing nations,
including the USA and Britain. Discoveries of large oil fields are
decreasing year by year, while the demand for oil is constantly increasing.
In particular China and India are already having a major impact on both oil
resources and the environment on account of their huge populations and
growing numbers of people prospering as a result of economic development.
There have been large finds of oil in Russia with deep wells sunk in
Siberia. However Russia could well prove an unreliable source of supply.
January 2006 began with a crisis caused by Russia demanding a huge increase
in charges to Ukraine for its gas supply and threatening to cut supplies if
the price was not paid. Many saw this as Russia punishing Ukraine for its
pro Western policies. But the threat to turn off the gas supplies in the
middle of winter did not just affect Ukraine. For a few days countries
across Europe watched nervously as the crisis unfolded.
The deputy chairman of Gazprom, the giant Russian company that controls the
flow of Russian gas to the west came to London to reassure Britain that
there would be no risk of disruption to British gas supplies. The very next
day, temperatures in Moscow broke a 50-year record, plunging to minus 30C.
Gas normally exported was diverted to the home front. Supplies to the West
fell. Nervousness on this subject was increased by news reports that Gazprom
is seeking to buy a controlling share in British Gas.
As huge price rises for gas supply are announced, the prospect of the source
of this supply being in the hands of a power which once confronted the West
during the Cold War is hardly reassuring. After all Russian President Putin
once wrote a thesis saying that Russia could use its energy resources to
regain its global power. Russia supplies a quarter of all the gas used in
Europe and 90% of it flows through Ukraine. This supply is scheduled to
increase when the giant pipeline now being built under the North Sea from
Russia to Germany is completed. Britain will be at the end of the line for
this gas which will become vital as our North Sea oil and gas decline.
A crisis caused by oil resources being cut off or a huge surge in the price
of oil and gas could plunge the world into chaos. The Bible prophesies such
a time coming at the end of this age and compares it to the birth pangs of a
pregnant woman. In 1 Thessalonians 5.1-3 Paul writes: But concerning the
times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to
you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as
a thief in the night. For when they say, Peace and safety! then sudden
destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman.
When a woman goes into labour a process begins which will lead to the birth
of the child. She knows the signs of the impending birth are taking place,
but she does not yet see the child and she does not know how long the
process will go on for. Today the signs of the second coming of Jesus Christ
are taking place not just some of them but all of them. We do not know how
long it will be before the crisis we are describing in this article explodes
across the earth, but there is no doubt that it will. When it does the world
will enter a period of time described in the Bible as the great tribulation.
Jesus describes this period in Matthew 24.21-22: For then there will be
great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world
until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened
no flesh would be saved; but for the elects sake those days will be shortened.
Anyone can see that our society is built on shaky foundations. Modern
technological society lines up with the well known words of Jesus:
Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a
wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the wind descended, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall,
for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine
and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the
sand; and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat
on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall. Jesus speaking in Matthew 7.24-27.
Sooner or later the storm will come and this house will crash. What will
happen to you and me then? The world situation today is pushing humanity
towards an unprecedented crisis in human history which will affect all
nations of the earth and bring the possibility of the end of all life on
earth if God did not step in through the return of Jesus shortening those
days and bringing the time of human mis-management of the planet to an end.
Despite all this there is a glorious hope for the future. Jesus said When
these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption draws near. Luke 21.28. These things have begun to happen so we
should look to the return of the Lord Jesus as the hope for the world. While
people without faith are described by Jesus as experiencing heart failure
for fear at the things which are coming on the earth (Luke 21.26), the
believer has a totally different expectation: We should live soberly,
righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and
glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Titus 2.12-14.
As the lights go out all over the world, the light of faith and hope in
Jesus will never go out in the heart of those who really believe in Him. In
order to escape the coming collapse of oil based industrial society, Mr
Savinar, in the article already quoted suggests that people should relocate
to an area as least vulnerable to these issues as possible. But for many
people that will not be a viable option and it will not save you anyway. As
in the days of Noah there will be no escape.
But the Lord has a plan to relocate His people: For the Lord Himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with
the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are
alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we
shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17.
This event, known as the Rapture of the Church, will take place unexpectedly
and unannounced like a thief coming in the night. At that moment those who
are saved will be taken to a place of safety before the judgements fall on
the earth in the great tribulation period.
In the light of all this there is only one hope for the world. The return of
Jesus. The human race has blown our chances of saving the world by ourselves
already.
The world system today will not stand because it is on the wrong
foundations. But when everything else is shaken, Gods kingdom cannot be
shaken. In order to enter Gods kingdom Jesus says You must be born again
(John 3.7) not physically but spiritually by turning from sin and unbelief
to faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead when He had paid the price
for our sins and will raise with Him all who put their trust in Him.
If you have not yet made that step I urge you to do so without delay. Here
is a prayer which you can say to accept salvation through Jesus the Messiah.
Dear Heavenly Father, I admit that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness.
I believe that Jesus the Messiah died in my place, shedding His blood to pay
for my sins, and that He rose again from the dead to give me eternal life. I
am willing right now to turn from my sin and accept Jesus the Messiah as my
personal Saviour and Lord. I commit my life to you and ask you to send the
Holy Spirit into my life, to fill me and to take control and to help me
become the kind of person you want me to be. Thank you Father for loving me.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Much of the information in this article is taken from a new book written by
Tony Pearce, The House on the Sand, available from us for £7 including
post and packing. See www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk
