COPENHAGEN - No bread from stones

by: Helene Bos
date: 12/5/2009
Category: Society

COPENHAGEN - No bread from stones

Can Christians support the Copenhagen treaty on climate change?

(This article is based on an address to the European Prayer Forum, Timisoara, Rumania, 23-27 November 2009)

§1. Introduction
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet from 7-18th of December,at Copenhagen, Denmark. This top has gained more publicity than most of the other global UN-conferences. The reason is of course that over the last decades the interest in the environment has much increased. The environment has become an issue of global importance and concern. There is a growing awareness that we are responsible for what is happening in the earth. Christians realize that we are stewards of creation, and that we therefore carry also a spiritual responsibility for it.

Over the last decade(s) the condition of the environment in different parts of the world have raised many questions.
Most of the people who do feel involved, are not scientists with expertise in the fields that will be discussed. I belong to that majority that depends on the input, the research, interpretation and opinions of those who are considered to be the scientists, the experts. But I do know something about the way the opinions of “outsiders” were steered, even manipulated, in UN conferences and conventions, by its officials. I have been in a number of the global conferences and I have seen, over the years, how “consensus” was proclaimed when there was no concensus. And how other voices were neglected or ignored. There are reasons to believe that that policy is also followed with regard to Copenhagen. I will mention these reasons in §2 and §3.
We need to know what motivates those who are globally pushing the environmentalist movement. Over the years New Age relgious motives have coloured the discussions and proposals for the best approaches. For Christians it is important to know that these inputs into the discussion come from people who dislike Christianity and whose beliefsystem is in essence pantheïstic. The reverence for the planet is often expressed as a reverence for Mother Earth, or for Gaia. The responsible care for nature has become mixed with motives that are idolatrous. I will explain this in §4,

§2. There is a one-sidedness in the approach to climate change
At the surface the question whether there is a global climate crisis or not seems to be the most important issue. Over the last century the expectation by scientists have changed at least four times. In order to be right either way, the press has changed its terminology: we experience “climate change”.
The IPCC is the organization that is considered to be the authority on the issue of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was founded by the UN in 1988. In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio, see §8, a framework for a treaty on the climate was signed, under the responsibility of the UN. The goal was to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses, and to prevent the effects of these gasses on the climate. Two years later this treaty on climate became effectual. It seems that by now most of the memberstates have ratified the treaty. Of course, that brings obligations with it. So there needed to be follow-ups. The Convention at Copenhagen is the latest follow-up. Over the years selected experts contributed to the panel with their insights and expertise from their field of study and/or business. The panel publishes a report every 4 or 5 year. These reports are meant to help (or is it steer?) governments in their environment-policies. It is important to note that scientists also have stepped out of the panel. They had found different facts and came to different conclusions and interpretations. But their opinions were not acceptable. When differing opinions are unacceptable to the IPCC the suggestion of a consensus in the opinion of so-called experts cannot, in my opinion, be trusted. An article in the Wall Street Journal from the 4th of December 1997 had as its headline: “Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth”. In it two chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine explained the conclusion of their research in words for laypeople. One conclusion was that “During the 20 years with the highest carbon dioxide levels, temperatures have decreased”. Before Kyoto, 1998, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine formulated the following statement: ”There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth”. Already before Kyoto, around 17.000 scientists, among whom thousands of meteorologists, signed that petition. But it was ignored at Kyoto. Meteorologists that were recognized in their field as outstanding researchers also were denied access to Kyoto. For their names see www.oism.org/pproject. Since Kyoto around 32.000 scientists have signed a petition formulated by that, recognized, institute:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth".
Among them were more then 9.000 scientists with a PhD. The Past President, National Academy of Sciences, USA, and President Emeritus, of Rockefeller University, Frederick Seitz, even urged scientists to sign the petition as the treaty is, in their opinion, based upon flawed ideas. It means that there is no consensus, as Al Gore claims in his movie, but there is strong disagreement!
Yet the goal of the treaty of Copenhagen is to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse-gasses in the atmosphere in such a way that a dangerous human influence on the climate will be prevented. It is considered to be an international responsibility.

I did read the draft-treaty for the Convention, with its proposed revisions. The research and understanding of scientists who have a different understanding than the IPCC are (again) completely ignored in the proposed text. Though I have absolutely no expertise in that field of research I do understand how scientists should deal with their opponents. A “consensus” regarding global warming that is created by ignoring different opinions, and obscuring and/or changing outcomes of scientific research, cannot be trusted. For me that fact alone makes the draft-treaty questionable.
There have been consultations in working groups preceding this Convention. Therefore in Copenhagen most of the attention will be given to mitigation of the emissions and to the adaptation of technologies. “..Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues that are related to reducing emissions” will be discussed. The draft treaty often mentions which countries are the most vulnerable. In a tone that it is beyond doubt that these regions are vulnerable.
Much attention is given to the fact that the developing nations need to be supported with finances, to help them in bringing down their part of the emissions, and to “repair” in their region what has been damaged. Will these nations have the courage not to sign the treaty when they cannot go along with the postulates of global warming? Then they may miss the money. Are they in this way not manipulated into signing?
Critics of the Convention have asked which group of persons will have the final authority to make far-reaching decisions. Who will appoint that group? Will they have authority to prescribe how much money the developed nations need to contribute, once the treaty is signed? The treaty talks about “global governance”. However, in UN-speak that means that the authority of democrtatically elected governments is bypassed to (or:usurped by) non-elected interest groups. (A development that the UN has promoted by its strategies during the last decade). Will this mean that there will be a hand-picked group of people that has much power, but have never been elected democratically? These also are important questions.

§3. Justified suspicions
There has been doubts, even suspicion with regard to the statements that there is global warming. Also the solutions that have been proposed have received criticism. And now it seems that suspicion was justified.
At the end of November hackers broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and released many confidential files and documents on the Internet. See www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=117323 and www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=116657.
The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit is one of the four research units for the IPCC. Spokespersons for that unit have confirmed that the e-mails and documents were authentic.
The e-mails and documents revealed and confirmed what the scientists who had signed the above-mentioned petition knew and had experienced. Scientific facts were ignored or “adjusted” to the desired outcomes. Articles that questioned the desired outcomes were refused by the “leading” magazines. Disagreeing authors were “squeezed” out of discussion groups.
Will this have an effect on “Copenhagen”? I think, it should. But already “authorities” minimize the importance of the scandal. I must say: what seems to have happened in this Climate Research Unit in England is not so amazing considering the way how the UN has tried in its history to create “consensus” regarding many issues, when there was no consensus. The UN used hundreds of authors to play that game. These authors supported each others opinions and results which created the suggestion that one was not well informed when one had a deviating opinion. But that they tried to create consensus by adjusting the results of scientific research is impertinent.
We can understand that “suspicious” people in the run-up to Copenhagen asked what is the Copenhagen Climate Treaty really about?
One goal of the Copenhagen Treaty is the transfer of wealth from Industrial Nations (like the United States) to Developing Countries. Another goal is to install a global governing body that can decide/dictate how much/little energy use and consumption is granted to Industrial Nations.
Critics suspect therefore that goal #1 behind the treaty in fact is Global Socialism and that, related to this, there is another hidden goal, a Global Dictatorship. These two goals combined would mean the introduction of a socialist oneworld government. Christians need to pray that the hidden motives and strategies will come to the light. For Christians it is even more important to know about the spiritual developments that over the years led up to Copenhagen.

§4. The spiritual dynamics behind the treaty
That development already started in the time shortly after the flood. Therefore we have to go back in history. Because some of the most influential voices in the discussions today about the care for the earth derive their arguments and vision exactly from that time in history.
The Scriptures, in Genesis 11, mention that Nimrod, a great grandson of Noah, built Babel, a city with a tower “ that reaches the heavens”. This did not mean a tower so high as, for example, the 1,671-foot Taipei Financial Centre. The wording meant: “the top” was participating in the spiritual realm, and that there was spiritual rule from top down. The tower was a ziggurat. On the different levels of a ziggurat the sun, moon, planets and stars were worshiped. On the roof was a temple in which sacrifices were made to a deity, Marduk (Bel) and Ishtar. Through cultic sexual rituals by the king and priestesses fertility was released for the Babylonians. The religion was a fertility-religion.
How could this religion develop, when the records of the flood were still fresh? By the submission of Adam and his wife to the lying suggestion of Satan, iniquity entered their spirit. Sin is the fruit of iniquity. When we add sin to sin, accomplished through the soul and the body, the iniquity in the spirit increases. When there is no repentance and no forgiveness that spiritual “heritage” is passed on to the next generation. We read in Genesis 6:5 that the wickedness of mankind, before the flood became so very great that the Lord God could not spare the earth and the people any longer. We may assume that idolatry had become part of that wickedness.
Noah and his sons must have understood why the Lord had judged the then existing world. We may assume that they, after the flood, passed on this understanding to their children, and grandchildren.
In what is believed to be the oldest book in the Scriptures, Job, we read the discussions of Job with his friends. One of the things Job says is “If I had regarded the sun in its radiance, or the moon moving in splendour, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high”, Job 31: 26-28. That means that idolatry in his time was judged as sin. But after some time this understanding eroded. Paul explains in Romans 1 that, when we, though we know the Creator, yet do not glorify and thank Him for whom He is, but instead worship the creation, our thoughts become futile, and our hearts darkened. This leads to foolishness, and to immorality (Rom. 1: 25,21,22, 26). Without repentance there is, always, a progress in evil. Iniquity enters, as it were, our “spiritual DNA” and is passed on to the next generations, if there is no repentance. This was also true for Babel.

Babel-Babylon
The Greek word for Babel is Babylon. The word comes from the Acadian bab-ilani, which means “gate of the gods”. The meaning already indicates that more gods were worshiped at Babel. When Noah left the ark the Lord promised him: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease”, Genesis 8:22. When the descendants rejected God, also the promise to Noah, was forgotten. But as they were, for their survival, very dependant on the seasons and the harvests, they started to depend on and worship forces of nature, which were deified. That is the reason why the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and thunder were idolized. The Babylonians worshipped many gods.
Besides the chief male god, Marduk, Bel, they worshiped a female god, who was believed to be his wife. In Babylon this was Ishtar. (From which word came “Easter”.) The worship of these two (demonic) powers, Marduk and Ishtar, has spread all over the world. In innumerable adaptations.
In Jer. 51:1 the Lord says that He will rise up against Babylon, against those who live in Leb Kamai, which is, according to the NKJ, a codeword that means “The Midst of those that rise up against Me”. This standing up against the Lord was going to be the characteristic for the kingdom of Babylon, and later for the global culture that the Bible names “Babylon”. The people in Babylon rejected the God who is the Creator, and instead worshipped creation itself. So they opened the door to demonic powers. We may assume that the peoples, that were scattered out of Babel, went into the world demonised. This, I believe, may explain why we see shamans, medicine men, witchdoctors, pagan priests all over the world with the same kind of rituals and practices. Practices going back “to the beginning of time”. (N.B. in §§ 7,8 I come back to these words).
From the account in Genesis 11 we understand that the people in Babel/Babylon were -- rebellious, -- united in wilful disobedience, -- striving for autonomous power, and -- using occult powers. The Bible warns us that in the time of the end there will be a corporate body again with the same characteristics, with the same kind of religion, but then on a global scale. In the environmental movement we encounter the fertility religion that started in Babylon and that has spread throughout the whole earth.

§5. Revival of eastern esoteric religions
Around the middle of the 19th century the interest in the occult increased, in Europe.. Helena Blavatsky, 1831-1891, was strongly influenced by eastern esoteric doctrines, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. She founded the Theosophical Society to study the “Hidden Wisdom” and to proclaim a westernized Hinduism. Theosophy means “the teaching of the divine”. Blavatsky wanted to ease the access to the “divine” for people. In 1887 she started to publish a monthly magazine, Lucifer. Blavatsky claimed that she was in regular contact with, what she called, the “Hidden Masters”, beings known in Hinduïsm. Her books have been of great influence on her disciples. These books also influenced Alice Bailey, (1880-1949), whose writings have changed the way of life of multitudes in the 20th century, whether they were aware of it or not.
Helena Blavatsky and (even more) Alice Bailey are considered to be the founders of the New Age movement. This is a religious and a social movement. It combines many religions and philosophies that try to (re-)discover the divine in the person themselves. The books that Alice Bailey wrote, together with a guiding spirit, Djwhal Khul, were meant to be a continuation of “Ageless Wisdom”, (supposedly) esoteric teachings handed down from “ancient times” in a form that can be applied in every period of development of life.
The guiding spirit (who named himself “the Tibetan”) describes, through Alice Bailey, “the Plan” for humanity and the universe, according to what he calls the “Hierarchy of Ascended Masters.” This “Plan” however aimed at one goal: to dethrone Jesus Christ, and to replace Christianity by another religion, a new world-religion in which Lucifer will be worshipped. Worldwide. The Tibetan wrote a proclamation that has become known as “the great invocation”. Alice Bailey founded the Lucifer Trust, later renamed in Lucis Trust. The Lucis Trust published the books of Bailey. It is an influential Ngo and is the publisher of many UN-publications.
There have been (and still are) many authors who have contributed to the New Age Movement. But the teachings of Alice Bailey, better: the Tibetan, have had (and still have) an enormous impact on many leaders in the UN, as they sought to establish a new world-religion in which that same Lucifer will be worshiped. And through the UN and its strategies have these teachings strongly contributed to the changes in the spiritual climate of most of the western nations, and in the developing nations as well. Of course these changes have everything to do with the emergence of the Babylonian religion.
Characteristic of the New Age Movement is the pantheistic and pan-cosmic outlook on life. Everything is one. God and the universe are one. Therefore: the universe is sacred. Good and evil, rich and poor, war and peace, order and chaos, it is part of God. There are no borders between God and the cosmos. Everything becomes divine. God is not the creator but the spirit of the cosmos.
As God and the universe are seen as one it is logical that there is much interest for our own planet. Not a few NA-philosophers deify the planet, Gaia, Mother earth. It is against this background that a new interest in the planet developed.

§6. Another line in history: attempts to a new world order
In the 18th and 19th century a group of freemasons developed the idea to establish a oneworld government, under the command of Lucifer.
Marx and Engels said: Three very bloody world wars would be needed so that eventually every nation would surrender its national sovereignty to an international government “in order to prevent this to be repeated”. There is much to say about this but some key-points are:
- First attempt (in modern times) to establish a new world order: The League of Nations, 1919.
- 1921: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with head quarters in New York. ”The ultimate aim of the CFR …is…to create a one-world socialist system and make the United States an official part of it”.
- In December 1941, two weeks (!) after Pearl Harbour, involving the US in WWII, representatives of 26 nations pledged “to continue fighting together against “the Axis Powers”. Name: United Nations. This was the second attempt to establish a new world order.
- June ’45 the UN came into existence, when 50 nations ratified the Charter. Over the years top-political leaders and leaders at the UN openly referred to/pleaded for a one-world government and a new world order. They meant: A socialist oneworld-government.

§7. Earth, earth day
In the 1960-ies there were diverse dreams among those who were worried about the environment. They cooperated quite well. In the beginning of the seventies my husband Pieter was a Christian environment activist. We were motivated by the conviction that we are stewards and responsible for how we care for creation.
But after, around, 1970 the vision of environmentalists became more and more coloured by New Age ideas. It became difficult for Christians to cooperate with them. Also Christians were influenced by these voices, not really discerning the philosophy behind it.
In 1970 New Age environmentalists introduced a new day to celebrate: Earth Day. The “Friends of the Earth” prepared the “Environmental Handbook”.
Many of the arguments and goals that were in the Handbook, have, in the years following this first earth day, permeated our societies, the UN, our churches, and schools, and also often our homes. Here I give some quotes from the handbook. Because in my opinion it is of the utmost significance that Christians understand the spiritual background of the dominant environmentalist movement, and of the treaty that will be proposed at the upcoming convention at Copenhagen.
Acknowledgement: For the following quotes I gleaned from the research by C.T. who is Director of Research at Hope for The World. He researched the motives for the first Earth day, by reading the (big) Handbook.
A few quotes from some authors who contributed to the Handbook:
Lynn White, Jr, wrote: “What we do about ecology depends on our ideas of the man-nature relationship. More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecological crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one”. No new set of basic values has been accepted in our society to displace those of Christianity. Hence we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom”.
A certain Keith Murray gave a number of “Suggestions “Toward an Ecological Platform”. “Explore other social structures and marriage forms, such as group marriage and polyandrous marriage, which provide family life but may produce less children...We must hope that no one woman would give birth to more than one child. …It must be demonstrated ceaselessly that a continuing “growing economy” is no longer healthy, but a cancer... Nothing short of total transformation will do much good. What we envision... is cultural and individual pluralism, unified by a type of world tribal council.” And “It seems evident that there are throughout the world certain social and religious forces which have worked through history toward an ecologically and culturally enlightened state of affairs.: Gnostics, Marxists, Teilhard de Chardin Catholics, Druids, Taoists, Witches, Yogins, Quakers, Sufis, Tibetans, Zens, Shamans, Bushmen, American Indians, Polynesians, Anarchists, Alchemists...the list is long. All primitive cultures, all communal and ashram movements. …”
The Environmental Handbook also stated a number of goals that were then, in 1970, quite new for the larger public. It focussed on the US first. Now these goals have become policy in many nations. And the UN is trying to push them on nations who do not agree, through its treaties and conventions. The Handbook said:
“Stabilizing the U.S. population should be declared a national policy. Immediate steps should be taken to:
1. Legalize voluntary abortion and sterilization.
2. Remove all restrictions on the provision of birth control information and devices; provide these services free to all, including minors.
3. Make sex education available at all appropriate levels, stressing birth control practices and the need to stabilize the population.
4. Launch a government-sponsored campaign for population control in the media.
5. Offer annual bonuses for couples remaining childless and eliminate tax deductions for more than two children”.
Control of world population growth is simply a matter of survival of the human race. Give Foreign aid only to countries with major programs to curb population growth. Another author proposed:
- Explore other social structures and marriage forms, such as group marriage and polyandrous marriage, which provide family life but may produce less children...
- No one woman should give birth to more than one child.
- A continuing “growing economy” is no longer healthy, but a cancer.
To achieve the changes we must change the very foundations of our society and our minds...”
C.T. concluded: The call from The Environmental Handbook was clear: change the present religious, political, and social structures-adapting society to a New Age world-view of nature worship, communistic and socialistic political thinking, deviant family planning practices, and complete earth indoctrination within the education system. Earth Day’s agenda of nature worship is diametrically opposite to what God’s word tells us. See, again, Romans 1:21-25.
Earth day is still celebrated in our time. The Friends of the Earth are an influential NGO.

§8. Next: Earth summit, Earth charter
In 1972 the Club of Rome published its report: “The Limits of Growth”. It stirred (and that was the intent) anxiety about the earth’s resources.
In that same year the UN Environment Program (UNEP), was established, in Nairobi, by Maurice Strong. (Though the environment was not in the UN charter, and so not in its mandate!)
In September 1986 the World Wildlife Fund started its Network for the conservation of Nation and Religion. It brought together, in Assisi, religious leaders who represented Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, together with leaders from the environment movement. Each one of the represented religions made a statement related to nature. Later the Bahaí joined as well. In Assisi the interfaith movement received public awareness.
In 1987 a 5 year New Age plan, “Campaign for the Earth”, started. In that year the Brundtland Commission defined the concept of Sustainable Development as: ”Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future”.
In 1992 the UN organized the first World Summit on Sustainable Development, WSSD I, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was named the “Earth Summit”. Secretary-General was Maurice Strong. It was not a co-incidence that the summit came at the end of the “5-year campaign for the earth”. It was very much related to the New Age understandings about the earth. Strong had, preceding the summit, established several NGO’s, on different aspects of the environment. In Rio he allowed many NGO’s as lobbyists. The WSSDI was the first of a series of global conferences that were meant to prepare the world, so it was suggested and understood, for the demands of the new millennium. It was decided that the concept of Sustainable Development was going to be the leading concept for all the following global conferences. And it was the key concept for most (if not all) of the Programs of Action that came out of those conferences.

In Rio several things happened that illustrate that we are confronted with a movement that is inspired by false spiritual powers. Because of which I believe that Christians cannot identify with it.
- At the opening of the Earth Summit the “Great Invocation” was sung. That is the song written by the Tibetan, the guiding spirit of Bailey, and sung now by witches and earth-worshippers.
- Strong’s wife, Hanne Strong, founded a group called “the Wisdom Keepers”. Many UN-officials were involved. Hanne Strong explained that they felt that meditation on wisdom could contribute to the problems on earth in a way that politicians cannot. She said in an interview that the wisdom that they were meditating over, was “A wisdom going back to the beginning of time”!
- The Wisdom Keepers came up with the “Declaration of the Sacred Earth Gathering”. It spoke of the “renewed respect for the superior law of Divine Nature”. It also stated that the universe is sacred because all is one”.
The Bible teaches us that Nature is fallen, it is not divine. Only God is divine. Therefore we understand that this “Wisdom” is not Biblical wisdom, it is Babylonian wisdom.
Before the WSSD the “Earth Council” was formed, consisting of men who shared the idea that earth is sacred and nature divine. Maurice Strong, Gorbatsjev and Steven Rockefeller were members. During the time of the WSSD they were given the assignment to conceive a new charter for human behavior, the Earth Charter, in which sustainable development is key. In June 2000 the “Earth Charter” was published (in the Netherlands). In 2002, a day before the WSSD II started at Johannesburg, the charter was religiously celebrated. It was carried into a special meeting, lying in a wooden chest, with carrying rods. The chest was decorated with images from eastern religions, and blasphemously named “The Arc of Hope”.
The Earth Charter is meant to be “an inspiration and guide for all people, communities and countries for improving their relationships with each other, with other species sharing our fragile planet and with Earth generally”. In the preamble we read: “We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following inter-dependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed… The common concern of humanity transcends the rights of individual States and all strictly human concerns.” (www.earthcharter.org).

The Earth Charter has been promoted as “new charter for human behaviour”, and even described as a “New Ten Commandments”, “a constitution for a New World Order”. That means that the Earth Charter demands the submission of each individual and corporate body to its (idolatrous) requirements in order to serve (mother) Earth. Christians need to realize that this is a return to pantheism.
About in the same time participants in the meeting of the World Council of Churches, 2001, meeting in Germany, threw “mother earth” (soil) into a glass globe. The soil was mixed and used for the planting of a tree. Some opponents saw it as a (wrong) ritual. Others felt it was an offense for the sacred mother earth that the soil/earth was mixed. In my nation, the Netherlands, the Council of Churches endorsed the Earth Charter in November 2005. With deceptive statements encouraged this Council its member-churches to start to use the Earth Charter. It stated that the Charter is not a religious document, but it is, they contend, a “spiritual” document. What a bizarre statement. It is a religious document, a religion that worships nature, earth.
The Council of Churches obviously has no discernment. The tragic is that the churches that followed its advice are submitting to a document that has as its purpose to deify creation. Underneath the UN -environmental policies can we see the attempt to try to preserve “Mother Earth”, against the so-called threat of overpopulation.
In the last decade environmentalists at the UN believed that the “Earth” can not carry more than one billion. However, at a press-conference in Johannisburg, a new group was introduced, LEAD, that believes that Earth cannot hold more than 300 million. We are now over 6 billion; how do they think to accomplish that? War, famines, abortion, sterilization, are needed. And pandemic illnesses. Which hidden motive had the WHO when they decided to change its definition of a pandemic?
I do not believe that the Lord will allow this. But we need to be alert regarding these developments.

§9 The separation between darkness and light
In the beginning of November this year a global inter-faith meeting of religious leaders took place, at Windsor Castle in London. Organised by Prins Philip, the spouse of the british queen, and one of the founders of the WWF. The theme of the meeting was Faith Commitments for a Living Planet. Ban Ki Moon, himself a Buddhist, was co-host. He told for the BBC that it would be very difficult to reach a binding agreement in Copenhagen without the full support and co-operation of the religious leaders. These religious leaders, coming from the main faith-traditions, have to stress the vulnerability of the earth. They also were going to talk about initiatives that need to protect the earth against the ravage of climate change. These religious leaders, believes Ban Ki Moon, are able to convince their billions of followers to deal with the environment in a positive way. (So, be warned) A panel discussion was planned: Many Heavens: One Earth.

I believe, from the proposed text of the treaty for Copenhagen, that there is a hidden agenda to construct a global governing body present in the treaty indeed. Once that is accepted it will be difficult to come out from under it. There is no way out of UN agreements. Agreements become bondages.
When I started to write this article I was reading in my quiet time in Luke 4, where the devil tries to tempt Jesus. We are not informed in this gospel about the temptations during Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. But we are informed about three temptations after these 40 days. The first temptation is that the devil suggests to the hungry Jesus to make bread, from stones. I asked myself: what does Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, want us to understand? What is there in it for me/us to be warned for? I understood that the temptation was, at least included, that Jesus should trust in a solution for his need that he himself could achieve. It is possible that there were more aspects to this temptation. But we, humans, are tempted again and again, to resolve our problems without asking God what He wants to do or to be done. And not to trust Him for the solution, redemption, of the situation. Do we, if a real climate change should come, though the opinions are obviously not in unity, really trust in a treaty that is conceived by people who engage in the idolatrous worship of the forces of nature? A worship “going back to the beginning of time”? A worship that detested the Creator of heaven and earth. Do we put our hope in that treaty?
There has been a time in history that rains indeed flooded the earth, and everything was drowned. When the wickedness of mankind became so very great, that every inclination of the thoughts of men’s heart was only evil all the time.The Lord could not spare the people any longer, Genesis 6:5. The Lord then instructed Noah to built an ARC. In that arc 8 people were saved.
There have been periods of drought, of famine, for Israel. There was a reason for it. In Deuteronomy 28 the Lord warned His people that He was going to withhold the rains, that the heavens over their heads would be as bronze and the earth under their feet as iron. If..they would turn to other gods, and not love the Lord who had chosen them and saved them.
Are peoples in, especially, the western world not in the situation that we have rejected the Gospel of the love of a holy God? I think we should not be amazed if, when, there is flooding, droughts, famine. We should connect these things to the Lord’s warning. If we commit idolatry with the earth, worship “Mother Earth,” we can expect that this turns against us.
There is a prophetic relation between idolatry and the curse it brings on the idol-worshipper. We see it in several areas. One example. The population control that was demanded because mother earth can not cope with too many people ( and this was a much heard argument at a number of UN-meetings) has become a curse. Every European nation will suffer from a decreasing population in many, many ways. The financial crisis is only one aspect.
There is another prophetic connection: when humanity starts to idolize the earth, death through abortion not only kills the fruit in the wombs of mothers who are with child, but death also kills life in “the womb” of that idolized “mother” and the fruits of the earth die. When our governments sign an idolatrous treaty they bring our nations and the inhabitants under a curse.
The interfaith leaders came together, and I guess they wanted to influence the outcome of the upcoming convention through their meditation (as they tried in Rio and Istanbul). Let then the believers in the one true God please not be indifferent. Let us place our hope in Him, and worship Him.

§10. Need for intercession
I trust that I have provided the watchmen with enough information to seek the Lord and intercede in an informed way.
Points for thanksgiving and intercession may be:
- Thank Jesus Christ who gave his life for the sins of the world. Also for the sins of idolatry. When we confess our sins we have an arc of rescue, the only real Arc of Hope, in His saving work at the cross. There, the work of restoring all things has started. Also for a creation that is still subjected to futility, and that is groaning. But that will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

- Confess in identification with/for our nations and peoples that
- we did not honour the Creator of heaven and earth, who alone is divine.
- we worshipped creation and nature, which are not sacred or divine.
- Pray that the hidden motives and strategies behind the treaty will be revealed.
- The treaty could be very harmful for developing nations. May the Lord have mercy on them.
- Repent that we (yes, also) have been lax as the guardians of creation.
- May the Church discern, repent and be cleansed from the influence of New Age thinking.
- Pray that delegates have revelation and insight that this is not the treaty that they want to commit themselves to. And that in that way the treaty will be rejected.
- We may pray that a righteous treaty on climate can be formulated, which will be cleansed from idolatry and all the hidden agenda’s.
- Let us confess to the Lord that we as his children want to worship Him alone. And let us reject in the spirit the binding of a treaty that we know is grieving the one and Holy God, the Creator of the universe.
- We may rely on His wisdom from before the beginning of time on how the creation needs to be treated, and on how He will rescue it.

[^ top]