Of Storms and Earthquakes

The other day I saw a post that asked what would happen if the earth suddenly stopped spinning. Actually, if it did, the destruction would be phenomenal. At the equator, the rotational speed of the earth is 1036 mph. It is a little slower at the poles, but still pretty fast.

So if the earth stopped, everything on the surface would continue moving at about 1000 mpg. Just like a car running into another car or stationary object, the passengers continue their forward motion until a resisting force restrains them. Whack! Ouch!

Buildings and trees are more firmly attached to the planet, so they would probably not go quite as fast and we would collide with walls and stuff. If you live in a valley, you would probably end up buried in the hillside.

Why ask about that? In Luke 8:25 (and Matthew 8, Mark 4) we find the story of Jesus stilling the winds and waves on the Sea of Galilee. He said “Stop!” and the winds and waves immediately were still. That is pretty impressive. After an hurricane, the surf surges for days. This stopped instantaneously.

That reminds us of Joshua and his “long day.” (Joshua 10) The Bible does not tell us how that happened, or exactly what happened, but the day lasted nearly 24 yours longer than usual. Hezekiah asked for a sign from God and the shadow of the sun went back 10 degrees. (Isaiah 38 and 2 Kings 20)

That would be even more destructive than just stopping. It stopped, backed up, stopped, and then started again. Imagine that would cause a few earthquakes? But there does not seem to be any “unanticipated” effects in the previous events. Were they just imaginations of a primitive recorder, or fanciful inventions? A naturalistic world view has extreme difficulty with these events being literal.

(Aside, I was reading a new theory about the evolution of the moon, and the last sentence caught my eye. “The scenario involves several low probability events.” You don’t say. Actually they referred to about 20 earth-other body collisions, each producing a mini-moon which then agglomerated into the moon we have today. So accepting a supernatural view of events from creationists is not so really out to lunch, is it?)

So did God actually stop the earth? We know that He really did stop the storm. We have three witnesses. And the Scripture does not back away from miracles. But the real application, I believe, is in Revelation. In chapters 6, 8, 11, and 16 John predicts great earthquakes. The last being greater than any since man has been on the earth.

Could that be the Lord slowing or stopping the rotation, without the “extra care” that He showed in the past? If that happened, the earth would literally rip itself apart. Maybe the other events were just “practice” for the big show.

Regardless of how it will happen, it will get men’s attention. How much better it would be to listen now.  Amen.