Have you ever seen the dashboard of a big semitruck? It looks a little bit like an airplane’s cockpit with a lot of gauges, switches and levers. Our truck has 20 gauges and 26 switches! When driving, while keeping an eye on the road in front of us, checking our side mirrors to know where traffic is behind and beside us, we also need to scan all the gauges from time to time to make sure everything is running properly.
A lot of the gauges give pressure and temperature readings. Air pressure, oil pressure, braking pressure, as well as temperature of transmission, oil, gear box and fuel gauge, and also speedometer and tachometer. If a gauge shows a problem, hopefully we will notice in time to make changes or take measures to keep from having a mechanical problem.
Today our attention was often focused on the gauge showing the outside air temperature. We watched it climb to 106.2 degrees. That is hot! The weather forecast for this weekend had warnings of extreme heat, advising people to stay inside as much as possible. When we stopped for a break, it was quite a shock to step out of the air conditioned truck into the heat.
A little further down the road a small rain shower cooled everything off. The temperature gauge showed the outside temperature dropped to 86 degrees while it was raining. That was quick!
Sometimes we are sure that summers are hotter (and winters are colder) and storms are worse than “when we were young,” but it may be the kindness of God in reminding us that earth is not our “forever home.” The Bible tells us that some of these things — earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods and landslides—point to the soon-coming of the Lord Jesus to take His people (the ones who have accepted Him as their Saviour) to heaven. Perhaps He is allowing so many natural disasters to wake us up to consider the end of the world and the end of our pathway on earth.
God has also promised that He is in control; the world will not end before He has finished His plans. The promise is that “while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:2222While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Genesis 8:22)).
There shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes, and we shall hear of “wars, and rumors of wars,” for it is still the day of God’s grace. When the last person that God is waiting for accepts the Lord Jesus as his or her own Saviour, then God will let the Lord Jesus come for His people. Then all who are His will be caught up together “to meet the Lord in the air.” Think of it!